Professor Felix had been high-spirited recently.
Because not long ago, he was nominated for the American Physical Society award for the research on the origin of neutrino mass. It was also because of the invitation from ILHCRC’s “Century of Physics” conference some time ago.
That invitation letter was just an invitation.
Six physicists recommended his name to the ILHCRC, hoping that he would summarize the most prominent or most important problems on the proposition of the origin of neutrino mass.
In some sense, this invitation letter was even more valuable than the awards issued by the general physics association.
Because this meant that the area he researched had been recognized by his colleagues.
It meant that his influence in this field of research had been recognized by the mainstream academic community!
Even in a place like MIT, this was something worth bragging about.
Even though asking questions wasn’t as good as answering them, he felt excited when he thought that the questions he raised would be regarded as classics by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people over the next century.
This was even more exciting than winning a medal from the American Physical Society!
One day at noon.
Professor Felix had just finished a class. He returned to the office. Just as he was about to call his assistant to pour him a cup of coffee, the phone on the corner of the desk rang.
He picked up the phone, cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Hello??”
“Hello, this is the office of the ILHCRC conference organization department.”
Hearing that it was a call from the ILHCRC, Felix was immediately happy. Instead of revealing the joy in his heart, he leaned back on his office chair and spoke casually.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
In Professor Felix’s opinion, the problem he recommended would definitely be chosen at the Century of Physics conference.
The mass origin of neutrinos was one of the frontier research hotspots in physics. The research ideas summarized in the paper he handed in and the problems faced in the current research were all critical research bottlenecks.
He could not think of any reason for the ILHCRC to not list his problem in one of the 100 problems.
However, just when he was so confident, the voice on the other end of the phone made his confidence drop from the clouds instantly.
“I’m very sorry, Professor Felix… We regret to inform you that your paper failed to pass the preliminary selection.”
It was like Felix had been turned into a statue, his whole body froze.
It took a long time for Professor Felix to recover from the confusion. He roared into the telephone receiver in a tone of disbelief and anger.
“Failed… The preliminary selection? Wait! What do you mean by failing the preliminary selection? Did you make a mistake?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Felix, this was the conclusion of the judges…”
The staff on the other end of the phone spoke as politely as possible, trying to calm Felix’s emotions. He said, “According to the voting results after the preliminary selection meeting, what you raised about the proposition heavy Fermi-field triplet into the standard model does not meet our standards at the Century of Physics conference. We’re sorry—”
“I’m not here to listen to you apologize!” Professor Felix interrupted the staff member; he had almost lost his mind. He spoke furiously, “This is ridiculous! Anyone that has anything to do with physics knows the importance of neutrino mass in the particle physics research!”
The staff on the other end of the phone spoke.
“Perhaps because the proposition you put forward…”
“Impossible! Do you know the area of my research?” His beard trembled, Felix continued aggressively, “I have been researching this direction for twenty years! No one knows about this area better than me, I know the most important problem in this area! Even Professor Lu doesn’t know!”
The staff member did not know what to say.
He was just an intern. Even though his major was indeed particle physics, no one regarded him as a serious physicist. Thus he did not express any opinions of his own.
But in his opinion…
None of these two thousand physics problems were substandard.
If they wanted to find the 100 most representative problems, then 1900 problems had to be eliminated…
This was no different than ILHCRC rejecting most intern applications.
“This… I’m very sorry, I don’t know whether Academician Lu himself is optimistic about your research, but the result is the opinions of the vast majority of scholars in the review team. I hope you can understand—”
“F*ck!”
Professor Felix angrily hung up the phone; his chest was pumping violently.
He had worked in physics for a long time, but he had never felt this wronged.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He stood up from his office chair.
The assistant who was standing by the desk with a cup of coffee in his hand asked nervously in a quiet voice, “Professor?”
“Buy me a ticket to Shanghai right away! The earliest flight! The sooner the better!”
Professor Felix ignored the worried look on his assistant’s face. He reached out his hand and grabbed the coat from the clothes hanger, then put it on his shoulders. He cursed as he walked towards the door.
“Not up to the standard? I’ll have to see what is considered to be standard!”
The assistant stood there with his mouth open.
Although he didn’t know what happened…
But looking at the angry look on the professor’s face, it had to be related to the ILHCRC…
Professor Felix, who left the office, drove back to his apartment and packed his luggage immediately.
Without wasting another minute, after he received his assistant’s message that the ticket was booked successfully, he immediately went downstairs and returned to his car. He then drove to the airport as fast as possible, went through the security check, and got on a flight to Shanghai.
Even though the purchase of the first-class ticket made him feel a little distressed, when he thought of the “unfair treatment” he received from the ILHCRC, his distress was immediately diluted by the anger.
He needed an explanation!
If the ILHCRC review team couldn’t explain to him, he would go talk to Lu Zhou face-to-face and ask him why his problem was eliminated!
He would not give up until the ILHCRC or the chairman of the ILHCRC gave him a reasonable explanation!
