Since 1995, Roger Ebert, Jr. The Adams Prize is awarded by the American Chemical Society every two years to a scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the field of organic chemistry.
As one of the highest awards in the field of organic synthesis, many world-class biochemists and Nobel Prize winners had won the Adams Prize.
A very simple statistic was enough to reflect the value of this award.
Of the 29 winners of the Roger Adams Prize, 11 of them were Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry.
Although the Adams Chemistry Prize was only for the field of organic synthesis and did not represent the entire chemistry world, it was still regarded as a Nobel Prize indicator by many people.
After receiving the letter, Lu Zhou's first reaction was, "Thank goodness I checked my email."
As for the second reaction …
F * ck, are they really going to give me a Nobel Prize?!
Just when Lu Zhou couldn't calm down, the office door suddenly opened. Hadi, who finally became a senior, walked in with Jerick and Wei Wen.
Looking at the letter in Lu Zhou's hand and then looking at Lu Zhou's expression, Hadi was stunned for a moment before he shouted.
"Oh my god, professor, you actually received a love letter?"
Lu Zhou, who was still immersed in the joy of the big prize, almost dropped the letter in his hand.
What the hell?!
Vera, who was walking near the door with a sandwich in her hand, happened to hear Hadi's voice. Her heart suddenly tightened, and she nervously walked to the door.
However, it seemed to be a false alarm …
Lu Zhou glared fiercely at Hadi and said bluntly, "If you make fun of my personal feelings again, I guarantee that you will spend the entire spring break busy."
Upon hearing this threat, Hadi's face immediately revealed a pained expression.
"Oh, please don't, I've made plans with my —"
Qin Yue coughed heavily and pulled his arm, interrupting this guy's speech.
Because she had a feeling that if she allowed him to continue, something bad would happen.
Not only had Hadi planned it, but he had also planned to travel to the Great Rift Valley with his girlfriend this Spring Break to experience the customs of the Great West.
Hearing that it wasn't a love letter, Vera felt much better. Looking at the letter, she couldn't help but ask curiously, "Professor, what's that?"
Lu Zhou: "Nothing, it's from the American Chemical Society."
Hadi muttered in a low voice, "God, what era is this? People still use paper letters?"
Wei Wen's focus was a bit different. He paused for a moment and said, "The Chemistry Society?"
Lu Zhou put the envelope back in the drawer and said, "Yeah, didn't I publish a thesis in Nature a while ago? They plan on giving me the Adams Chemistry Prize."
The office suddenly fell silent.
Everyone stood there in silence, staring blankly at Lu Zhou.
It was especially so for Wei Wen. His mouth was wide open and could not close for a long time.
For Lu Zhou, other than the three awards, there were no higher honors in the mathematics world that could reward his contributions. Even if he went back and won an award like the Ramanujan Gold Award, it would just be icing on the cake.
However, this Adams Chemistry Prize was a recognition from another field other than mathematics.
Wei Wen didn't know much about chemistry, nor did he know what lithium dendrites were. However, he now knew that not only was Lu Zhou good in the field of pure mathematics, but he also knew that Lu Zhou was terrifyingly good in applied mathematics.
He didn't know why, but there was an indescribable feeling in his heart, even though his mentor's awesomeness was something to be happy about.
Jerick gulped and said, "Professor, do you plan on opening a course in computational materials? I mean, can I choose this direction? "
Applied mathematics was one of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's strong majors. After Jerick completed his applied mathematics major, he also took a degree in organic chemistry.
The reason why he applied for Lu Zhou's functional analysis was that he was interested in this direction, and he also wanted to study computational materials with Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you seriously complete the task I gave you, I'll teach you about this. However, I haven't perfected the computational materials theory yet, so I might not be able to help you."
No one in the entire materials science community could understand his theory, and there weren't many people in the mathematics field who were interested in this direction.
If someone could understand his theory, of course he would be happy.
However, with Jerick's current level, it was a waste of time to study these things.
Jerick said, "Professor, you're too humble. If you think your theory isn't perfected, I'm afraid no one would dare to say that they understand computational materials."
"I'm not being humble, I'm being scientific," said Lu Zhou. He then said, "The mathematical model of the modified PDMS material is only an isolated example. This theory doesn't have the extensibility to other fields. Real computational materials science should be able to use a set of unified mathematical tools to perform mathematical calculations on all the materials we need. "
"A theory that can't be generalized, no matter how strong it is, is imperfect."
This was not only the ultimate goal of computational materials, but it was also the ultimate goal of computational chemistry.
Use effective mathematical approximations to calculate molecular properties, such as total energy, dipole moment, quadrupole moment, vibration frequency, reactivity, etc., and use this to explain some specific chemical problems.
If such an experimental system was built, the impact on the entire industry would be comparable to a nuclear weapon. The experimenter only needed to set the properties of the required materials, and they could deduce the molecular structure through complex calculations. Even if it was only a hundred possibilities or a general direction, it could save millions of research funds.
This might sound whimsical, but with the current speed of computer development, it was not impossible.
Perhaps in the near future, supercomputers would become the standard of every large materials science laboratory, and purchasing computing services from supercomputing centers would appear on the budget list of all large, medium, and small research institutes.
After Jerick heard this, he was shocked.
It was as if Lu Zhou had opened a door in his heart to a brand new world.
If he really succeeded, he would undoubtedly change the face of the discipline of chemistry.
Jerick was more and more glad that he chose Lu Zhou as his supervisor.
Wei Wen, who was standing next to him, had a complex expression on his face.
He had always been researching applied mathematics, but he had never thought about generalizing theories to the field of application. He didn't care about anything outside of mathematics.
Maybe it was time for him to make some changes.
"A theory that can't be generalized, no matter how strong it is, is imperfect," Vera whispered to herself. Her blue pupils were flashing with excitement.
Maybe it was because she found inspiration from Lu Zhou's words, or maybe it was because she had a new sense of mission, but she seemed to be more motivated than before.
With their own thoughts, the students in the office all fell into silence.
In the end, the person who broke the silence was Hadi.
He had a serious look on his face as he came to a conclusion.
"A mathematician won a chemistry award. There is no doubt that this is a great moment."
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