From Almighty Scholar to Chief Scientist

Another editor thought for a while and said, "We are in charge of physics, so it must be physics—tsk, only this Lin Xiao needs us to think about which aspect of the paper he publishes."

All the people present nodded in agreement, indeed, after all, no one knows that this great master has performed in mathematics, physics, materials science, and even biology last year.

Then the editor thought about it again, and his eyes lit up: "And a while ago, didn't he publish a paper on gravitons and the theory of relativity? Could it be... his paper is about this again?"

"Bingo! He actually unified the graviton and the theory of relativity in this paper! How long has it been since his last paper?" Elson snapped his fingers and sighed, but then he Helplessness appeared on his face again: "But now there is a problem that I don't understand a part of his thesis at all."

Everyone present was suddenly curious.

Elson can't understand either?

Elson is a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge. After all, he specializes in reviewing the manuscripts of those big names. They all have a very high level of knowledge.

Then, they all gathered around, trying to see what Elson didn't understand, but in the end, they were all silent.

They didn't understand either.

And this part is exactly the part that Lin Xiao uses supercomputers to verify.

The results verified by supercomputing can be directly substituted into the original formula, and its correctness can be easily checked, so there is no need for their reviewers to go to supercomputing for verification.

However, the mathematical method used by Lin Xiao, which requires the use of supercomputers for calculation, really made them all feel a sense of absurdity.

The mathematical derivation of their theoretical physics can also be completed with supercomputers?

These editors, what papers haven't been seen in so many years?What method have you never seen before?

They have never seen this method.

But the result is correct.

So these editors held a collective meeting for this purpose, and finally considered that this was Lin Xiao's thesis, and at least they couldn't find any problems during the process, so they passed this paper.

Until half a month later, the new issue of "Science" was released.

The physics community, which had been buzzing because of Lin Xiao's previous paper, suddenly fell silent collectively.

This paper silenced these physicists.

Chapter 394 P=NP!

"Now I need someone who understands both physics and mathematics to translate for me. What is Lin's paper about?"

At the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a physicist clapped the "Science" magazine on his hands, and looked at the other people around him, as if looking for the target person in his words.

And the person next to him said with a smile: "Maldasina, obviously, the person we have here who best fits your description is that guy Witten, but unfortunately, that guy is still in Huaguo, working in Lin's In the research institute, maybe he is discussing with Lin."

"That guy, did he encounter something that made him happy in Huaguo? Or is it that our Princeton Institute for Advanced Study has become unattractive in his eyes?"

Maldacena couldn't help complaining immediately, then lowered his head to look at the paper in his hand, took out his pen at the same time, and continued to deduce the part that stumped him.

It is also the part that makes the editors of "Science" feel confused, the mathematical derivation that needs to be completed by supercomputers

Juan Maldacina, like Edward Witten, is also a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His main research directions are general relativity and superstring theory.

Although he did not win the Fields Medal in mathematics as a physicist like Witten, he has also won many important awards in theoretical physics due to his research on general relativity, such as the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, Dirac Medal and Lorenz Medal and other prestigious awards.

In addition to these awards, he is only one step away from the Nobel Prize, but since he is only in his 50s now, he is relatively young compared with other Nobel Prize winners.

Hearing Maldacena's complaints, the professor next to him couldn't help laughing.

This professor is obviously also a bigwig, named Stephen Adler, whose main research is quantum field theory and elementary particles.

And because of his research on these two aspects, he couldn't help but sigh with emotion about Lin Xiao's paper: "But having said that, this paper is really powerful. Gravitons can be stably discovered at 70TeV, which I have never done before." I hope that the CEPC in Huaguo can be completed as soon as possible, so that I can see the birth of gravitons before I die."

Suddenly, Adler's words changed again, and he joked with a smile: "But having said that, now you should believe in the existence of gravitons, right?"

As a researcher of elementary particles, he obviously hopes that gravitons exist.

As a researcher of general relativity, Maldassi belongs to the group that does not believe in the existence of gravitons.

Maldacena curled his lips and said: "I admit that Lin's paper is very good, but I still want to say that unless we can really find traces of gravitons based on his theory, or in the future 70TeV collisions, exactly I will be sure of the existence of gravitons only if I discover gravitons, otherwise, I will keep my non-commentative attitude.”

Adler burst into laughter immediately, and then he didn't care about Maldacina's face, and said, "How come you don't comment now? I remember when Lin published the last paper, you said ' It's just a mathematical coincidence, gravitons or something, impossible, absolutely impossible', and then say 'Lin is just a juggler playing with his mathematical talents in physics, and will never look at him again There are papers on this 'whatever."

"Hey! Speaking of which, you seem to be watching right now?"

Maldacena's face suddenly pulled down, how could such a thing be said directly?

"Adler, it was just a casual remark at the beginning, how can you take it seriously?"

"Yes, yes, yes, no serious." Adler laughed again.

Looking at Adler's teasing smile, Maldassina couldn't bear it at last, so he stood up decisively and said, "I'm leaving, I'm going back to the office to continue my research."

Then he picked up the "Science" magazine and left here.

Adler shook his head with a grin, but didn't say anything.

He could see that Maldacena was very happy with Lin Xiao's paper. After all, Maldacena's most important achievement in the past was his achievement in quantum gravity.

Quantum gravity is a theory that quantifies the gravitational field, which is what theoretical physicists have always wanted to overcome, a theory that unifies the gravitational force of relativity and quantum mechanics.

And Maldacena's most famous achievement is an important achievement in this area, which is the most reliable representation of the holographic principle in the world—that is, the AdS/CFT correspondence, the conjecture about the equivalence of string theory in the ADS space , and the boundary defined in the AdS space, according to conjectures, some theories of quantum gravity are equivalent to other theories of quantum mechanics in one less space-time dimension.

His paper on this achievement was cited more than 2015 times in 1, the most cited paper in the field of high-energy physics, and it has exceeded 2020 times since [-].

It is precisely because of this that Leonard Suskind, known as one of the fathers of string theory, commented on him as "perhaps the greatest theoretical physicist of his generation".

Now, Lin Xiao's thesis will thoroughly combine gravity with quantum mechanics, graviton and relativity. As a researcher in this field, Maldacena will certainly be happy.

And he has no reason to be unhappy, after all, for him, it can even help him to carry out the next research better.

It's just that it is probably because the unification of the two requires the intermediary product of gravitons, which makes him feel a little awkward.

Of course, as long as you accept the current fact, physicists who study relativity and quantum mechanics will no longer have to hold their own opinions as before. In the future, everyone will call each other brothers and say that what they study is the theory of everything. up.

For Stephen Adler, who studies quantum field theory and elementary particles, he just had to have fun.

"Graviton, graviton, hehehe~ It seems that in this final round, our quantum mechanics is better."

He smiled, and finally sighed helplessly. Unfortunately, he is already over 80 years old, and he can only read papers or something at ordinary times. As for spending energy on research and other things, he can't do it.

……

Lin Xiao's thesis has once again become a topic of keen discussion in the scientific community. At the same time, because this time the gap between quantum mechanics and relativity has been resolved, the top theories in the two major physics have finally begun to move towards a unified path, so even Some ordinary people also feel unclear, let alone the theory of everything mentioned in it.

It is called Theory of Everything in Chinese, and [Theory-of-Everything] in English. For various languages, these words that sound powerful can obviously attract the attention of many people, especially when it is linked to science, not When sci-fi.

However, compared with ordinary people's various words such as "lying a trough", "I bought Karma's" and so on, which contain many amazing words, although the scientific community is more active about Lin Xiao's paper, but at the same time Also maintained a more serious attitude.

Because, the entire scientific community felt extremely puzzled by the mathematical methods Lin Xiao used in his proof.

Let’s not talk about how to use supercomputing to deduce the mathematical process. Just talking about the large number of formulas that Lin Xiao needs to run in the supercomputing has already made both mathematicians and physicists have only one thing in mind. Thought, that is "that's weird".

So in a short period of time, no one understood how Lin Xiao thought of using this method to prove it, and it happened to be correct.

No one can imagine where Lin Xiao's idea came from. It seems that there is a method that he suddenly learned from the Creator, and then used this method in the proof process.

Until one week after Lin Xiao’s paper was published, Gerd Faltins, director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Max Planck Society, published a short article describing his views on Lin Xiao’s paper.

[Everyone knows that I am not a physicist, I am just a mathematician, so let’s not talk about the physical achievements of Lin’s paper, I will only talk about the part that everyone wants to know.

At first I learned that part of the mathematical process in Lin's paper was very difficult to know, as if I knew the standard answer in advance, but now I have read it, and now I can be sure that if Lin did not learn from God If there is no standard answer, then there is only one possibility, Lin has already begun to approach God—well, just kidding.

All in all, Lin's process uses the idea of ​​P=NP problem. Although it is hidden deeply, it can be seen that Lin specially provided a method to solve NP problem by solving P problem for his physical problem. Means, that is to say, he simplified this problem into a problem that can only be solved by a computer!

...]

With the publication of this short article by Faltings, the scientific community is even more shocked!

P=NP!

Chapter 395 The World's Attention

In this review article, Faltins' explanation of the difficult mathematical derivation in Lin Xiao's paper made everyone feel incredible.

It actually has something to do with the P=NP problem.

This is really a bit too incredible.

One is an important unsolved problem in physics, and the other is an important problem in mathematics, especially the P=NP problem. Strictly speaking, it belongs to computer mathematics. As a result, the idea of ​​this problem is now being used to solve all problems. Unified Quantum Mechanics and Relativity in Theory?

For the scientific community, Lin Xiao is obviously suspected of showing off his skills very seriously.

Of course, showing off skills is fine, the most important thing is that after showing off, others can't understand.

Even though there is now an explanation given by Faltings, it still makes it difficult for most people to understand.

Therefore, under this article by Faltings, it also triggered many bitter comments.

"I know every word, but why can't I understand anything when combined? 』

"Mr. Faltings, can you explain to us more, how did the several steps here come about?"I still don’t understand it T-T』

"It is strongly recommended that Mr. Faltings publish a more... stupid version. Looking at Lin's paper now, it seems that I have returned to the era when I was dominated by the teacher when I was in college, although it has become a I'm an associate professor of physics at MIT, but I still can't forget that feeling.』

"Hey, even if you felt dominated by the teacher at that time, I'm afraid it's not as helpless as being dominated by Lin at this time, right?Every time I see a paper published by Lin, and it is the kind that I must read in my profession, I only feel pain in my heart, just like the multidimensional field theory at the beginning. To be honest, there are people in the world who really understand multidimensional field theory. , besides Lin, how many people are there? 』

『Professor Faltings, please explain to us again! 』

……

Amidst these calls, Faltins finally responded.

[I think I have explained it very clearly. If you don't understand it, I suggest you read more books. If you still don't understand it, then don't study this paper, or change jobs or something. Of course, you can go to Ask Lin if there is a better explanation]

Obviously, Faltings does not intend to explain further.

This makes those who study physics feel miserable. If this big math guy doesn't care, what about physics people who are not very good at mathematics?

Just like Einstein at the beginning, he was not very good at mathematics—of course, this is relatively speaking, so he encountered mathematical problems when studying the theory of relativity, and finally went to Hilbert to help him Solved this problem, and because of asking Hilbert for help, he also made him worry that Hilbert would rush to publish his paper.

So this can be regarded as a major reason restricting the development of theoretical physics. After all, many problems to be solved in theoretical physics require extremely complex mathematics to solve, and most of the top mathematicians do not study physics, which leads to many physics problems. Difficult development dilemma.

The appearance of Lin Xiao made these predicaments seem to be non-existent, but this is for him, and for those physicists, they still face such predicaments, so Lin Xiao's For them, there is still a feeling of dimensionality reduction blow.

So, in the end, these physicists also followed Faltins' suggestion and went to Lin Xiao's extranet account to inquire, hoping that he could give a fool's version of the explanation on that part of the mathematics content.

However, when the world's scientific community is obsessed with this paper, what is Lin Xiao doing?

……

Dingguang Research Institute.

"This paper of yours is really too embarrassing, even a little incredible."

Witten flipped through the science magazine in his hand, looked at the paper on it, and exclaimed to Lin Xiao who was drinking tea in front of him.

Even the cover of this issue of "Science" magazine was made with the theme of Lin Xiao's paper, including "Nature" which also quoted and gave a highlight.

The simple understanding of highlights refers to recent important achievements and research hotspots. Only those really important and valuable papers can be cited by "Nature", let alone cited "Science" articles. For these two competitors, This is obviously very rare.

Putting down the teacup, Lin Xiao smiled and said: "It's okay, it's mainly a coincidence, if you didn't suddenly bring up the problem of P=NP, I wouldn't have thought that I could finally solve it from this direction, so ah, it's really thanks to you gone."

"Hehe, if this can be regarded as my help, then I can only say that it is good. In this way, I will have something to brag about in the future, because I brought a little hint to Lin, so that he can finally solve the unification problem." The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, how to say it can be regarded as a little sense of participation."

Witten said with a smile.

But Lin Xiao spread his hands and said with a smile: "Of course there is no problem. If someone asks me that, I will answer it that way."

"Okay." Witten laughed, and then said: "However, I also saw that many people on the Internet said that they couldn't understand the P-form problem of your derivation step. Don't you plan to make a report or something? "

"Well..." Lin Xiao thought for a while, and said, "This can indeed be considered, um, then it will be next month."

"Next month?" Witten nodded, "It seems that I have to stay in next month."

"To be honest, I still don't feel like leaving." Witten sighed with emotion.

The research atmosphere of the Dingguang Research Institute is not inferior to any place. For him, it is the most attractive, and research is obviously the most important in his life. The quality will be greatly improved.

Of course, apart from the environment, for Witten, the most important thing here is to be able to communicate with Lin Xiao almost at any time, and in the process of communicating with Lin Xiao, he can always get something useful, which is even Things he couldn't even feel at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

And at this time, Lin Xiao naturally wouldn't let it go, and immediately said with a smile: "Then just stay, and the guest researcher will directly promote you to a lifelong researcher, how about it?"

Witten waved his hand, sighed and said, "Forget it, Lin, you better stop tempting me. After all, I can't let my family stay in the United States. After all, I stayed here for almost two months. My family almost blew up my phone."

"That's it, okay then." Lin Xiao could only shake his head regretfully.

Family is everything, well, everyone has the potential to be a family hero.

"But having said that, remember the inspirations you told me at the beginning? Now I think, I have probably found a way to perfectly interpret the existence of strings."

"Is that so? It seems that I want to congratulate you in advance. The proof of the existence of strings will probably make you the greatest physicist from the past to the future."