The Science Fiction World of Xueba

The meal didn't come to an end until eight o'clock in the evening.

The Witten couple have long been accustomed to the delicacy of Chinese food during their stay in China, so they did not lose their composure.

On the contrary, the Deligne couple and the Wiles couple ate delicious and authentic Chinese food, which seemed to have opened up a new world for them.

After dinner, everyone drank tea and chatted leisurely in the living room.

At this time, there was a sudden knock on the door.

Pang Xuelin was slightly taken aback, and went to open the door.

Appearing in front of him were Deligne's assistant Eddie, and a tall, thin man in his fifties wearing glasses.

Before Eddie could introduce him, the thin man stretched out his hand first and said, "Professor Pang, hello, I'm David Gross, a professor of physics at Princeton University!"

"David Gross?"

Pang Xuelin was taken aback. Edward Witten had mentioned this name to him.

David Gross, a professor of physics at Princeton University, the peak of his academic career was the publication of a paper entitled "Ultraviolet Behavior of Non-Abelian Gauge Theory" in 1973, reporting the phenomenon of asymptotic freedom of quarks they discovered, And a negative β function is given. This theory reveals the structure of hadrons and explains the strong interaction well. It has caused a storm in the physics community and is one of the founders of quantum chromodynamics.

In the 1980s, Gross also collaborated with Jeffrey Harvey and others to construct hybrid strings, and together with Michael Green, John Schwartz and Edward Witten set off the first superstring revolution.

When Pang Xuelin and Edward Witten created M theory, they had referred to Gross' papers on the high-order asymptotic behavior of string perturbations and the behavior of scattering amplitudes of strings in the high-energy limit.

After coming to Princeton from China, Pang Xuelin was still thinking about whether to communicate with this big guy, but he learned from his population that David Gross went to CERN in Switzerland for an exchange half a year ago and never came back. .

Pang Xuelin was a little bit regretful at first, but he didn't expect that the big guy hadn't looked for him himself, but he had already taken the initiative to find him.

"Professor Gross, Eddie, please come in!"

Pang Xuelin smiled at Gross and Eddie,

Quickly turned sideways and let the two come in.

"Oh, who did I say? Gross, old man, long time no see!"

Seeing Gross and Eddie coming in, Witten was taken aback for a moment, stood up first, walked forward, laughed and hugged Gross and said hello.

Deligne and Wiles also stepped forward to greet Gross.

Afterwards, Deligne turned his gaze to Eddie and said, "Eddie, what's going on, why is Professor Gross here?"

Eddie said: "Professor Gross just got off the plane not long ago, and as soon as he came back, he yelled to find Professor Pang and Professor Witten. It happened that I knew that you were all having dinner at Professor Pang's house today, so I brought him here."

At this time, Witten and Gross also finished their greetings, and Witten asked curiously, "Gross, how did you find this place? Is there anything urgent?"

Gross asked, "Did you and Pang come up with M theory?"

Witten was taken aback for a moment, and said in surprise, "How do you know about M theory? Those two papers haven't been published in Science yet, so are you one of the reviewers?"

Gross sighed: "It really is you!"

After a pause, Gross said again: "The two papers you and Pang lost to me, Michael Green, John Schwartz, and Tulio Reggie by the editorial department of "Science". You and Green are both at CERN, and I knew at a glance that the M-theory paper was written by you. Unexpectedly, you and Professor Pang actually presented the five perturbative string theories and the eleven-dimensional supergravitational field theory to Unified. In addition, the article on the AdS/CFT duality is simply a stroke of genius, which greatly improves the possibility of the existence of M theory. You have thrown a super hydrogen bomb into the theoretical physics community. I have been researching for the past two days You and Pang's two papers became more interesting the more you study them, so I flew back from Switzerland overnight and wanted to chat with you face to face..."

Witten laughed and said, "So, both of my papers and Pang's have passed the draft?"

Gross said with a smile: "I don't think there is a big problem, and it will be published in March at the earliest."

With such an interruption from Gross, the people who were about to disperse suddenly couldn't leave.

Pang Xuelin simply took Witten and Gross to the study, and the group chatted about M theory.

Although Deligne and Wiles didn't know much about cutting-edge research in theoretical physics, they also joined in the fun.

Unknowingly, this gathering turned into a small academic seminar.

Gross discussed M theory with Witten and Pang Xuelin before and after, before he let them go.

By this time, it was eleven o'clock in the evening.

After Pang Xuelin sent Witten and the others away, it was already after twelve o'clock.

Pang Xuelin went to take a shower first, then walked into the bedroom wearing a bathrobe.

Wang Muhui was sitting on the bedside and reading a book. When she saw Pang Xuelin coming in, Wang Muhui smiled and said, "Are you done talking?"

Pang Xuelin smiled wryly and said: "It's finally over. I originally thought that I would spend good time with you on New Year's Eve, but I didn't expect it to become like this."

Wang Muhui smiled and said, "I think it's pretty good!"

She went to the study to refill the tea a few times. Although she didn't know what Pang Xuelin and Witten were talking about, judging from the expressions on these people's faces, Pang Xuelin must have made something great.

"Okay, Xiaohui, it's getting late, let's go to bed early too!"

Pang Xuelin snapped off the ceiling light in the bedroom, leaving only the dim light of the desk lamp on the bedside table.

Pang Xuelin turned over and entered the bed, and soon, the waves rolled up.

...

Fortunately, Gross did not continue to look for Pang Xuelin and Witten in the next few days except for New Year's Eve.

Pang Xuelin stayed with Wang Muhui for a few days in peace.

On February 16, Pang Xuelin and Witten successfully received the receipt from the editorial department of Science magazine. Their paper has successfully passed the peer review and will be officially published in March.

Regarding this, neither Pang Xuelin nor Witten caused much disturbance in their hearts.

Time passed day by day, and before I knew it, it was March 1st.

On this day, Pang Xuelin had just finished his Ponzi geometry theory class and returned to his office when Deligne's secretary Eddie hurried in with a magazine.

"Professor Pang, this is the latest issue of "Science". Professor Deligne asked me to send it to you."

"Thanks!"

Pang Xuelin took the magazine from Eddie, and was stunned when he saw the cover for the first time.

On the cover page of the science magazine, on the left and on the right is a profile photo of myself and Edward Witten looking at each other, and in the center of the photo is a very large title.

M-Theory: The Ultimate Theory of Physics? "

()