The shorter the word, the more information it contained.
Lu Zhou thought about what Professor Frank said to him after he came back from the Brussels International Conference on Theoretical Physics. He had a feeling that Professor Frank had something important to tell him.
Therefore, he did not hesitate and quickly replied to the email.
[I can do it anytime. Let's see when you are free.]
After a while, Professor Frank did not reply.
Lu Zhou looked at the time and estimated that Frank was probably asleep. He got up, took a shower, and went to sleep.
The night was quiet.
The next morning, Lu Zhou listened to his alarm and woke up. He checked his email and received a reply.
[I'm going to Stony Brook University the day after tomorrow. I'll be there for about three days. If you're free, we can meet there.]
Lu Zhou looked at his calendar.
He had a lecture in two days, but he had already asked Professor Deligné for a day off.
After some thought, he typed a message and replied.
[Okay, let's meet at noon the day after tomorrow. I'll contact you.]
There were only two letters in the reply.
[OK]
…
New York was located on the east coast. It was the economic and cultural hub of the entire east coast. It was also one of the east coast's technology centers.
Many people knew about Wall Street and Broadway on Manhattan Island, but few people knew that on Long Island next door, there was also one of the world's top comprehensive scientific research bases — Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Many Nobel Prize winners had been born here, including Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, as well as Ding Zhaozhong's discovery of the J particle. Currently, there were about 3,000 researchers and engineers here. On average, there were 4,000 visiting scholars working here each year.
Although it was not as many as CERN, it was still a considerable number.
To a large extent, this was the significance of the collider. On the surface, the discovery of a new particle did not seem to immediately change human life. However, it could attract a large number of scholars to gather here, spawning a large number of cutting-edge equipment suppliers, and forming a huge "scientific research ecosystem".
For example, the storage ring of the Hadron Collider required harsh vacuum conditions, which led to the development of ultra-high vacuum technology. These technologies eventually played an industrial role in fields such as medicine and electronics.
There were many similar things.
Currently, the laboratory belonged to the Department of Energy, but it was managed by the Brookhaven Science Society, a joint venture between Stony Brook University and the Barter Institute.
On Monday, Lu Zhou arrived in New York in his new car.
Professor Frank had arranged to meet him at a cafe in front of Stony Brook University. Lu Zhou didn't know if it was an illusion, but he felt like all the professors he knew were fond of coffee.
Professor Frank sat in the cafe until twelve o 'clock. He arrived on time with a laptop in his hand.
"I'm sorry, I was late for a meeting. I've kept you waiting."
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No, I just arrived."
Sitting across from Lu Zhou, Professor Franck saw the waiter and said in a relaxed tone, "Give me a cup of Americano and a tuna sandwich."
Waiter: "Do you want sugar?"
"No need."
Professor Frank placed his laptop on the table and opened a folder. He looked at Lu Zhou and said, "You brought a USB, right?"
Lu Zhou nodded and took out a USB from his pocket. He said, "I brought it … Can you tell me what's going on? I don't mind having coffee with you, but if it's just data, why don't we use email? "
Professor Frank did not answer the question immediately. Instead, he opened a chart file on his laptop. He then turned the laptop around and presented it to Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou looked at the image on the screen and frowned. "What is this?"
Professor Frank moved his chair to the side of the table and said, "This is CERN's latest experimental record.
"This is CERN's latest experimental record. The two graphs above are the distribution curves and statistical graphs of various energy zone collisions collected by the ATLAS and CMS detectors. You should be able to understand the meaning of this graph."
Lu Zhou stared at the image for a while and said, "The confidence level has dropped?"
Professor Frank sighed and said, "Yes, no matter how many times we repeat the experiment, the confidence level still doesn't reach the 3 sigma standard. And in the experiment at the end of last year, the characteristic peak in the 750 GeV energy zone even shrank … That's why the confidence level has dropped. "
Lu Zhou stared at the chart for a long time and did not speak for a long time.
He vaguely guessed the reason why Professor Frank wanted to talk to him in person.
When Professor Frank saw that Lu Zhou did not speak, he paused for a second and continued.
"The International Theoretical Physics Conference in Brussels at the end of the year is very large. It's a pity that you missed the conference.
"The person who reported the latest discovery of the accelerator was Ms. Fabiola Gianotti, the 16th chairman of the CERN board of directors. The report was full, and many people were sitting on the ground and even in the corridor.
"A lot of things were reported in that report. It took a full 20 minutes to report on CERN's discovery of the 750 GeV accelerator."
"You should be able to understand these graphs, or you can take them back to study." Professor Frank sighed and said softly, "But it doesn't make much sense anymore."
Lu Zhou did not look at the computer again. Instead, he stared at Professor Frank and waited for him to continue.
Professor Frank shrugged and tried to make his tone sound less serious. He then said, "But in any case, you helped a lot. From last May to two months ago, a large number of papers appeared on arXiv, many of which were new physics models. They are not necessarily correct, but they are very useful. Also, the two papers that we completed together have been cited many times. "
Although this sentence sounded like it was comforting, Lu Zhou did not feel comforted at all.
He had spent half a year on this research project. Even though half a year wasn't much for a theoretical physicist, half a year wasn't even enough for them to regrow their hair. However, for Lu Zhou, this research project was completely different.
Not only because of the time he spent building the models, but also because of the hope he put into the 750 GeV accelerator …
Lu Zhou took a deep breath and looked at Professor Frank. He then slowly said, "What do you mean?"
Professor Frank's reaction confirmed his guess.
The old man stood up, took off his hat, and nodded slightly to express his gratitude.
"CERN's official explanation to the council members is that there is still hope, but obviously, after January 1st, there will be no more experiments to search for the 750 GeV characteristic peak anomaly because it is disappearing. Every collision of the particle clusters is burning money. It's been a pleasure working with you, and I sincerely thank you for your work, but … "
Professor Frank cleared his throat and lowered his eyes to express his regret. He then said, "Logic tells us that building a physical model to explain why the 750 GeV particle does not exist is much easier than looking for this non-existent particle."
However, this work was no longer meaningful.
Explaining why a particle did not exist, this kind of unfalsifiable and unverifiable conjecture was at most at the level of a PhD thesis. It might be able to help a few high-energy physics PhD students get their degrees, but it was far from "new physics".
Lu Zhou went silent for a long time.
After a long time, he seemed to have made up his mind and spoke.
"But I haven't given up yet."
Professor Frank did not say anything else. He put on his hat again and sighed.
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