The report ended in failure.
Even though the physics community was usually tolerant of world-class problems like this, as long as he could provide reasonable fixes to the problems in this thesis, no one would immediately sentence him to death. However, for him personally, this was still a heavy blow.
After all, under normal circumstances, unless the thesis had been around for a long time or was full of loopholes, even the most outstanding scholar would find it difficult to point out the errors in the argumentation process. This was especially true for scholars who weren't mainly engaged in research in this field.
Things like revising the thesis and communicating with the reviewers were usually done during the journal submission review process.
However, the report ended in such a fiasco.
He was frustrated, but he also couldn't help but feel humiliated …
"F * ck sake!"
Professor Brian threw the manuscript on the ground and clenched his fists. However, he was worried that he would hurt himself, so he didn't punch the table.
Everyone in the office looked at Professor Brian, who was furious. No one dared to make a sound.
Although the old man usually looked like an elegant old gentleman, it did not mean that he was like this all the time. After spending a lot of time with him, one would know that he wasn't as broad-minded as he looked.
Especially when he was angry, if anyone provoked him, as long as that person was still in Oxford, he would not be able to live a good life.
Professor Brian's chest heaved up and down. After a while, he finally calmed down.
His assistant, who was standing next to him, observed his expression. He hesitated for a bit before speaking.
"This isn't a fatal mistake. Even though we can't explain this problem, at least we used the scalar field on this space-time manifold to calculate the mass of the particle, m. Also, the computer simulation results are basically consistent … Maybe there are loopholes in our argument, but at least no one can prove us wrong."
Professor Brian's expression softened a little, but he still wasn't friendly.
"That's meaningless … Computer simulation results aren't always convincing, especially when it comes to problems like this." Professor Brian rubbed his eyebrows and said, "But you're right, no one can prove us wrong. It's just that it's not perfect."
Professor Brian took a deep breath and looked up. He cleared his throat and spoke.
"Okay, guys, get ready to work … The Asian professor is right, this loophole is critical. If we can't prove that the grid step size tends to zero, it will be a fatal flaw in our proof. It's a good thing that we discovered this loophole earlier. "
After hearing Professor Brian's words, everyone sighed in relief, and the office became busy again.
Before Professor Brian started to work, he walked to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee.
He went back to his desk and sat down. Before he started to solve this problem, he planned on setting the revision status of the thesis on arXiv.
However, when he logged on to the arXiv website, he saw that there was a new thesis on the Yang-Mills equations. It was the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap, the proposition that he claimed to have proved.
Professor Brian paused for a second and thought, "Who's this stupid?" He clicked on the thesis.
However, when he saw the title and author of the thesis, he was shocked.
Lu.Zhou？！
TF？！
He didn't have time to hesitate. He quickly glanced at the abstract and immediately jumped to the main body of the thesis.
However, the more he read, the more his eyelids began to twitch.
Especially when he saw the middle part, the key formula "m = √ (2 + O (λ ^ 3))". The fear in his eyes instantly turned into flames of anger.
Lu Zhou's proof is the same as mine?
The preprint that Lu Zhou posted also quoted Jaffe's thesis published in Annual Academic, as well as the asymptotic expansion of mass m on λ!
At most, there would only be a "tiny" deviation in the way of solving the problem … At least in his opinion, it was quite tiny.
For example, he used a scalar field on a space-time manifold, which was similar to the method used by Weinberg to establish the unified theory of weak electricity. However, Lu Zhou used a quantum field that corresponded to the classical action in the above problem, which was the quantum Yang-Mills field.
There was a thunderous roar in the office, and Professor Brian stood up from his chair angrily.
"There's no way this is a coincidence!"
He understood everything.
Why didn't Lu Zhou show up at the conference?
Why did a nobody from Jin Ling University appear on the scene?
Why was this "nobody" able to point out the weakness of his thesis?
It turned out that everything was set up. Everything was just to ruin his report. Then, while he was revising the thesis, Lu Zhou improved his proof idea and finally got the result before he could do it.
This kind of situation wasn't uncommon in the academic community, at least not in the physics community. When an idea was released, it wasn't put to good use. Instead, it would be quickly taken by other people in the industry, in order to compete for the "first" or "first" title.
However, he didn't expect a famous scholar like Lu Zhou to do something like this!
"Professor —"
The assistant who was sitting at the desk next to him looked at the professor who stood up. He was about to say something, but he swallowed it back down.
His twisted face was filled with anger.
When a person's eyes were filled with hatred, there was no point in saying anything.
Professor Brian stared at the thesis on the screen and gritted his teeth as he said, "Help me contact a BBC reporter. I have to let everyone know what this unscrupulous guy is up to!"
…
University of Oxford campus.
Scholars from all over the world left, and the academic atmosphere on the campus returned to its usual tranquil state.
On the asphalt road in front of a nearby cafe, two theoretical physics PhD students with books under their elbows walked side by side. Judging from the content of their conversation, they probably just came out of the library and were about to go back to their dorms.
The topic quickly changed from quantum chromodynamics to the latest research on gauge field theory.
"Did you hear? The strong interaction Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem was solved! "
"You mean Professor Brian Caro's proof? Wasn't that proven to be wrong? "
"Not him, I'm talking about Professor Lu's thesis."
"Lu? The Lu from Jin Ling University? "
"Don't you know? Last night, he posted the preprint on arXiv. At three o 'clock in the morning, my professor tweeted' unbelievable '. I even liked it when I woke up this morning. "
"On arXiv?! Thanks, I suddenly remembered I left something in the library, I'll go first! "
"…"
Outside the cafe, under a large umbrella.
Witten, who was wearing sunglasses, looked at the young man walking by on the side of the road and smiled.
"Looks like Professor Lu beat me to it."
He didn't rush back to CERN for the past two days. Instead, he talked with Dean Goddard about the new idea of "solving the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem from the perspective of string theory". However, it seemed like the discussion over the past two days was unnecessary.
After all, Professor Lu, who had always been known for his rigor, posted a preprint.
Finding problems in his thesis, especially in the field of mathematics, was even more difficult than writing a thesis himself.
Goddard was sitting across from Witten. He took a sip of his coffee and spoke as if he had expected this.
"As expected."
"There's a meeting at CERN the day after tomorrow." Witten looked at his watch and looked at Goddard. He said, "So, since the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem has been solved, do we still need to discuss it?"
Goddard: "Even though the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem has been solved, the problem of the strong interaction and electromagnetic interaction has not been solved. Are you not interested in the Nobel Prize?"
He knew Witten's weakness very well. Witten had started the era of string theory, but he didn't win the Nobel Prize. This had always bothered him.
Currently, it seemed like it was impossible to win the Nobel Prize with the M-theory. After all, there was no hope of this theory being verified for at least a century. However, string theory wasn't the only thing worth pursuing in the theoretical physics community. There was more than one way to the Grand Unified Theory.
However …
"Don't waste your time." Witten smiled and stood up from his seat. He said, "If he's right, then no one in this world is closer to the truth than he is. If you want to be ahead of him, you have to be far more talented than him. If I were twenty years younger … or thirty years younger, I would be interested in competing with him. But now … "
Witten paused for a second and looked at Goddard. He shrugged and spoke.
"Forget about me, do you have the confidence?"
Goddard didn't say anything. He reached out his index finger and gently touched his coffee cup. He then took a sip.
Aging was a sad topic.
Especially for people like him, who valued academia as much as their lives.
Even though he didn't mind having a few more wrinkles on his face, the slow thinking and decline of energy were irreversible. Whether it was his old friend Witten, they were no longer old enough to discuss academic problems for days and nights.
The era that belonged to them had already passed …
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