The first to report this news was Britain's "The Guardian".
The reporter who wrote the article described the discovery in amazement.
"… CERN captured an abnormal signal in the experiment. Experts say this may be a major clue to the discovery of supersymmetric particles. What's incredible is that the discoverer of this clue turned out to be an intern from China!"
The mysterious power from the East seemed to have influenced the Hadron Collider.
Immediately afterward, the media dug out the identity of the intern.
Quite a number of people were startled by the sight of it.
For example, in the latest edition of Germany's Focus Weekly, the report on the identity of the intern completely exploded people's eyeballs.
"… The intern who discovered the 750 GeV characteristic peak in the CERN collider experiment is a master's student from the University of Jin Ling and a member of LHCb China. His achievements are not only in the field of physics. At the Princeton Academic Conference earlier this year, he won the Best Young Speaker Award, and his winning report was the proof of the twin prime number conjecture! "
"… Our reporter interviewed Mr. Francis, the president of the Federal Mathematics Society, and Edward Witten, the winner of the Fields Prize. Mr. Francis's evaluation is that this is a brilliant and innovative young scholar. Edward Witten's evaluation is even more surprising. He thinks that he may become the first China scholar to win the Fields Prize. "
Originally, the news of the 750 GeV did not cause a widespread sensation. It was only circulated in the small circle of particle physics. However, because of this report from Focus Weekly, the news suddenly reached a peak.
The clue that had "fooled" all the big shots was discovered by an intern. This in itself was enough to make everyone's jaws drop. Not only that, this intern wasn't a "physics graduate", but he was a mathematician. This was even more shocking.
The news had not spread to China yet, but it had already caused a heated discussion on foreign social media.
An Ivy League school's campus forum.
[Sh * t! I was supposed to be on vacation, but yesterday, my supervisor called me back to school. He told me that there was a new research project, and now I have to start working on it … This is crazy.]
[This is a good thing, my graduation thesis is settled:)]
[That's hard to say. What if CERN confirms the signal next month?]
[Impossible. With the efficiency of the Hadron Collider, CERN might not even be able to figure out what that thing is. And I, before the end of the year, can write another article:)]
A North America international student forum.
[That's scary. Even the Fields Award can't satisfy him! He's going for the Nobel Prize …]
[It's still a long way from winning the Nobel Prize, but it's still very strong. Theoretical physics is the most difficult field to produce results. Although this discovery is not a major research result, it has solved the problem of at least a hundred PhDs in particle physics … And that's just a small number.]
[That's right. The number of new papers in the field of particle physics on arXiv has exploded. It's not just graduation papers, but many professors are also betting on it.]
[I look up to the top student. When I get my master's degree, will I also be so awesome?]
[Wake up, he was still an undergraduate at the beginning of this year. Back then, he was already so amazing.]
[… I kneel.]
…
After the Focus Weekly report on the intern's identity came out, all major media outlets reprinted the report.
Although a lot of media outlets dug into Lu Zhou's background, the first one to interview the intern was Nature Weekly.
Of course, he was no longer an intern. He was an official researcher at CERN.
Noon on August 2nd.
Professor Grayer personally drove Lu Zhou to a coffee shop in Geneva, and he introduced this female reporter from Nature Weekly to him.
"This is Miss Belinda. She graduated from Oxford University," said Professor Grayer as he looked at Belinda. He then said, "And this is Lu Zhou, who I told you about."
The two should know each other.
However, Lu Zhou did not know if it was an illusion, but he felt like the atmosphere between the two was a little awkward.
The source of the awkwardness seemed to be Professor Grayer. On the other hand, Ms. Belinda had a natural smile on her face.
"Hello, Ms. Belinda," said Lu Zhou as he reached out his right hand.
"Hello, nice to meet you," said Belinda. She smiled and said, "The interview might take up some time, can we start now?"
"Of course," said Lu Zhou as he smiled and said, "I hope my answer can satisfy your curiosity."
After all, Nature Weekly was a well-known academic journal, so it was more or less scientifically rigorous. At the very least, it wouldn't be like the Daily Mail next door. It wouldn't make headlines like "Chinese scientists discover supersymmetric particles" or "Hadron collider discovers mysterious phenomenon".
As expected of a top student from Oxford, Miss Belinda's questions were more on the professional side.
For example, the first question.
"How did you find the characteristic peak of the 750 GeV energy region?"
"Because of an accident?" Lu Zhou smiled and said in a casual tone, "Although my colleagues thought that the 750 GeV event might be an accident, it was too much of a coincidence for the ATLAS and CMS detectors to appear at the same time. So, I asked Professor Grayer for help and found the LHC collision records from 2012 and 2013. I found something interesting. "
"750 GeV characteristic peak?"
"Not really, but it's close," said Lu Zhou as he shrugged. He said, "With limited samples, the information we can get is quite limited. Therefore, I tried to prove from a probability perspective that when the number of samples accumulated to a certain level, the statistical model in the prediction may have a characteristic peak at 750 GeV … When the probability is high enough, CERN has a reason to start this experiment. As for the characteristic peak, it was found by the collider, not me. "
Belinda smiled in a friendly manner and jotted down these words in her notebook before continuing to ask.
"I noticed that you used a lot of uncertain words. Is it because I'm used to it, or is it because of the rigor of physics?"
Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Of course it's the latter, because even now, we can't confirm what it is."
Belinda, "What do you think the particle is?"
"I hope it's a supersymmetric particle. If it is, then our biggest problem can be solved. But … This is just my personal wish. Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as we expect. "Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said," If I were to speculate, I would rather believe that it might be something we don't understand … Like, dark matter. "
Belinda's mouth was wide open as she said, "That's a surprising speculation … But why?"
"Because the signal is too unstable." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Even though the Hadron Collider experiment itself is the accumulation of countless small probability collisions, the appearance of this signal presents a situation … that is difficult to explain with existing theories."
"Pessimistically, this might just be a two-photon signal."
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