The class seemed to have just started.
Lu Zhou gently pushed open the back door and looked at the middle-aged professor who was writing on the blackboard. He didn't disturb the professor or the other students. He didn't even disturb the guy sleeping next to the door. Instead, he found an inconspicuous seat in the back of the lecture hall and sat down.
Inspiration wouldn't come to him by itself; he had to find it himself.
Lu Zhou agreed with what Fermi once said. Thinking about why some obvious problems were obvious could help deepen one's understanding of those esoteric problems.
Whether it was in physics or mathematics, there were precedents for this.
When he was in Princeton, whenever Lu Zhou encountered a problem that he couldn't solve, he would take some time to teach undergraduate students or occasionally go to other professors' classes to find inspiration.
For example, when he was researching Goldbach's conjecture, Professor Fefferman's number theory class gave him a lot of inspiration. This wasn't because Lu Zhou taught anything esoteric in class. On the contrary, Lu Zhou only taught some very simple things …
The middle-aged professor standing on the podium cleared his throat and spoke.
"Quantum mechanics is a very esoteric subject. If you really want to understand it, its existence will even subvert your understanding of the microscopic world, physics, and even classical philosophy. Although I know my voice may be good for sleep, I don't recommend you to sleep in the first lecture … "
The classroom was filled with laughter. Lu Zhou, who was sitting in the back row, couldn't help but smile.
It seemed that this professor was a young scholar with some teaching skills. At least he didn't read the PowerPoint presentation as soon as he opened the textbook.
However, his voice wasn't loud, which was probably a problem.
At least the guy sitting next to Lu Zhou didn't plan on waking up yet.
The middle-aged professor looked at the few people who had woken up and those who hadn't woken up yet. He shrugged and continued to speak.
"We all know that the STAR-2 demonstration reactor in Haizhou was successfully ignited under the command of our school's Professor Lu. Our country's controllable fusion power generation technology is now at the forefront of the world, becoming the only country that has built a commercial reactor."
Hearing this, Lu Zhou, who was sitting in the back row listening to the lecture, suddenly felt embarrassed.
Why did quantum mechanics have to be related to him?
This isn't plasma physics.
However, the professor on the stage was quite enthusiastic. The students in the lecture hall were obviously interested in this topic. Even the guy who was sleeping soundly next to Lu Zhou raised his head sleepily and looked at the podium with a confused expression.
Lu Zhou noticed that the name and phone number of the lecturer were written on the title page of the quantum mechanics textbook under his arm.
Zhang Zhongqing?
Never heard of it …
"… According to public data, the peak internal temperature of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor, or the Pangu reactor, is as high as 130 million degrees Celsius, which is nearly nine times the temperature of the sun's center!"
Professor Zhang looked at the students in the lecture hall and was secretly happy. He knew that he had successfully captured the students' attention, so he immediately struck while the iron was hot.
"Ordinary materials definitely can't withstand this kind of temperature. Therefore, our country's STAR-2 demonstration reactor uses a magnetic confinement method to confine the deuterium-tritium mixture in the ionized state I in a closed magnetic cage.
"Then the question is, why does controllable fusion require such a high temperature to carry out the reaction? Or in other words, why can't fusion reactions be carried out at room temperature? "
The classroom went quiet.
The guy sitting next to Lu Zhou pouted and muttered.
"Of course not."
Lu Zhou happened to hear this, and he raised his eyebrows with interest. He was about to ask for his opinion. However, before Lu Zhou could speak, he continued to speak.
"… If this can be carried out at room temperature, then everything can undergo nuclear fusion."
Lu Zhou: "…"
"Is there a student who can stand up and speak?"
Professor Zhang, who was standing on the podium, looked around the classroom. He had to add, "This question has a typical grade." Whoosh!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
More than half of the people in the classroom instantly raised their hands.
"I know!" The female genius student in glasses, who was sitting in the first row, stood up and quickly said, "Because the nucleus is positively charged, there is a Coulomb repulsion between the nuclei. Only when the two nuclei are close enough can the strong interaction force overcome the Coulomb repulsion and fuse the two nuclei together. On a macroscopic level, only by increasing the heat in the system and accelerating the thermal motion of the molecules in the system can the nuclei collide with enough kinetic energy to undergo a fusion reaction. "
"Good answer." The middle-aged professor wrote down a score on the roster. He cleared his throat and said with a smile, "Then the question is, have you ever thought about why the strong interaction force can only occur at a very short distance?"
"Because … it's a short-distance force?"
"This is the explanation in the high school physics textbook, and it's no different from not saying it." Professor Zhang smiled and gestured for the student who stood up to answer to sit down. He then continued, "You're already college students now. In addition to knowing 'what', you should also know 'why'."
"Quantum field theory tells us that the interaction between particles is not at a distance, but it is carried out through a certain boson as a medium. For example, the electromagnetic interaction exchanges photons, the strong interaction exchanges gluons or mesons, and the weak interaction exchanges Z bosons … Some people might ask, what does this have to do with the range of the force we are talking about? "
As he spoke, Professor Zhang turned to the blackboard and began to write as he spoke.
"Let two distinguishable fermions be scattered (p + k → p '+ k'). Then, under the Bourne approximation, we can obtain the following relationship between the scattering cross section and the interaction energy …"
[ = -iV (q) (2π) δ (Ep' -ep), (q = p '-p)]
[…]
Who am I?
Where am I?
The guy sitting next to Lu Zhou looked up at the calculations on the blackboard. He had a muddled look on his face. He wondered if he had fallen asleep in class.
"The f * ck? Aren't we talking about nuclear fusion … What day is it? "
He only zoned out for two seconds, but he felt like he missed a semester's worth of classes.
Actually, he wasn't the only one.
Less than half of the people sitting in the classroom could understand what Professor Zhang was talking about.
Lu Zhou glanced at the muddled guy next to him, smiled, and spoke softly.
"You want to know?"
"I want … You can understand it?" The guy looked at Lu Zhou with a muddled look. Maybe it was because he hadn't woken up yet, but he didn't realize who was sitting next to him.
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If you want, I can teach you."
Professor Zhang put down the chalk in his hand and turned around. He looked at the muddled students and smirked.
It was normal not to understand.
Quantum mechanics itself was a difficult problem in physics.
Especially when it came to calculations, one couldn't do it without a certain mathematical foundation.
It wasn't a problem for him to write down a conclusion, but if he had to calculate it on the spot, he might not be able to do it before the end of class.
"The calculation process is very complicated." Professor Zhang put the chalk in his hand on the desk. He put his hands behind his back and smiled as he said, "If anyone can complete the rest of the calculation, I'll give them all of their grades for this class, and they don't have to come to this class anymore."
The lecture hall was dead silent.
The students looked at each other.
Even the graduate students who came to the lecture were muddled.
Professor Zhang smiled and shook his head. He was about to assign this problem to the students when a voice came from the back of the classroom.
"Can I use the blackboard?"
Zhang Zhongqing: "…???"
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.
