Chapter 450: I Heard Someone Wrote You Into The Thesis
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Won the Fields Medal.
Won the Nobel Prize.
Lu Zhou felt like his time at Princeton was worthwhile.
Honestly, if he ever decided to return to China, he would miss this place quite a bit.
Whether it was the house he spent quite a lot of effort decorating, the fireplace in his living room, his office at the Institute for Advanced Study, or Lake Carnegie.
Or the scientific research environment and the scholars…
He’d come and visit again when he had the chance.
Okay, it’s settled, I’m not selling the house.
In the morning, Lu Zhou went into the office. When he opened the door, he was rained by confetti.
“Congratulations, Professor Lu! Youngest Nobel Prize winner in history,” Hardy said with a party hat on his hand. He used the empty confetti cannon as a microphone and said, “May I ask, what are your thoughts right now?”
At first, Lu Zhou was bewildered by his students’ actions. When he finally realized what was happening, he smiled.
“My thoughts are… Someone might have to sweep this office.”
“Oh, don’t be so realistic, my dear Professor Lu.” Hardy made a helpless gesture and said, “I’ll sweep it later, shouldn’t we be celebrating right now? My suggestion is to host a party! I can do the barbecue.”
Lu Zhou: “… I’ll think about it.”
Vera stood next to them, and she was blushing as she looked at Lu Zhou with an excited expression.
“Congratulations, Professor Lu.”
Lu Zhou smiled at Vera and nodded. He then replied, “Thank you.”
For him, a normal celebration was enough. He didn’t need his students to do anything extra.
Qin Yue also congratulated him. He then asked, “Professor, when is the Nobel Prize award ceremony?”
Lu Zhou: “December 10th, still two months away.”
Hardy immediately asked, “Professor, can you bring us to the award ceremony?”
Everyone in the entire office began to pay attention after Hardy asked this question.
Even Wei Wen, who had buried his head in research documents, began to pay attention.
There weren’t many opportunities to participate in the Nobel Prize dinner, especially for mathematicians.
If one wasn’t engaged in economics research, there was basically no chance at all…
Of course, their supervisor was an exception.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “No problem. If you want, then come with me. But I do have a condition.”
Jerick raised his hand and asked, “What condition?”
Lu Zhou said in a relaxed tone, “Anyone that wants to go must complete their graduation thesis by the end of the month. You guys have been studying for quite a long time under me, and it’s time to think about graduating.”
“Graduation thesis?” Hardy was confused, and he said, “But Professor Lu, we only received our master’s this year…”
“Then try to get your PhD by next year.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It’s definitely doable since the condition is very easy. I don’t need you to work under me for a long time. Just finish a thesis that I can be satisfied with.”
Hardy: “…”
Qin Yue: “…”
Jerick: “…”
How is this easy?!
…
Even at a place like Princeton, winning this Nobel Prize was a very glorious thing.
Historically, Princeton had produced 25 Nobel Prize winners and most of them were in the field of physics. No matter the field, the winners of the Nobel Prize would enter the Princeton hall of fame for future scholars to admire.
However, Lu Zhou’s photo was already in the hall of fame, next to the 12 Princeton Fields Medal laureates. Obviously, they couldn’t hang two photos of him.
In order to celebrate all this, the Institute for Advanced Study hosted a party for him.
Originally, Lu Zhou planned on hosting this celebration party at his house. He didn’t expect the Institute for Advanced Study to take care of this for him. It was arranged to be held in Report Hall Number 1.
It turned out that this report hall, which was attached to a cafe and cafeteria, was excellent for conducting serious mathematics reports and for celebrating special celebrations.
At the party, Professor Fefferman held a glass of champagne and smiled while he cheered Lu Zhou.
“Congratulations, I didn’t expect you to become the first scholar to win both the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prize, as well as being the youngest record holder for both of them… I think the Guinness Book of Records can open a new sub-category just for you.”
Lu Zhou took a sip of the champagne and smiled as he said, “That’s ridiculous, Guinness wouldn’t create a new sub-category for just two records.”
Professor Fefferman said in a half-joking manner, “This isn’t ‘just two records’. Not to mention, you’re only 25 years old. I’m sure many PhD students in history will be interested in writing about you as their thesis topic.”
According to the statistics from major journals, Lu Zhou’s theses had an extremely high rate of being referenced. However, this was the first time Lu Zhou heard about someone writing a thesis about him.
Can they really graduate with a thesis like that?
Lu Zhou had his doubts.
Professor Fefferman wasn’t the only one congratulating Lu Zhou. Even his mentor, Professor Deligne, was also here.
The old man gave him a toast as he congratulated him. He then paused for a second before he continued to speak, “I think mathematics should be pure, but I’m sure you have your own opinions about mathematics. Regardless, I have to congratulate you. You’ve accomplished a historic record at the tender age of 25.”
Lu Zhou replied sincerely, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. The stuff I taught you didn’t even come in handy,” Professor Deligne, who was always very serious, joked. “We always thought Edward Witten would become the first person to win both the Fields Medal and Nobel Prize. We definitely didn’t expect you to beat him.”
Professor Witten overheard his old friend’s words, and he said with a smile, “That’s impossible. Unless I can live for another hundred years, otherwise, it is impossible to prove the M-theory with an experiment.”
It was extremely difficult to find a trace of superstring theory in a laboratory, much less finding a proof. Proving the M-theory in the 11-dimensional superstring theory space was unthinkable.
Right now, the physics world was still testing and exploring the boundaries of the standard model. They were still far, far away from entering the one-dimensional universe.
However, some problems were not meant to be solved in this century.
As long as physics continued to develop, one day there would be someone that would prove his theory.
Just like how a century later, people were still carefully testing Einstein’s theory of relativity, which was how they discovered the existence of gravitational waves. Whether it would be proven or disproven, only the people in the future would know the answers to the unsolved questions left by their predecessors…
