As one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, the Navier – Stokes equation had received a lot of attention due to its popularity, as well as its applications in the fields of physics and engineering.
Especially when this problem was noticed by a scholar who always created miracles, this incident itself became a hot topic of discussion.
Many PhDs from universities and research institutes, whether it was mathematics or physics, would talk about this topic in their spare time.
Many people were curious if Lu Zhou was challenging the Navier – Stokes equation.
If so, how far did he go?
Is it just the thesis that was published in Annual Mathematics?
People seemed to want to believe that this genius's research results were far more than the in-progress results published in Annual Mathematics.
It was lunchtime at the dining area on the first floor of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
"I'll have a bacon sandwich."
"Your sandwich … Are you sure you don't want to think about other flavors? It's not a good diet to always eat the same food. "
Because Lu Zhou always ordered the same food, the chef already knew who Lu Zhou was.
"No, thanks."
Lu Zhou took the hot sandwich and coffee from the chef and found a comfortable place to sit down.
Normally, he would cook for himself or go to the Ivy Club for a leisurely meal. However, these days, he ate sandwiches for lunch and then went to the plasma physics laboratory to report to work.
The design of the entire experimental device sounded simple, but it was extremely complicated to put it into practice!
In addition to the obvious problems, there were many not-so-obvious problems that needed to be solved. This required a combination of theoretical and engineering knowledge. This meant that Lu Zhou had to communicate with the engineers in the laboratory. He also had to exchange ideas and find feasible solutions for engineering problems.
Honestly, at this moment, Lu Zhou felt like his engineering level came in handy. While communicating with the engineers, he found out that his understanding of engineering design was surprisingly fast.
As for how fast it was …
It was around the same level as two years ago when he was researching mathematics problems.
Lu Zhou chewed on his sandwich as he thought about the complex problems.
However, at this moment, a lady with long blonde hair sat across from him and conjured a recording pen for interviews out of nowhere.
"Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, I'm sorry to disturb you, I'm a reporter from BBC."
Lu Zhou looked at the blonde lady and asked in a muffled voice, "What's up?"
He didn't remember doing anything that attracted attention recently.
If it was the Hoffman Medal, then it was obvious that she had come at the wrong time. This matter had long since become news, and he did not think that people would still pay attention to this news.
The reporter smiled and said, "Here's the thing, the thesis you recently submitted to Annual Mathematics has caused a lot of discussion in the academic community. Are you challenging one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, the existence and smoothness of a solution to the Navier – Stokes equation?"
If it was a normal mathematics problem, it wouldn't be worthy of BBC sending a reporter. However, the Millennium Prize Problems were different. Whether it was a million-dollar problem or a problem of the century, it was worthy of the headlines.
"No, you misunderstood, there's no such thing." Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I'm only researching the Navier – Stokes equation for my own research. Even though I did get an interesting result, it's nothing to be proud of. "
The reporter lady looked at Lu Zhou in surprise and said, "Unbelievable … Can I ask, what kind of amazing thing are you researching?"
"I don't care what it is, I don't want you to make scientific research into a gossip section and report unrealistic news," said Lu Zhou as he folded the sandwich wrapper into a square shape. He then threw it into the trash can and said, "Before the research results come out, I can only tell you one thing."
He was worried that if he said he was designing an experiment for the high-temperature plasma turbulence phenomenon, then the next day, BBC would report that a Chinese scientist solved a controllable nuclear fusion problem. Then, his phone would explode with calls from people who didn't understand what was going on.
After all, she was a BBC reporter.
Because she often used exaggerated reporting techniques and all kinds of clickbait, she was even "blacklisted" by Wikipedia.
The reporter lady didn't care about Lu Zhou's sarcasm. Her eyes suddenly lit up, and she leaned forward with the recording pen as she asked, "What is it?"
Lu Zhou said with a straight face, "No comment."
Reporter lady: "…"
…
After the reporter left, Lu Zhou went to PPPL.
When he arrived, the engineers were already working hard at their posts.
Professor Lazerson's eyes lit up when he saw Lu Zhou.
"The Wendelstein 7-X laboratory accepted our request. They agreed to install target materials and atomic guns in the first wall for the next experiment to help us collect data."
Lu Zhou immediately asked, "When is the next experiment?"
Even though Professor Lazerson convinced the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory, he didn't look relaxed as he said, "Middle of January … But we have to come up with valuable results before the end of December! Otherwise, they wouldn't even consider delaying the experiment for us and sending our detectors. You know, the ITER project funding is getting tighter and tighter, and all of the laboratories are in a hurry. "
"We don't have much time left," said Lu Zhou with a serious expression.
"Yeah, we don't have much time left. Of course, we can also wait until next June, but … "Professor Lazerson looked like he wanted to say something, but he was hesitant.
"But?"
"But PPPL can't continue to support our research indefinitely. If we don't do anything for half a year, the project might be cut," Professor Lazerson finally said.
The essence of this project was still attached to PPPL. The funds were provided by PPPL, and all the resources such as talents and equipment were also used by PPPL.
There were a lot of black technologies being incubated here, and controllable nuclear fusion was only one of them. The "He3 atom probe" technology was only a sub-project of the controllable nuclear fusion project.
If this subproject took up half a year's funding and research resources without producing any acceptable results, any lab director with the slightest management experience would cut off such an 'inferior' project, or at least put it back on the priority list.
Unless there were multiple Nobel Prize-level scholars endorsing this project, or the project itself was funded by a Nobel Prize winner.
However, Lu Zhou obviously wasn't one of them, and Professor Lazerson definitely wasn't one of them …
Lu Zhou frowned and said, "We can't even wait half a year?"
"Normally, we can wait, but the research schedule is very tight, and projects that aren't that important will naturally be delayed … No matter how interesting it sounds," Professor Lazerson said as he hesitated.
Out of his original intention, of course, he hoped that this project would continue.
After all, the current physics community could only "diagnose" plasma, not "observe" it.
The two concepts were not on the same level, and the phenomenological models built based on different data were not on the same level either.
If Lu Zhou's mathematics was really as good as he claimed, and they successfully designed this experiment, then maybe the Nobel Prize committee would consider his name.
This was the only chance for him, who was more of an engineer than a scholar, to touch the Nobel Prize.
After listening to Professor Lazerson's explanation, Lu Zhou immediately said, "We have to speed up! Since we only have until the end of this year, we just have to finish this project before the end of this year. "
Professor Lazerson hesitated and said, "Is there enough time?"
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