After Christmas, Lu Zhou's trip back to China began.
There were less than three days left. Before he returned to China, he planned on taking care of some things first. This way, he wouldn't have to worry about where to start.
The first was the "existence and smoothness of solutions for the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations" project.
For Lu Zhou, this was the most important research project other than plasma turbulence.
Ever since the establishment of the "Navier Stokes research project", there had only been one discussion meeting about the distribution of work. Now, he was going to leave Princeton. In order to not delay the research progress, he had to explain the situation to his research partners.
The next day, Lu Zhou went to Nassau Hall and submitted his vacation application. He then went to the Princeton mathematics building and found Professor Fefferman's office.
When he arrived, Professor Fefferman was discussing with his students about next month's American Mathematical Society conference.
When Professor Fefferman saw Lu Zhou at the office door, he quickly noticed the leave slip in Lu Zhou's hand.
He smiled and said, "You plan on going back to China?"
Lu Zhou: "Yeah, compared to Christmas, Chinese New Year is our vacation. I'll probably come back in mid-February."
After Professor Fefferman heard Lu Zhou's words, he nodded and said in a relaxed tone, "You really need a vacation to relax. Very few scholars would push themselves so hard and participate in so many research projects in such a short period of time."
"Push myself that hard?" Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I don't think I'm pushing myself. Research itself is a fun thing."
"I thought so too when I was young." Professor Fefferman smiled and said, "But now I find out that no matter how interesting a mathematics problem is, it should be done in moderation."
Lu Zhou said, "… That's because you've already won all the honors."
At the beginning of this year, the Wolf Foundation announced the list of winners. The most influential mathematics award winner was Professor Fefferman.
In the field of mathematics, the Wolf Prize was similar to a lifetime achievement award. It was mainly awarded to mathematicians over the age of 40 to recognize their long-term contributions to the mathematics community.
As the youngest Fields Award winner in history, Fefferman was given the title of genius when he was young. Now, in his later years, he received a high evaluation of the Lifetime Achievement Award. As far as being a mathematician was concerned, he had no regrets in his life.
"How could that be? I can't win all the awards, not to mention I'm still missing Ah Xuan. "Professor Fefferman said with a smile," Anyway, enjoy your life now. I won't send you any emails before February. "
Lu Zhou: "What about the Navier – Stokes equation project?"
Professor Fefferman insisted, "We'll talk about it after a month."
Seeing that he had no intention of changing his mind, Lu Zhou shrugged helplessly.
"Alright, if you insist."
…
In addition to the research project with Professor Fefferman, the "Collatz conjecture" project led by Lu Zhou also came to an end.
Perhaps it was because the corresponding author was Lu Zhou, or perhaps it was because of the Collatz conjecture's appeal to number theory enthusiasts, but the arXiv thesis caused quite a stir in the number theory community.
Many people called the proof of the Collatz conjecture another victory for the "Group Structure Method".
What surprised people the most was that this time, it wasn't Lu Zhou who did it himself, but it was his three students who did it …
On the morning of the 27th, there was still one day before the flight back to China.
Lu Zhou was sitting in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was reviewing Vera's thesis.
Although he had seen the entire proof process and there were no major problems, as their supervisor, he had the obligation to help them carefully check the thesis before it was officially submitted. He had to eliminate some small problems in the details.
Also, he had to confirm the author's name.
According to convention, the three people's names were listed on the thesis in order of contribution.
As for Lu Zhou, he was listed as the fourth author and corresponding author.
Of course, as their mentor, he certainly had the right to take these results as his own, but as a principled boss, he definitely wouldn't do that.
Normal supervisors might not be willing to give these results to their students, but this wasn't a problem for him.
It was just the glory of the Collatz conjecture.
Even if it was given to him, it would just be icing on the cake.
In addition to the author's name, this type of collaborative thesis would generally indicate the specific work done by each author in the thesis. Especially in the international community, major research institutions paid more attention to this part than simply ranking the authors.
However, when Lu Zhou was reading the thesis, he noticed that Vera didn't break down these things. Instead, she just said "the authors-contributed equally-to-this-work" and skipped this part.
According to the academic convention, adding this sentence to the thesis meant that all the authors had the same contribution in the thesis, and no one was redundant.
This also meant that regardless of whether or not there was an asterisk at the end of the name, all authors in the thesis would be regarded as co-authors.
"Is this really okay?" Lu Zhou checked the thesis from beginning to end and looked at Vera, who was standing across the desk. "This is unfair to you."
Even though he didn't directly participate in the follow-up research, as their supervisor, Lu Zhou had been following the progress of their project.
For example, as long as he was in Princeton, he would attend the weekly discussion meetings. He would also carefully read the in-progress reports.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Vera contributed more than 70% to the entire research project. Qin Yue and Hadi only contributed the remaining 30%.
Vera shook her head and said, "I just like to research these problems. As for who contributed more … I don't think it's a good idea."
"… Since you said this, I'll respect your decision," said Lu Zhou. He didn't try to convince her otherwise.
Qin Yue contributed a lot, so Hadi felt like he was taking advantage of the situation. However, since Vera was willing to share the credit equally with them, as a supervisor, he wouldn't say anything.
At most, he would feel a little bad for her. She could have received a higher evaluation.
After a pause, Lu Zhou placed the thesis on the table and looked at Vera.
"According to the original agreement, I will help you apply for graduation. The graduation certificate will be sent to you around March or April. If you plan on studying under me, it's best to submit your application as soon as possible so I can approve it. "
For students he was familiar with, the interview was just a formality. He knew what his students were capable of.
After listening to Lu Zhou's instructions, Vera nodded seriously.
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