Chapter 627: Discussion With Professor Fefferman

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The report of the general solution to the Yang-Mills equations came to a successful conclusion.

Over the next three days, the Yan University’s supercomputer center, the John von Neumann Center in Princeton, and several other supercomputer centers that were interested in this proposition had released their calculation results.

The results were as expected.

The solution to an equation might differ depending on the input parameters, but the general solution wouldn’t differ from calculation to calculation even though it was a nonlinear partial differential equation.

After the supercomputer centers released their results, most of the general public were amazed by Professor Lu’s “super calculation” abilities. However, there were also attacks about the Jin Ling University’s supercomputer center releasing fraudulent data and how the general solution was just a bunch of scribbles.

Even though academic fraud had happened in the past, and even if the Yan University’s supercomputer center wasn’t totally trustworthy, the John von Neumann Center was certainly still authoritative in most people’s eyes.

Also, because of Lu Zhou’s thesis on arXiv, research on the Yang-Mills equations, the mass gap, and the electromagnetic force and strong interaction had blown up on arXiv. There were also popular discussion posts on other major academic exchange forums.

After all, understanding the mystery behind this equation was the lifelong wish of many scholars. The discovery of the general solution gave everyone hope.

In addition to satisfying the scholar’s own curiosities, there was also the lure of the Nobel Prize and the million-dollar reward for each Millennium Prize Problem.

If anyone could put down the last brick on this building, not only could they receive at least a third of the prize money, but they could also stand on the Nobel Prize podium with a world-renowned scholar.

Except for some rather peculiar scholars, no one disliked having too many honors…

…

Lu Zhou didn’t pay a lot of attention to the results from the supercomputer centers.

After all, he knew that he was correct, and that was enough for him.

During the three days after the report, Lu Zhou spent his time at the mathematics department of Jin Ling University. He discussed the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap with his friend Professor Fefferman.

Even though Fefferman’s main area of expertise was mathematics, he was well versed in partial differential equations. Therefore, his research was closely related to physics. He had his own unique insights in fluid mechanics and theoretical physics.

This was exactly what Lu Zhou needed.

Not to mention, they were partners for the Navier–Stokes equations, and they already had past experience talking about academic problems.

Jin Ling University, mathematics department.

Lu Zhou’s office.

The three blackboards placed against the wall were fully written.

After talking for the entire morning, Lu Zhou’s throat was feeling dry. After he asked Assistant Lin to make him two cups of coffee, he sat down on the sofa with Professor Fefferman and started to chat.

“How is Princeton?”

Fefferman smiled and said, “It’s good, a lot of students miss you, there are also some young female researchers that have expressed their fondness of you… It’s kind of weird for me to talk about these things, but do you want me to give them your email?”

Lu Zhou nearly spat the coffee out of his mouth.

“Cough! There’s no need for that… Oh yeah, what about my students? How are they doing?”

“Qin Yue is currently a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics back at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. He seems to be doing research in number theory. The guy named Hardy returned to Brazil, and apparently, he’s teaching at Sao Paulo University. I’m not very sure about him… Oh yeah, the girl named Vera Pulyuy, her number theory lectures are very good. She’s already an associate professor at Princeton University. However, she seems like she doesn’t want to tell people what she’s working on, so maybe you can go ask her? Satisfy our curiosity.”

Lu Zhou subtly looked away and coughed.

“Since she doesn’t want to disclose her research, I think we should respect her decision.”

Even though Lu Zhou was pretty sure that if he asked her, she would tell him.

But…

Lu Zhou wasn’t sure how to go about asking her.

“You’re right.” Fefferman shrugged and said, “I’m afraid she’s a bit too stubborn. I’ve seen similar cases that happened to many young scholars. After all, we all think that she is the biggest contender for the Fields Medal at the St Petersburg International Congress of Mathematicians. If she’s stuck on one mathematical proposition, it would be a shame.”

Lu Zhou went silent for a while before saying, “I believe she knows what she’s doing.”

“Okay then, since you put it that way,” Fefferman said.

Fefferman noticed that Lu Zhou didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about this, so he didn’t say anything else.

He picked up the cup of coffee and looked at the three blackboards near the office wall.

“Honestly, you should talk about this stuff with Edward Witten. He’s a master in theoretical physics, while I only know about theoretical physics because of my research needs.” Fefferman put down the coffee cup and said in a somewhat helpless tone, “And my theoretical physics knowledge is even worse than my fluid mechanics knowledge.”

Lu Zhou knew he would say this, so he smiled and said, “Discussing this problem with him might not be the best choice, at least for now… Of course, I hope you won’t tell him I said this.”

“Can you tell me why?” Fefferman looked at Lu Zhou in surprise and said, “Maybe I’ll put this in my memoir later.”

“Then I’ll have to answer this question seriously.” Lu Zhou smiled and paused for a second. He said, “Actually, the reason is nothing special. It’s just that he’s a mathematical physicist, and he’s been researching the Grand Unified Theory for more than a decade. He has a mature viewpoint of both string theory and the interaction of microscopic particles.

“The existing theoretical physics theory is quite mature. It just lacks experimental evidence. Talking about this problem with him wouldn’t be a discussion, it would just be us trying to persuade one another… Before any new theories are invented, there wouldn’t be a point discussing this with him.”

“I think Witten knows this as well.” Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, “Otherwise, I’m sure he would have liked to stay here for a few more days. There was no reason for him to leave in such a hurry.”

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