"This isn't a discussion at all! I didn't even say a single word! "
"This is outrageous!"
"Is no one going to talk to him?"
"It's useless, he won't listen. I have emphasized many times that CERN has been researching the 750 GeV characteristic peak for a whole year … at least half a year! But what did we get out of this? Jesus Christ, he's going to repeat this process! "
"At least CNN was right, he's a paranoid lunatic …"
The meeting obviously ended on a bad note.
A group of expressionless people walked out of the conference room angrily, and as they walked, they did not hide their voices at all.
Professor Frank Wilczek, who was waiting next to the elevator, noticed the indignant expression on the face of Professor Whittle, a permanent member of the ILHCRC board of directors and the director of the Brookhaven Science Society. He quickly walked up and stopped him.
"What happened inside? Didn't the meeting only start an hour ago? Why is it over so soon? "
"Meeting? Does he even care about the board of directors? This isn't a meeting at all! "
Professor Whittle waved his fist and roared. He said angrily, "I'm going back to New York and show those people at the Brookhaven Scientific Society how the Chinese show off their pitiful authority at this sacred physics conference!"
Frank Wilczek watched Professor Whittle leave angrily. He was dumbfounded.
His intuition told him that something terrible must have happened an hour ago. Otherwise, Professor Whittle would not be this angry … However, Wilczek was not a good-tempered guy.
He was becoming more and more confused about what happened at the meeting …
Did the board of directors become a figurehead?
No way, right?
…
According to Murphy's theorem, the more people worry about something, the more likely it will happen.
Professor Frank Wilczek finally understood the cause of the matter through his old friend at CERN. Moreover, it was precisely because he heard these regrettable things that his mood fell to the bottom.
In his impression, Lu Zhou was not a stubborn and domineering scholar. He was even more willing to believe that Professor Whittle and the CERN representative misunderstood him.
However, the truth did not lie.
What had caused him to become like this?
Frank Wilczek didn't understand, so he found Witten and asked him out of the hotel under the guise of drinking coffee.
While chatting, he talked about the board of directors meeting that had just ended. He sighed and spoke.
"The situation is terrible."
Witten seemed to have expected him to bring up the topic of the ILHCRC, so he did not look surprised. He only raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Oh?"
Frank Wilczek took a sip of his coffee and repeated his conversation with Professor Whittle to Witten. He shook his head with a pessimistic expression.
"What I was most worried about happened. From the beginning, the ILHCRC didn't show a cooperative attitude. I admit that his academic prestige after completing the electrostrong interaction theory may have surpassed most people … even me, but this shouldn't be a reason for him to act recklessly."
After listening to Frank Wilczek, Witten pondered for a long time. He suddenly smiled and said, "Maybe he really discovered something at 750 GeV that we didn't."
"Impossible, my friend, you know better than anyone how difficult this is, why would you say that?" Wilczek shook his head and said, "What's more, I have worked with him on this project for a while. At first, I believed that he could do it, and I even tried to help him fight for experimental rights at the LHC. It wasn't until I realized that it was useless that I parted ways with him. I know better than anyone else that this path is impossible to walk! "
Witten asked, "Then why do you think he insisted on doing this?"
Franck Wilczek: "Angry from embarrassment at failure? Overinflated confidence? Or stubbornness? Or is he eager to show his authority in physics? No matter what the reason is, it is not advisable to do research with this mentality. "
Witten smiled and shook his head.
"It seems like you don't understand him at all."
If it were someone else, this would be true.
However, for a scholar who yearned for the truth from the bottom of his heart, this kind of thinking was too shallow.
Witten had met a lot of people during his years of studying abroad.
Some of them were obsessed with fame and fortune, and some were indifferent to fame and fortune. Lu Zhou was undoubtedly the most special among them … and the one that surprised Witten the most.
He wasn't completely indifferent to fame and fortune. He would get angry when he was framed, and he would be happy when he received awards and honors. However, whether it was honor or money, they weren't things that he really pursued. What really drove him forward seemed to be his curiosity about nature and the mysteries of the universe.
This kind of purity was quite precious, and it often only appeared in great people.
He didn't dare to talk about the entire physics community, but he only talked about the scholars he had met …
Perhaps he was the purest of them all.
"Oh, really?" Wilczek raised his eyebrows and said in a slightly dissatisfied tone, "Witten, I know you have a good relationship with him, but I hope you can recognize reality when it comes to this kind of big deal. Especially from a friend's standpoint, if you can, you should advise him, not watch him go further and further down the wrong path. "
"What's wrong?"
Witten stirred his coffee with a spoon. He smiled and spoke slowly.
"And what's right?"
"We know too little about the universe. Compared to what we see, we understand and explain less than one percent of it. Strictly speaking, there is no concept of right and wrong in physics. There is only the difference between perfection and imperfection. Especially after the birth of quantum mechanics, we have a deeper understanding of this — "
Frank Wilczek: "This is sophistry. Why should we waste time on a direction that has been proven to be a failure? CERN has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this field! There are also those things that cannot be measured with money. Now, we have to spend an entire year to go through this impassable path all over again! "
"Because some people think it will work." Witten looked at Wilczek and continued in a calm tone, "Maybe it's because he discovered something new, or maybe it's because CERN didn't correctly understand his thesis. Even if it's just intuition … I think this is enough reason.
"The exploration of the standard model is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Physics is far more than the standard model. No matter which direction we go, we will eventually face the same problem … Why not trust him? At least he has never let us down. "
Wilczek: "…"
Does this mean that we should just resign ourselves to fate?
Isn't this a little too optimistic?
"I know what you are worried about." Witten looked at Wilczek, who was silent, and said with a smile, "Don't worry, if I still find nothing in the end, I will try to convince him to realize his problem in time … If I can."
"As for now, let's trust his judgment for the time being."
Lamp Pen
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