Great Country Academician

Xu Chuan originally thought that Mr. Yang was trying to persuade him to delay the construction of the large powerful collider. Unexpectedly, after hearing his question, the old man fell silent instead.

In the living room, the quiet atmosphere passed for a while before Mr. Yang let out a long sigh of relief and said, "If you asked me this question a few months ago, I would probably still hold the opinion against the construction."

"But today, to be honest, I'm also a little confused."

"In the past, the research on large colliders has been going on for nearly a hundred years. After countless experiments and researches, it is coming to an end, and the standard model has also been established."

"Back then, all that remained was to test the Standard Model and a few conjectures. And the risk of this kind of research being fruitless is high."

"Therefore, I think that without building a super-large collider, high-energy physics still has other directions worth exploring. If the money is invested in other more practical research, then the benefits may be more considerable, and at the same time more feasible."

After speaking, he looked at Xu Chuan, took a deep breath, and continued: "And at that time, I thought that I could only see things within the standard model in my life."

"I didn't expect you to bring a new dawn."

"I thought CERN could do it, but it turned out that they couldn't do it either."

"Now it seems that if you want to completely break the standard model in this era and find existence beyond it, you probably have hope."

"Maybe you haven't reached the apex in theoretical physics, but the method you use to establish mathematics is undoubtedly the most promising."

After a pause, he continued: "But now I still feel that spending 200 billion to build a large collider is a waste of money."

"Although controllable nuclear fusion has been realized under your leadership, the country still has a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built, and many places are still poor."

"No one knows how long it will take for a breakthrough in the field of basic science, especially high-energy physics and particle physics, to be transformed into applied technology."

"In this regard, even if it reaches the peak, it may not be able to surpass other countries by a lot."

Hearing Mr. Yang's words, Xu Chuan understood the complicated thoughts in the old man's heart.

In the past, he was indeed resisting the construction of a large-scale strong particle collider. On the one hand, he was out of patriotism and did not want to waste money and people.

After all, 200 billion is a huge number for Huaguo, which has just entered the new century. Even in the 1990s, the country's annual GDP was only a few trillion yuan.

It is undoubtedly not worthwhile to spend a lot of money to build a basic scientific facility, but it cannot be transformed into the strength or harvest of the country itself in a short period of time.

On the other hand, it is the road of high-energy physics, which can be said to have come to the end of this century before the appearance of inert neutrinos.

Things within the standard model have been basically perfected, and things beyond the standard model were impossible to observe in the past.

In this case, if we go to build a large-scale strong particle collider, we can say that there is very little to gain.

However, the situation has changed now. The appearance of sterile neutrinos, particles beyond the standard model, has shocked the entire physics world.

Something beyond the Standard Model is the hope that the entire physics community has been chasing.

It can help the scientific community to understand the whole world and the whole universe at a deeper level.

And dark matter, dark energy, and how to incorporate gravitation into the framework of quantum mechanics and physics all need to break through the standard model.

If this discovery is further confirmed, it means that the basic physics that human beings have almost stagnated has taken a big step forward, and it also indicates that the universe has opened a new window to human beings.

Through this window, there will be a whole new physical world.

So Mr. Yang was also conflicted and confused at this meeting.

On the one hand, from the 1990s, he knows how difficult the country's economic development is. 200 billion is not a small number.

On the other hand, it is the inner desire for new physics and new world.

After all, for a physicist, few facilities are more intriguing than a large, intense particle collider.

After thinking about this clearly, Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Building a large-scale strong particle collider is itself a suggestion I made to the higher authorities."

"If you want to ask my opinion, I will naturally support it with all my strength."

"I believe you, Mr. Yang, are very clear about how important the large-scale strong particle collider is to the development of high-energy physics and particle physics."

"As for the funding, although 200 billion is a lot of funding, if this money is used to open up a new world in the physics world, it must be worth it."

"What's more, the controllable nuclear fusion technology has been realized. In the field of energy alone, the annual savings are at least trillions, and 200 billion is just a fraction."

Mr. Yang glanced at him and said softly: "But it is undeniable that this is not a small sum. With 200 billion funds, this kind of project is a super project in the world. Can you control it? "

Xu Chuan coughed lightly, and said with a smile: "Based on the previous exchange rate, 200 billion RMB is actually only 30 billion rice gold."

"As far as I am concerned, the investment in the controllable nuclear fusion project alone is about 80 billion meters of gold. If converted, it is almost 550 billion."

As soon as these words were spoken, the living room suddenly fell silent.

It was only then that everyone remembered that although the person in front of him looked young, the projects and funds he had passed through were no longer comparable to them.

Just one controllable nuclear fusion project can be worth two semi-large strong particle collider projects.

In their eyes, the big projects and big numbers are just commonplace for this person.

With a slightly awkward expression on his face, Old Mr. Qiu forcibly broke the awkward atmosphere. After laughing twice, he said, "I forgot about that. For you, 200 billion is really not much."

On the side, Mr. Yang didn't care too much. He nodded and said, "Since you have that confidence and ability, I'll leave this matter to you."

After a pause, he continued: "To be honest, for a person like me who has already stepped into the soil with one foot, no one knows whether he will be able to open his eyes and see the sun tomorrow. Maybe I can't see it anymore. A new world has emerged."

Mr. Yang's words immediately resonated with the other two old people in the living room.

Even Mr. Qiu, the youngest, is already more than seventy years old.

Not to mention Mr. Yang, after the last few days of this year, he will turn 100 years old.

Although Xu Chuan fully understands it, he can feel it more or less.

On the side, Pan Deming, who hadn't spoken much, said, "It doesn't matter if you don't see it, there are successors, and science is always moving forward, that's enough."

After a slight pause, he changed the subject and said, "Speaking of which, it's a good time for you to come here. I was talking about his research with Xu Chuan before."

"He encountered a very troublesome problem in the strongly correlated electron system. Lao Yang, you are engaged in condensed matter physics. Do you want to know more about it?"

Hearing this, Mr. Yang looked up curiously, with some interest in his cloudy eyes, and asked, "Strongly correlated electronic system? What's the problem?"

Xu Chuan coughed lightly, and said, "I made an unexpected discovery while researching KL-66 before, so I won't bother you, Mr. Yang."

"What? Look down on me, a bad old man who is about to go to the ground?" Old Mr. Yang's tone was a little passionate, and he stared at Xu Chuan and said, "I still have a little bit of research in condensed matter physics."

Xu Chuan was a little dumbfounded. The older he was, the weirder his personality would be, and he was more competitive. It was true.

But then again, there are not many domestic scholars who can exchange research on condensed matter physics with him.

Now that we met by chance, Mr. Pan also took the initiative to bring up this matter, so we can communicate with each other.

After thinking for a while, he briefly talked about his research these days.

On the side, old Mr. Qiu also came over to listen in. Although he is a mathematician, the problem of physics is often connected with mathematics and physics, not to mention his physical ability is not low.

It should be known that he is the only person in the history of Harvard University who has concurrently served as a professor of the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Physics. Although condensed matter physics is not within the scope of his research, he still knows something about it.

After listening to Xu Chuan's question, Mr. Yang frowned and thought for a while before he said: "Generally speaking, strongly correlated electrons refer to substances whose interaction between electrons is much greater than their kinetic energy. These systems have very rich physical phenomena. , such as high-temperature superconductivity, giant magnetoresistance, metal-insulator transition and other directions.”

"Although I have paid attention to the KL-66 material researched in South Korea, I am too old to do experiments and learn more about it."

"In the absence of specific experimental data, judging from what you said, you want to use this system to calculate the critical magnetic field strength of enhanced superconducting materials, theoretically it should be possible , but I am afraid it will be very difficult.”

"If the Green's function method, density functional theory, dynamic mean field theory and other methods are not normally applicable, I can think that the problem you are studying has surpassed the ordinary strongly correlated electron system and entered the A non-equilibrium strongly correlated system."

"Perhaps you can try that."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan thought for a while, and asked, "Study the electron dynamics behavior of strongly correlated systems in non-equilibrium state?"

This is indeed a road that he has not studied yet.

Mr. Yang nodded and said, "I don't know if you have studied this, but if you haven't, you can give it a try."

After a slight pause, he continued: "In addition, maybe you can consider the direction of the strongly correlated electron system and the strong interaction force. It may not have anything to do with this, but it may allow you to better understand the electrons in the strongly correlated system. properties and interactions."

PS: There is another chapter in the evening, asking for a monthly pass.