Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Eight o’clock in the morning…
Lu Zhou spent the whole night arranging his work into a thesis. He then walked to the laboratory and handed his five days worth of work to Brother Qian.
Then…
“This is impossible!” said Brother Qian as he slapped the thesis on the table. He replied vehemently, “The strengthening mechanism of CNTs material for cement material is to provide a nucleation matrix for the hydration products and reduce the barrier. The hydration product is easy to form!”
“You researched for all this time and now you’re telling me it has no effect? How could it have no effect on the early-stage hydration reaction! Have you seen the documents I gave you!”
“You must’ve done a calculation error. This doesn’t make sense!”
“It’s mathematics,” said Lu Zhou. He was unhappy to hear that his results were ruthlessly negated. He supported his argument with reasons, “I don’t know if you noticed the FTIR of the 4th sample. In the chart, at 8h to 12h, the migration speed of the characteristic peaks at 800~1025cm^-1, it’s basically the same for the CNTs-doped sample and the blank sample! What does this mean?”
Lu Zhou was certain of his calculations.
When he discovered this issue, he recalculated it at least three times!
Lu Zhou’s tough attitude surprised Brother Qian. Brother Qian then softened his attitude.
He stared at the chart for a long time.
The debate between the two Liu Bo, who was sitting next to them doing sample analysis.
After he heard the discussion, Liu Bo stared at the A4 papers on the table with an intrigued expression on his face.
“The CNTs material has no effect on the hydration reaction of cement in the early stages? This is really incredible. If this conclusion is correct, it can even be published as a research result alone.”
“I agree, how ridiculous,” said Brother Qian brother as he nodded. He then shook his head and said, “From a molecular dynamics point of view, this is impossible. The side of the carbon nanotube is highly delocalized. The bond is bound to interfere with the polymerization process of the silicon tetrahedron…”
Liu Bo raised a counter-argument, “But this is only one of the many consensuses, maybe it’s not correct…”
Lu Zhou looked at the two people discussing and did not say anything. He could not even understand what they were saying.
It was similar to a situation where if Lu Zhou talked about optimal inversion theory of linear functionals to those two, they would not be able to understand a thing.
Lu Zhou looked at the two people discussing and started to think.
Guess I really have to increase my knowledge level.
Entering the frontier of scientific research with a just a mathematics degree is not enough…
Otherwise, if he received a high tech drawing from the system, he would not even be able to understand it.
Actually, if Lu Zhou understood material physics, he would know that the international academic community did not have a “clear conclusion” about the mechanism of carbon nanotubes for composite materials.
Although the proper addition of carbon nanotubes in the material could increase the strength of the material, this had been confirmed in many experiments. For example, the most typical laser alloying and post-quenching process synthesis of carbon nanotubes / 4 # steel, composite hardness could reach HRC69…
However, the method to do this for carbon nanotubes was currently based on theoretical assumptions. Therefore, if one saw different explanations in different textbooks, one should not be surprised, because this thing itself did not have a “conclusion”.
What Brother Qian believed in was one of the mainstream conjectures about the strengthening mechanism of carbon nanotubes for cement materials.
As for if this conjecture was correct…
Honestly speaking, he did not know either. Anyway, he used it as a conclusion.
If Lu Zhou’s calculations were correct, then this would undoubtedly provide a powerful counterexample.
Still, this was too unexpected, too ridiculous!
After a while, Liu Bo and Brother Qian seemed to have reached a consensus and they both looked at Lu Zhou.
After a moment, Brother Qian spoke.
“I can’t answer you right away… I need to do experiments.”
“If your calculations are correct.”
“It’ll be a major discovery!”
Lu Zhou immediately asked, “How major?”
Liu Bo smiled and said, “I don’t know how major either, but it is significant for the research of carbon nanotube materials. It’ll greatly help other researchers. Of course, the academic value isn’t as great as that mathematics problem you solved.”
Lu Zhou was embarrassed as he smiled and said, “That’s all virtual stuff.”
“What are you talking about? There’s only right or wrong, nothing is virtual,” said Liu Bo as he smiled and shook his head. He then continued, “Like what Brother Qian said, we still need to do further experiments before we can give you a definitive answer. Also, can I ask you for a favor?”
Lu Zhou asked, “What is it?”
Brother Qian coughed and said, “About your mathematical calculations, can you publish it after our research project is finished? Because we’re not the only ones doing research in this area, the University of Zhi is also…”
If Lu Zhou published this research, the enemy might use it to their advantage!
It was likely!
Although it was kind of immoral to do this, Brother Qian had to make this request. Otherwise, his half a year worth of research would have been worthless.
“Is that it? Okay, okay,” said Lu Zhou as he smiled nonchalantly.
Lu Zhou found this conclusion basically by accident. If he did not have the data that Liu Bo and Brother Qian provided, he would not have written all those formulas, and he definitely would not have come to this unexpected conclusion.
The names of the two researchers also deserved a second and third spot on the thesis.
Nonethelss, Lu Zhou still took their opinions into account.
This was about politeness and integrity.
Qian Zhongming, “Latest the end of next month, earliest end of this month! I promise you I can produce results. By then, you can publish the thesis with no problems.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It’s fine. I’m not in a hurry. Let me know when I can publish it.”
In fact, Lu Zhou was taking some risk by doing this. After all, if someone else reached the same conclusion within this time frame, his five days worth of torture would have been for nothing.
However, he had to look at the bigger picture.
Also, the probability of that was small…
About this important matter, Brother Qian immediately called Professor Li Rongen.
Professor Li did not say much on the phone. Instead, he just asked Brother Qian to take Lu Zhou’s thesis and a few lab samples to the old campus lab.
If Lu Zhou’s mathematical conclusion was correct, then they had been doing their experiments wrong the whole time.
However, it was not too late to change!