Chapter 654 Aging Is a Sad Topic

The report meeting ended in failure.

Although the physics community usually gives enough tolerance to this kind of world-class difficult problem, as long as he can make reasonable repairs to the problems in this paper, no one will immediately sentence his paper to death, but for him personally In other words, this is still a heavy blow.

After all, in general, if it is not a paper that has been released for a long time or is obviously full of loopholes, it is difficult for even the most outstanding scholars to point out the mistakes in the demonstration process at the report meeting, especially for most people who are not mainly engaged in this field. The same is true for research scholars.

For example, the revision of the paper, the long debate and communication with the jury, those troublesome things are usually carried out in the review process of journal submission.

But now, it was only the report meeting, and it ended in such a disastrous failure.

While frustrating him, he couldn't help feeling humiliated...

"Damn it!"

Throwing the manuscript paper on the ground, Professor Brian clenched his fists tightly, and finally, because he was worried that he would hurt himself, he still didn't hit the table.

Looking at the furious Professor Brian, the office was silent, and no one dared to make a sound.

While the old gentleman usually looks like a well-mannered old gentleman, that doesn't mean he looks like that all the time. If you get along with him for a long time, you will know that his heart is not as broad as it seems.

Especially when he was angry, if someone provoked him, as long as this person was still in Oxford University, he would not have a good life.

His chest was heaving, and after a while, Professor Brian finally calmed down a bit.

The assistant standing next to him observed his expression, and saw that the timing seemed to be almost there, so he hesitated for a while, and comforted him.

"This is not a fatal mistake. Although we cannot explain this problem, at least we have calculated the mass m of the particle using the scalar field on the space-time manifold, and the computer simulation results are basically consistent... Maybe our demonstration process There are loopholes, but at least no one can prove us wrong."

Hearing this sentence, Professor Brian's expression softened a little, but it was still not very friendly.

"It doesn't make sense...the results of computer simulations are not convincing all the time, especially on this kind of problem," Professor Brian pressed his index finger and thumb on the center of his eyebrows, thinking for a long time with a face full of headaches, and finally said Said, "But you're right, at least no one can prove us wrong, it's just that it's not perfect."

His brows gradually relaxed, Professor Brian took a deep breath, raised his head and regained his energy, cleared his throat and said.

"Okay, guys, get ready to work...the professor from Asia is right, this loophole is critical. If there is no way to prove that the lattice step size tends to the zero-time limit, it will have a fatal flaw in our proof , it might be a good thing to discover this loophole earlier.”

After hearing Professor Brian's words, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the office got busy again.

Before starting work, Professor Brian got up and walked to the coffee machine next to the cupboard and made himself a cup of coffee.

Back at his desk and sitting down, he intends to set a revised status on the paper hanging on Arxiv before starting to tackle the problem.

However, when he landed on the Arxiv website, he found that the tag he was tracking had a new paper posted, and it was the mass gap of the Yang-Mills equation, which he claimed to have proved.

Slightly stunned for a moment, Professor Brian wondered who had such a strong head, so he clicked on the paper.

However, the mouse didn't matter at all. He was shocked when he saw the title and author of the paper.

Lu. Zhou? !

WTF? !

Before he had time to hesitate, he quickly glanced at the abstract of the thesis, and immediately jumped to the text.

However, the more he looked down, the more his eyelids couldn't help jumping wildly.

Especially when he saw the middle part, when he saw the key formula "m=√(2+O(λ^3))", the beating frightened his eyes, and instantly turned into angry flames.

Prove that the idea is the same as his?

The preprint posted by Lu Zhou also quoted Jaffe's paper published in "Academic Annals" and the asymptotic expansion method of mass m about λ!

At most, there is only a "slight" deviation in the thinking of solving the problem... At least it seems to him to be quite small.

For example, he used a scalar field on the space-time manifold, which is a continuation of the method used by Weinberg when he established the unified theory of weak electricity. However, Lu Zhou used to establish a quantum field corresponding to the classical action in the aforementioned problem. field—that is, the quantum Yang-Mills field.

There was a roar like thunder in the office, and Professor Brian stood up from his chair angrily.

"This can't be a coincidence!"

He got it all.

Why didn't Lu Zhou show up at the scene.

Why appeared on the scene is an "unknown person" from Jinling University.

Why is this "unknown person" able to poke at the weakness in his thesis with one sentence.

It turned out that everything was laid out, and everything was just to ruin his report meeting, and then while he was revising the thesis, he improved his proof thinking, and finally won it ahead of him. this achievement.

This kind of situation is not uncommon in academia, at least not in the physics world. When an idea is released, it is not well used, and it is quickly taken by the peers and processed into their own things to achieve the "first " or "separately and simultaneously" reputation.

However, he never thought that a well-known scholar like Lu Zhou would do such a thing!

"professor--"

He stared blankly at the professor who stood up, and the assistant sitting at the desk next to him had just said half a sentence, but swallowed it back abruptly.

I saw that distorted face was already filled with anger.

When a person's eyes have been blinded by the flames of hatred, it is useless to say anything at this time.

Staring at the paper on the screen with blood-stained eyes, Professor Brian gritted his teeth and said, "Help me contact the BBC reporter, I must let everyone know that this unscrupulous guy has done something behind the scenes. What a shameless act!"

...

The campus of Oxford University.

With scholars from all over the world leaving, the academic atmosphere on campus has returned to its former tranquility.

On the tarmac in front of a nearby café, two PhDs in theoretical physics, with books under their elbows, walked side by side. Judging from the content of the conversation between the two, they probably just came out of the library and were about to return to the dormitory.

The topic quickly shifted from quantum chromodynamics to the state of the art in gauge field theory.

"Have you heard? The mass gap problem of the strong interaction is solved!"

"You mean Professor Brian Carroll's proof? Isn't that proven to be wrong?"

"It's not him, I'm talking about Professor Lu's thesis."

"Lu? That Lu from Jinling University?"

"Don't you know? He posted the preprint on Arxiv last night, and my professor tweeted 'Unbelievable' at three o'clock in the morning, and I went to like it when I got up in the morning."

"On Arxiv?! Thanks, I suddenly remembered that I left something in the library, I'll go first!"

"..."

Under the big umbrella outside the cafe.

Witten, wearing sunglasses, smiled as he watched the young people hurrying past by the side of the road.

"It seems that Professor Lu got there first."

In the past two days, he did not rush back to CERN, but exchanged the new idea of ​​"solving the mass gap problem from the perspective of string theory" with Dean Goddard. Some are unnecessary.

After all, Professor Lu, who has always been known for his rigor, released the preprint.

Trying to find fault with his papers, especially in the field of mathematics, is even more difficult than writing one yourself.

Sitting opposite Witten, Goddard took a sip of coffee and said as if he had expected it.

"As expected."

"There will be a meeting at CERN the day after tomorrow." Witten glanced at his watch and looked up at Dean Goddard. "So, since the problem of quality clearance has been resolved, do we still need to continue the discussion?"

Goddard: "Although the problem of the mass gap has been solved, the problem related to the strong interaction and electromagnetic interaction has not been solved. Are you not interested in the Nobel Prize?"

He is well aware of Witten's weakness. He has clearly opened up the era of string theory, but failed to win the Nobel Prize. This matter has always made him worry.

At present, it is impossible to win the Nobel Prize through M-theory. After all, this theory has no hope of being verified for at least a century. However, string theory is not the only thing worth pursuing in the theoretical physics community, and there is not only one path to a grand unified theory.

However……

"Don't waste your efforts," Witten smiled and stood up from his seat. "If he is right, then no one in this world is closer to the truth than him. If you want to walk in front of him, you must He has talent far superior to his, as well as sweat. If I were twenty years younger...or thirty years old, I would be interested in competing with him, but now..."

After a pause, Witten looked at Goddard and shrugged, then continued.

"Don't say it's me, do you have the confidence?"

Goddard didn't speak, just stretched out his index finger, touched the coffee cup lightly, and took a sip in silence.

Aging is a sad subject.

Especially for them who regard academics as life.

Although I don't mind adding a few more rifts on my face, the slowness of thinking and the decline in energy are irreversible. Neither he nor his old friend Witten are anymore academic problems. Discuss the age of several days and nights.

Their time has passed...