Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
After lunch, Lu Zhou went back to the library and sat down.
He recalled what Professor Tang said and calmly looked at the data and draft paper. He began to enter into his deep thinking mode.
Mathematical modeling…
He lightly tapped his pen as his eyes scanned the printed pages.
The data that Brother Qian provided was comprehensive, but it was also messy.
Useless data was not useful to researchers. Instead, it would become a hindrance to the truth.
“The problem is that the CNTs material has an effect on the hydration reaction in the early age when it is incorporated into the cement. So only the data from the No. 2 sample is useful.”
“The FTIR images of samples No. 2, No. 4 and No. 27 indicate that this effect is not related to the surface functional modification of the CNTs materials. The experimental data from samples No. 24 to No. 28 can be deleted…”
Lu Zhou crunched up several A4 papers and threw it into the trash can. He then wrote down two lines of formula on the paper.
[Di={k2CMe/(2dμ)}·(2Pw/ρw)]
[Vi=(2Pw/ρw)^n]
Lu Zhou looked at these two lines of formula and had a smirk on his face.
This is a good start…
If he was asked to dive into the impact of carbon nanotubes on the matrix material, he could not do it. However, he was asked to mine data from FTIR images and using mathematical tools to find patterns. That, he could do.
Time slowly passed by and the sky outside the window gradually became darker.
Lu Zhou spent the whole afternoon completing the preliminary collation of the data and built a simple mathematical model.
This mathematical model contained the parameters of the CNTs materials on the cement hydration reaction rate, reaction temperature, sample mechanical properties, FTIR characteristic peak region, etc. It also contained the relationship and correlation between parameters.
Lu Zhou directly used the thesis he once published in the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics journal. In the thesis, he wrote about several generalized theories about the Fourier inversion transformations. Unexpectedly, by using the thesis, the amount of computation could be reduced.
Once the mathematical model was built, the difficulty of the problem was greatly reduced.
Lu Zhou leaned against his chair and stretched.
When he glanced at the Matlab interface on his screen, he suddenly had a moment of realization.
Next, he would code this model into a program!
Once he was done, he could use the power of the computer to dig the “invisible” data.
…
It seemed that Lu Zhou went back to the same state as when he wrote the thesis on Zhou’s conjecture. For three days, all Lu Zhou would do was to go to his dorm, the library, and the cafeteria.
However, even working like this, by the evening of the third day, Lu Zhou only managed to complete the establishment of the second set of models. He used an iterative algorithm to find how the CNTs materials influenced the temperature of the reaction when they were hydrated into the cement at various stages.
He still had three known parameters that needed to be calculated.
Lu Zhou had only completed 60%-70% of this project.
However, the rest of the work was easy as he only had to do calculations.
When it was half past five in the evening, Lu Zhou tossed his pen on the table and went to the cafeteria.
While he was walking, he called Brother Qian.
As soon as he picked up, an eager voice came from the other end.
“How is the progress?”
Lu Zhou resisted his urge to yawn. As he rubbed his nose, he said, “Give me two more days, I can definitely do it in two days.”
The semi-scientific mathematical modeling competition was still incomparable with this kind of scientific research project. The most important thing was that Lu Zhou had no teammates. He had to do everything, from mathematical modeling to programming to thesis writing.
When he was in the mathematical modeling competition, he still had a genius programmer that helped him with SAS and graph making. He also had a teammate that brought him food.
Lu Zhou could not help but reminisce.
I guess she was still pretty useful…
“… Can you do it or not?,” asked Brother Qian. His tone was full of doubts.
It was not that he doubted Lu Zhou’s mathematics abilities. After all, Lu Zhou proved Zhou’s conjecture.
However, mathematical strength could not be directly applied to scientific research. Many people had engaged in pure-number research for their entire lives and their mathematical skills were cutting-edge. However, no matter what, their achievements were only in the field of pure mathematics.
Although this was normal, not everyone could apply their specialization.
Despite that, Brother Qian did not want to see Lu Zhou drop the ball.
Lu Zhou answered, “Oh, you’ll know in two days.”
“…”
Lu Zhou sounded confident.
Although Brother Qian was still suspicious, he did not say anything.
Since he had already waited for three days, why not wait two more days?
The only thing that made him and Professor Li Rongen felt uncomfortable was the silence of the University of Zhi. The two universities had a lot of overlap in their research on “carbon nanotube modified composite material” with the base material in the project of University of Zhi being cement. It was like the University of Zhi was hiding something big.
It made Brother Qian and Professor Li Rongen panic.
Especially since their projects were at a bottleneck…
Once Lu Zhou hung up the call, he walked into the cafeteria. Just as he stuffed his phone into his pocket, his phone rang again.
He took out his phone and noticed that it was Fat Wu who called him.
Lu Zhou took out his food card and pressed it on the card reader for his barbecue meat. Only then did he picked up the call.
“Hello?”
Fat Wu, “What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Lu Zhou said, “I’m doing a research project for the physics department. It’s related to carbon nanotube materials.”
Fat Wu, “Too good, too good. Research on nanotube materials? Amazing!”
Lu Zhou asked, “You’re familiar with it?”
Fat Wu smiled and said, “There was a laboratory relocation last year, right? Some workers and I were the ones that installed the routers.”
Lu Zhou: “…”
Fat guy Wu coughed and continued, “Anyway, tomorrow afternoon, I want to bring the club workers together and have a meeting, to discuss the advertising plan for the new version. Do you have the time to join us?”
“No, I can’t. I’m too busy these days,” said Lu Zhou while he was stuffing his card back into his pocket. He took his barbecue meal and said, “How about… You just do this meeting by yourself?”
Fat Wu said, “Boss, you can’t just ditch me like this?”
Lu Zhou did not feel good about this either, but he really did not have any spare time. He said, “Well, I’m giving you a stage to perform, plus I probably can’t give any useful suggestions anyway. Do your best! I can see you becoming CEO!”
Fat Wu: “…”
He knew that he was CEO material.
However, Lu Zhou’s words…
Why do I feel like I’ve heard those words before?
…
Time passed by quickly, and within a blink of an eye, two days had passed.
Lu Zhou looked at the stack of draft papers that were piled up in the corner of the table.
It was already one o’clock in the morning.
After the library was closed, he carried his laptop bag and found a classroom to work. He finally completed the final steps.
He had sacrificed so much for this research project.
Lu Zhou entered the sets of data into the computer and finished the final calculations.
After that, he put the data into the formula…
Suddenly, Lu Zhou stared at the draft paper and was frozen.
He was staring at the number on the draft paper and the number on the computer screen when a strange expression appeared on his face.
α=0?
This is impossible!
No, wait…
I’ll think about it from another perspective.
If his calculation was correct, the resulting α parameter was indeed equal to zero.
This means that…
When the CNTs were incorporated into the cement, there was no impact on the reaction of the hydration!
What the hell…
