Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
This year’s Chinese New Year was no different than before.
Dinner with relatives, fighting with cousins, and…
Being urged by the elders to find a partner.
There was nothing else to talk about as Lu Zhou’s studies were spectacular. The elders had to find something to grill him on. As for marriage, it was a bit early since 22 was the legal marriage age.
However, they could grill him on getting a partner.
After all, he could not get married without preparation.
In short, this year was like in previous years and Lu Zhou had a lively Chinese New Year.
However, happy times were always short-lived.
After Chinese New Year, Lu Zhou packed his bags and was ready to leave.
Lu Bangguo took a day off from work and sent Lu Zhou to the train station. He smiled at Lu Zhou and asked, “Do you want me to send you?”
“No need, this isn’t my first time traveling,” said Lu Zhou. With his backpack on him, he said, “Take care of yourself, I’ll visit you guys next year.”
Lu nodded and said, “Okay then, take it easy. Also, be careful. I’ve been watching the news lately and there’s been a fight over there. Anyway, just don’t provoke others. Study hard. Also, remember to call…”
“Okay!”
In his father’s eyes, there was only China and the rest of the world. There was no difference between North America and North Africa.
Lu Zhou was well aware of his father’s lack of geography knowledge.
However, Xiao Tong would still complain about it.
Lu Zhou sat on the train moving toward the east. He returned to University of Jin Ling campus.
Since Chinese New Year had already ended, many students had returned to school.
The day before leaving, Lu Zhou post it on his WeChat news feed. Professor Lu Shenjian was already back in China, so Lu Zhou went to visit him.
…
Lu Zhou stood in front of the office door and knocked.
Soon, a voice came from behind the door.
“Stop knocking, come in.”
Lu Zhou pushed the door and walked in.
When Professor Lu saw Lu Zhou, he put down his vacuum flask. With a smile, he asked, “Hey, it’s been a while since I last saw you. How are you?”
It had been a while. Lu Zhou had not seen Professor Lu since October at the Chinese Mathematics Society conference.
Lu Zhou smiled and replied, “Not bad, how about you?”
Professor Lu, “I’m alright. Although I couldn’t celebrate Chinese New Year, Brussels was quite rewarding.”
Lu Zhou walked to the desk and asked, “Is there any new discoveries in theoretical physics?”
He had been focusing on Goldbach’s conjecture and driving recently. Apart from replying to Professor Frank’s emails, he had not been paying attention to the theoretical physics community.
“There hasn’t been any new discoveries. This meeting was mainly to sort out that work that has been done before,” said Professor Lu. He paused for a moment before continuing, “However, there’s one thing that might interest you. In the meeting at the University of Brussels, we talked about the 750 GeV problem… The situation doesn’t seem good though.”
Intrigued, Lu Zhou immediately asked, “Can you tell me the specific situation?”
Professor Lu nodded and said, “It’s not much, but the main thing is that the confidence value hasn’t reached the standard confirmation yet. It’s close to 3-sigma, but it’s slightly off. Also, in recent experiments, the characteristic peak even disappeared.”
Lu Zhou was stunned, “Disappeared?”
He had not heard Frank talked about this in the emails.
Professor Lu nodded and continued, “Yeah… Although it’s possible to explain this with quantum fluctuations, the probability is low. Some people guessed that there was a problem in the detector sensors… But honestly, that probability is low as well. CERN recently completed the upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider, so there should be nothing wrong with the equipment.”
Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he asked in an uncertain tone, “Is it a dimension problem?”
This guess was something that he and Professor Frank disagreed on.
When Professor Lu heard this proposition, he said, “Dimension?”
Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Yeah, but not a dimension in a broad sense, but in a sense of ‘pseudo-Euclidean space’. That is, Minkowski’s space-time theory…”
While speaking, Lu Zhou wrote down a few equations on a piece of draft paper. He did not dare to write too much.
It was not because of privacy reasons. From the perspective of academic ethics, he could not disclose research to a third party.
The stuff he wrote down were all unconfirmed theories such as the theories that Lu Zhou and Frank disagreed on.
Professor Lu looked at the lines of equations on the page. He thought for a long time then said, “There’s this possibility, but it’s difficult to prove. Because the collider is part of the reference system, it’s hard to take ourselves out of the timeline… You haven’t perfected this theory, right?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “I only thought of this on the spot, so it hasn’t been perfected.”
“Thinking of this on the spot is impressive,” said Professor Lu as he looked at Lu Zhou and nodded. He then said, “You don’t need to pressure yourself so much. Finding the characteristic peak is CERN’s responsibility. Theoretical physics is developed through constant trial and error. All of our theories are just speculations… ”
“… But, your point of view is interesting. If only you could shave off the rough edges,” said Professor Lu as he smiled. He then said, “I originally wanted to test you, to see what you learn this year. It seems that isn’t necessary now.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “What do you mean isn’t necessary…”
Professor Lu smiled and said, “Oh? How about I give you a test then?”
Lu Zhou coughed and replied, “Never mind.”
He had already bought his ticket and god knows when this test would be.
Professor Lu smiled and did not say anything else.
He opened his drawer and pulled out two certificates before handing them to Lu Zhou.
“The degree certificate and graduation certificate is here. Just go to the administrative building later and finish the procedures.”
Lu Zhou took the two certificates from Professor Lu and said, “Thank you, professor!”
“You’re welcome. You earned this through your own hard work. Honestly speaking, I really don’t want to let such an excellent student go so soon,” said Professor Lu. He smiled and said, “But since you won the Cole Prize, it would be a waste of time for you to stay here. You should go to a higher platform to do scientific research. Congratulations on your graduation!”