[From WEGA to STAR, was the 4 billion yuan spent worth it?]
Under this headline, the main body of the article was three paragraphs long. It gave a simple description of the past and present life of the STAR stellarator from an objective standpoint.
However, this so-called objectivity only lasted for less than five hundred words.
Even the 500-word content was just to pave the way for this predetermined article.
When Lu Zhou saw this, he raised his eyebrows with interest. He couldn't help but wonder what Academician Zhou was planning on doing. Therefore, he continued to read the main body of the article.
Soon after, he saw the gist of the article.
Simply put, there were only two main points in this scientific review article.
First, it was a bucket of cold water. From a scientific point of view, it pointed out that the one-second plasma confinement time was nothing new in the field of controllable nuclear fusion.
Then, it was cleverly written to highlight the work that the STAR stellarator project had done so far. They only spent 4 billion yuan to buy a "second-hand" machine from someone else.
As for the main idea of the article, other than criticizing the technical route of the stellarator, it also subtly labeled Lu Zhou as "greedy", "a waste of national resources", and "affecting the development of the country's controllable nuclear fusion industry".
As for why Academician Zhou did this, Lu Zhou could guess.
It was obviously because he wanted to beat Lu Zhou up before his wings were fully formed.
After all, the country's investment in the field of controllable nuclear fusion was limited. The more money that went to Lu Zhou, the less money that went to Lu Zhou.
As for whether this was useful or not?
It was somewhat useful.
A review article signed by a big name could, to a certain extent, influence the decisions of the higher-ups.
Not to mention that this wasn't a normal review article.
It was written by Zhou Chengfu, the head of the ITER China project team and the head of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center.
If Lu Zhou was an unknown scholar, he or she would have been slapped to death just from the weight of this review article.
As for Lu Zhou …
His influence might be there, but it would be relatively limited.
This was the aura of a Nobel Prize winner.
But then again, Zhou Chengfu wouldn't put down his pride to write something like this.
"Well written." Lu Zhou smiled and turned a page of the newspaper in his hand.
Seeing that not only was Lu Zhou not angry, but he even casually said, "Not bad," Sheng Xianfu couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you angry?"
The technical backbones of the STAR project team were all young and middle-aged scholars. Whether it was Professor Li Changxia or Professor Sheng Xianfu, they were only in their thirties. It was normal for them to be impatient.
After all, if he could keep his composure and know how to protect himself, he wouldn't have come to his side in the first place.
Lu Zhou expected him to ask this, so he smiled and said, "Do you think Academician Pan is angry?"
"I don't know … but are we just going to let it go?" Sheng Xianfu said indignantly.
"What else? Write a scientific review that criticizes the tokamak? And then offend more than half of the controllable nuclear fusion experts? " Lu Zhou threw the newspaper aside and said casually, "Then why am I still doing research? I'll just report to the newspaper."
Actually, it wasn't impossible to do it.
If unsolved problems were considered flaws, then any technical route could be used to find flaws.
For example, the tokamak was a magnetic field coupling between the external magnetic field and the plasma current. This was equivalent to running tens of millions of amperes of current on an unstable and turbulent conductor.
Serious problems such as twisted modes, magnetic surface tearing, and magnetic islands could lead to the collapse of the entire system. The consequences were far more dangerous than the stellarator, and it could even lead to equipment damage.
Therefore, every experiment on the tokamak was very cautious, and there was a reason for this.
Actually, Lu Zhou sometimes wondered if there would be some weirdo that would jump out and criticize him. Lu Zhou was so good at mathematics, and he could even solve the existence and smoothness of the Navier – Stokes equation, as well as the plasma turbulence problem. Why couldn't he help everyone solve twisted modes, magnetic surface tearing, and magnetic islands?
However, even Mr. Zhou wouldn't use this kind of ridiculous argument to attack his opponent.
Lu Zhou looked at Sheng Xianfu, who was still a little angry, and he spoke slowly.
"Facts speak louder than words. Our results are the biggest counterattack.
"Your top priority now is to prepare for the experiment in August.
"Next time, we have to challenge it for thirty minutes."
When Sheng Xianfu heard thirty minutes, he had a troubled look on his face.
"Thirty minutes … Isn't that too difficult for the STAR machine?"
Even the Wendelstein 7-X, which had upgraded the water-cooled divertor and improved the control scheme, was only at the edge of this number.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Are you scared?"
Sheng Xianfu looked at Lu Zhou's confident expression and paused for a second.
He went silent for a while before he smirked, and his fighting spirit was reignited.
"Of course not."
…
For the academic community, the problem of academic tycoons had been around for a long time.
Instead of discussing specific academic issues, they would elevate academic issues or academic debates to a moral, civil, or even political level. They would then use the knowledge flaws and conservative thoughts of the general public and even non-technocrats to incite their sense of justice, nationalism, or worship to attack their opponents. This was one of the common methods used by academic tycoons to attack each other.
Even a big name in the international academic community like Old Qiu had suffered when faced with the domestic academic community.
Don't argue, only refute, selectively report facts that were beneficial to oneself, and amplify them.
One had to admit that Zhou Chengfu's tactic was very experienced.
Even if Lu Zhou wanted to respond to this article, it would be difficult for him to refute Zhou Chengfu.
However, for Lu Zhou, there was no need to do this.
Results were always the best proof.
As for what Zhou Chengfu said, he didn't take it to heart at all.
Of course, even if he didn't care, there were still a lot of people who cared for him.
For example, Academician Pan.
Even though Old Academician Pan had retired, he still paid attention to the industry.
After he saw Zhou Chengfu's article, his first reaction was to call Lu Zhou and persuade Lu Zhou not to be impulsive. If Lu Zhou was impulsive, he would be playing into Zhou Chengfu's hands.
Lu Zhou obviously knew this, so he told Academician Pan not to worry about him.
He was very clear about what he should and shouldn't do at this time.
Other than Academician Pan, there was also Principal Xu from Jin Ling University.
Academician Xu's temper wasn't as good as Academician Pan's.
The STAR project was one of the key projects of Jin Ling University, and Lu Zhou was the pride of Jin Ling University. Professor Pan might still care about Zhou Chengfu's past, but Lu Zhou wasn't going to fall for this.
When Lu Zhou found him and was about to discuss the stellarator control plan with the old academician, Principal Xu immediately asked about this matter.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
