Just like what Luo Wenxuan said, this was an invitation letter.
To be precise, this invitation letter was not sent to Luo Wenxuan personally. It was sent to the ILHCRC by CERN.
In the invitation letter, CERN proposed to hold a World Physicist Summit with the theme of "100 Years of Physics". They hoped that the ILHCRC could serve as the main organizer of the conference and unite other major particle physics institutes and top scholars around the world to discuss the future of physics in the next century.
In fact, after listening to Luo Wenxuan's explanation, Lu Zhou was very surprised.
The world's major particle physics institutes would discuss the future of physics in the next hundred years. They didn't expect CERN to give up such an important meeting to the ILHCRC.
But after thinking about it carefully, he figured out the trick behind it.
The reason why CERN gave up this opportunity was not because they didn't want to, but because the current situation did not allow them to do so.
This was partly because the Lunar Hadron Collider had replaced the LHC and shouldered the heavy responsibility of particle physics exploration. The center of physics had gradually shifted to East Asia.
On the other hand, it was because of a very practical problem.
They had no money …
Yes.
They just had no money.
Ever since the completion of the Lunar Hadron Collider, CERN had gradually lost its excuse to ask for funding from the European Union.
Compared to CERN, which had a bigger appetite than a black hole, countries around the world were more inclined to choose the ILHCRC, which only needed to spend less money to satisfy their physicists and produce a large number of excellent results.
Especially the French leaders, who had said more than once in public that the historical mission of the LHC had been completed. Instead of making the people living in Geneva and Seth live in fear, it was better to move the experimental site from the French-Swiss border to the Moon.
The United States had the same opinion.
Even though they were dissatisfied with the ILHCRC being led by China, physics was not as sensitive as military, aerospace, or semiconductor research. All research results were also publicly accessible.
For Washington, which was in a recession, it would be great if China was willing to bear this heavy burden for them.
Perhaps this was self-comforting, but at least it could save the White House hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Under these circumstances, CERN had gradually declined from being the world's physics center to a regional physics research center.
Although he still maintained a large and excellent research team, without being able to restart the experiment, it was difficult to attract researchers from other countries to contribute cheap and high-quality labor.
The local management was even considering whether or not it was necessary to transform the abandoned large collider into a science museum or an amusement facility while keeping the small collider.
But so far, this proposal was only at the proposal stage. There was no guarantee of stable customer flow, and there was also the problem of border supervision. It was hard to imagine which multinational amusement park group would consider taking over.
Lu Zhou took out the letter from the invitation and opened it. He began to read the first line carefully.
In addition to some polite remarks, the content was concise and comprehensive, mainly related to the meeting process.
This included parts of most academic conferences, such as reports, seminars, poster displays, and so on. This also included the highlight of this conference — the "100 Years of Physics" closed-door conference.
According to CERN's suggestion, this conference would be led by the world's top 100 physicists.
As top experts in a certain research branch, the invited participants would represent their own research direction and explain their direction and its importance to other scholars in the field of particle physics research. They would also propose the most important proposition in this direction.
It was just like Hilbert's 23 questions at the Millennium Mathematics Conference.
However, the number of physics problems that would be decided at this conference was not 7 or 23, but 100.
As for other scholars who did not receive an invitation to the "100 Years of Physics closed-door conference", they could learn about the progress of the conference and the results of the discussion through various channels such as live broadcasts, conference videos, and transcripts released after the conference.
At the same time, for the 100 world-class problems raised at the conference, the conference organizer would also set up corresponding awards and bonuses.
When Lu Zhou saw this, he couldn't help but smile and make a joke.
"Do I have to donate some money to attend this conference?"
Luo Wenxuan didn't seem to expect Lu Zhou to ask such a question. He was stunned for a second before he smiled and accepted it.
"I didn't say that, but if we want to be the main organizer, we will definitely have to donate a lot."
"How much will it cost?"
"Currently, we're thinking of setting up a bonus pool. We'll increase the value of the bonus pool by investing in bonds and stocks. The person who solves one of the problems first will be given 1% of the bonus pool, and the rest will be distributed in this manner until all the bonuses are distributed."
Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows with interest and said, "It sounds interesting, so the later the problem is solved, the higher the bonus?"
"Not necessarily, after all, there are risks in investment … But we will hire the best brokers and use the most stable investment strategy to handle the funds." After a pause, Luo Wenxuan continued, "And from a practical point of view, the later the problem is solved, doesn't it mean that the problem is more worthy of the reward?"
Lu Zhou: "How to raise the bonus pool?"
"Our current idea is to donate money. Apparently, many generous rich people are interested in naming these unsolved mysteries. So far, ten rich people on the Forbes rich list have expressed their willingness to donate to topics they are interested in and name the awards after themselves or their family members. If we don't have enough money, we can try to raise the prize money by auctioning the naming rights. "
"That's a good idea. I, the chairman of the ILHCRC, will also donate some."
Lu Zhou didn't specify how much "some" he was talking about. He put the invitation letter in his pocket. When Luo Wenxuan heard Lu Zhou's words, he paused for a second and immediately spoke with excitement.
"So you're saying we should host this conference?"
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Why not? Being able to host a conference like this is not only the world's recognition of us, but it is also our responsibility to the world. Moreover, our funding is relatively sufficient, more than enough to host a conference. Speaking of which, did CERN propose when to hold this conference? "
"Their suggestion is on the 12th, but the venue hasn't been decided yet."
"The 12th?" Lu Zhou frowned and muttered, "The 14th is Valentine's Day, right?"
If he remembered correctly, it was around this time.
Luo Wenxuan: "…?"
Lu Zhou noticed Luo Wenxuan's strange expression. He suddenly realized that he seemed to have spoken out loud, so he quickly coughed and spoke.
"I mean, February 12th is still the third day of the Chinese New Year. Most people are still celebrating the Chinese New Year, right? Physicists are also people, we can't use family reunion time to attend a conference. Also, the transportation is a big problem. Like this, we should push back the date to at least after the Lantern Festival. As for the venue, let's set it in Shanghai. "
"After the Lantern Festival? Why don't we do it in March? It's not a problem to hold it in Shanghai, although I recommend choosing a more fun city … "
Luo Wenxuan paused for a second and made a helpless expression.
"But you're the chairman, you have the final say."
Wonderful Book House
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