Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
When a theory was thoroughly clarified in a report to the point that it warranted applause, a Q&A session wouldn’t be necessary.
Of course, there were still many people that asked questions during the Q&A session.
Lu Zhou answered all of the questions in detail.
This was undoubtedly more exciting than the MRS Conference which didn’t have a single question.
This meant that the audience was actually paying attention.
After the report, several doctoral holders from Humboldt University went on stage and asked for Lu Zhou’s signature. They said it was to commemorate this chemistry historic moment.
Although Lu Zhou didn’t think that history would remember such trivial matters, he still fulfilled their request and scribbled his signature on their textbooks.
At backstage, Professor Ertl walked toward Lu Zhou, and he spoke in a serious tone, “Whether the Nobel Prize committee agrees with your theory or not, I will recommend you to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.”
Lu Zhou smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Professor Ertl smiled at Lu Zhou and said, “We’re the ones that should be saying thank you. Thank you for bringing this report to Berlin. We haven’t seen such an amazing report in a while. Although I can’t guarantee that you will win the Nobel Prize, I think that you are worthy of nomination.”
According to the Nobel Prize selection rules, former Nobel Prize winners were allowed to recommend candidates.
However, this was nothing to get excited about. Every year there were thousands of recommended candidates, but after two rounds of screening, there would only be one Nobel Prize winner.
Usually, the referee names couldn’t be disclosed, and the nomination information was confidential for 50 years.
But the rule wasn’t enforced in the initial recommendation stage.
Nobel Prize winner would often joke that they “recommended you to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences”. This would cause stress on the potential nominee until the results were revealed in October.
Of course, this didn’t apply to the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature.
Even gambling companies could guess the list of nominees in advance and announce the list.
Lu Zhou joked, “You shouldn’t tell me, you’ll ruin the surprise.”
Ertl laughed and said, “Only a nomination, don’t get too excited. It’ll be lucky if you can win the prize by my age.”
Lu Zhou made a helpless expression.
“That’s… a bit sad.”
It wasn’t realistic to win a Nobel Prize by creating a theoretical model.
But Lu Zhou still felt like he wouldn’t take that long…
…
Lu Zhou wasn’t worried about the Nobel Prize, nor was he anxious about Professor Ertl’s recommendation.
He felt like the medal was an endorsement of his research, but it didn’t give him motivation.
He was still young.
He just had to do his own research. He’ll get what he deserved sooner or later.
Regardless of how Lu Zhou thought about the medal, the entire theoretical chemistry community exploded after the report.
The response was way more intense than Lu Zhou’s first JACS thesis.
Like the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics, there were similar questions in chemistry.
However, these questions were longer than one equation. Universities were still debating about which question was more important.
However, even though there was a debate, the theoretical chemistry community had reached a general consensus.
For example, there were four major chemistry problems in the 21st century. One of them was how to establish a time-dependent quantum many-body theory.
Simplified, the problem was concerned with the calculation of the rate of chemical reactions, the route of chemical reaction, and how much catalysts were needed.
Also, how to answer similar questions using a theory.
The theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure was one of the problems.
What this theoretical model was to the four major chemistry problems was like what the Hardy-Littlewood theorem was to Riemann’s conjecture.
The Hardy-Littlewood theorem determined that the number of non-trivial zeros in a certain interval of the Riemann function was less than KT. On the other hand, the theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure determined the “microchemistry of a certain type of reaction”.
After Lu Zhou’s report, the Max Plank Institute announced their support for the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure.
What was interesting was that after the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Plank Society stated their opinion, Professor Martin Karplus, who previously stated his optimistic opinion about the theory on Nature, immediately published a JACS thesis.
In Karplus’ thesis, he cited Lu Zhou’s JACS thesis and gave a clear explanation of the zero-charge potential of polycrystalline metal electrodes from a theoretical point of view.
This was a classic electrochemistry problem.
Although the existence of “zero-charge potential of polycrystalline metal electrodes” was unquestionable, there had been no conclusion on the exact formation mechanism under microscopic conditions.
However, solving this problem with the “Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure” wasn’t difficult.
Obviously, this Nobel Prize winner already knew the potential behind this theoretical model two months ago. That was why this thesis was published in such a timely manner.
It seemed that he won.
It wasn’t only Martin Karplus who was interested in this new theory.
More and more theoretical chemistry researchers showed great interest in this theory.
Compared with the inferior “Kohn-Sham method” or the “density functional theory”, the Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure was almost made for electrochemistry materials. It provided a strong foundation for the study of polymer materials as well.
Especially for PhDs in computational materials science and computational chemistry, this theory was a god’s gift.
At least it gave their bosses another reason for them to stay in the research team.
While the world was debating if Lu Zhou could become the youngest Nobel Prize winner due to this theory, the German Chemical Society made a quiet decision.
In recognition of this theoretical chemistry’s contribution to the chemistry society, the German Chemical Society decided to award the founder a remarkable medal…
