Ultimate Scholar

"I need your help."

Li Mu was a little surprised when he heard Edward Witten say these words.

Who is this?

The founder of M theory, the great master of superstring theory, the physicist most likely to be Einstein's successor, the best mathematician among physicists, the best physicist among mathematicians, Fields Medal Winner...

Too many titles are gathered on the head of this great god. It can be said that basically only others ask him for help. It is impossible to see him asking others to help himself, because no one can help him with his problems.

But now, he found Li Mu.

This also means that Edward Witten believes that Li Mu can solve the problems he encountered.

After being dazed for a long time, Li Mu said: "Professor Witten... First of all, I have to say that I am very honored to have your trust, but now there is an obvious problem - if you can't solve it, I probably will too. Difficult to solve."

"No..." Edward Witten said: "My problem stems from my ignorance of Li's expansion."

"Obviously, you are the person who understands Li's expansion best in the world now. I have no one to turn to but you."

Li Mu pondered for a moment, and finally said: "Anyway, Professor Witten, if you can ask me for help, of course I am also willing to lend a helping hand. Then tell me how I can help you?"

"I think it would be better for us to meet in person." Witten said, "Whether I come to you or you come to me, of course, to show my sincerity, I think it would be better for me to come to you."

"And before we officially meet, I will send you the problems I encountered, and we will discuss it when we meet. What do you think?"

"If you agree, I will buy a ticket to China in two weeks."

Li Mu smiled and said, "It's probably not necessary. Tomorrow I will go to Oxford University to become Professor Wiles' graduate student in mathematics, so if you come to China at that time, you will definitely not meet me."

Witten was stunned for a moment: "Mathematics graduate students..."

Li Mu's words caught him off guard, and he suddenly remembered the young man on the other end of the phone, who hadn't even graduated yet, and was still just a student.

He even publicly expressed his willingness to accept Li Mu as a student before...

In the end, he couldn't help but sigh: "I don't know what Wiles thinks he can teach you? He actually accepted you as a student..."

Oh, I suddenly remembered that I heard from Deligne that the reason why Li Mu was willing to be a student of Wiles was largely because Wiles gave him a very commemorative and precious pen , and at that time, Li Mu had just completed the proof of the Hail Conjecture, and it was not like what it is now. After shocking the mathematics world, he came over and turned the physics world upside down.

That old boy's luck... is really good.

He sighed, and then he said, "Then, I'll book a flight to the UK in two weeks, and then we'll discuss it at Oxford University?"

But Li Mu didn't immediately agree. After pondering for a moment, he said, "Why don't we set the time in one month's time."

"A month from now?"

Witten was taken aback, "Why?"

"I will go to CERN in a month to hold a report on Li's expansion." Li Mu said: "After the report is over, we can discuss your problem at CERN."

Hearing Li Mu's words, Edward Witten was stunned.

Li Mu was about to hold a report meeting on Li's expanded style, which immediately attracted his attention.

He asked in surprise: "Li's expanded report?"

God knows how long the physics community has waited for this report.

At least to some extent, since Li Mu's paper was released, physicists all over the world have been looking forward to it.

And they look forward to the stars and the moon, is it finally time to wait?

"Of course."

Li Mu affirmed this matter.

One month is the deadline he gave himself.

He wants to completely solve the problem of the standard model under Li's expansion within this month.

Of course, he is not aimless. After thinking of the reverse quantum statistical method before, his research has made great progress. After so many days, he has gradually found the key point.

The day when the problem is really solved can already be expected.

"I see, then as you said, we will discuss at CERN in a month's time." Witten said: "Of course, I will not be absent from your report. The entire physics community has been looking forward to this day for a long time." , I believe that day will be a feast for our physics community.”

Li Mu smiled and said, "Maybe."

"Okay, let's stop here first, I will send my question to your email soon... I very much hope that you can help me."

The phone hung up.

Li Mu sighed slightly, no matter what, Edward Witten was able to come to him for help, probably because of Edward Witten's obsession with proving M theory.

This kind of obsession made such a top scholar willing to let go of his pride and seek his help.

He can fully understand this.

After a while, he was notified of a new email.

It was the email from Witten, who had sent his question as an attachment.

After Li Mu downloaded the attachment, he opened it and saw that it was full of photos. The contents in the photos were just pieces of draft paper and the theoretical derivation process on it.

Apparently, it was Witten who directly took pictures of all his manuscripts, and then packaged them up and sent them over. \b

Li Mu didn't talk nonsense, so he just looked at it.

For M theory, although he has not studied it in depth, he is very clear about the content of this theory. After all, this is one of the most famous theories in mathematical physics. This physical theory has almost nothing to do with experiments. The most important thing is absolute mathematical rigor.

Very much to his taste.

If the superstring physics interpreted by the current M theory is not perfect enough, maybe he will also become a string theory scholar.

The first part is the process of Witten's combination of M theory and Li's expansion.

Using Li's expansion to avoid non-perturbation problems, M theory becomes perfect after combining with Li's expansion.

The problem of non-perturbation exists in all theories related to quantum field theory, and although M theory does not belong to quantum field theory, it has a very close relationship with quantum field theory, so the problem of non-perturbation also exists in M ​​theory , and restrict M-theory to become the ultimate theory that truly unifies all physics.

After all, to be the ultimate theory, you have to be able to describe all phenomena.

It's like some scholars once ridiculed superstring theory, which claims to be the ultimate theory, but it can't even describe the theory related to black holes.

Although it didn't take long for this sentence to be spoken, string theorists successfully used string theory to describe Hawking's radiation theory, and even derived the theory of relativity from it.

This is a kind of backward compatibility.

It's just that so far, there are very few "subordinate theories" that superstring theory can describe, like a castle hanging high in the air, supported by only a slender wooden stick.

"...so if you want to prove M-theory, besides directly finding the existence of 'string' and being able to prove its correctness, or you can only prove it by indirect methods such as discovering extra dimensions..."

"Either it is like the current plan with Witten, using Li's expansion to make M theory downward compatible with more low-level theories, and then realize the proof."

The more low-level theories are backward compatible, the more wooden sticks there will be to support M theory, which is like a castle in the air. At that time, the academic circle will naturally only admit its correctness.

Li Mu narrowed his eyes, thinking while watching.

For M theory, he has always had respect.

After formally proposing Li's expansion, he also considered using the historical expansion to improve M theory.

And now it seems that Witten has completely settled this matter.

And it has been pushed back a long way.

So where did the "almost insoluble" difficulty he said come from?

Li Mu is very curious about what the problem is, which can make Witten describe it with words like "almost unsolvable".

In this way, as he continued to read, finally, the problem Witten mentioned was finally revealed in front of Li Mu.

After reading this question, Li Mu was a little silent.

With a glance, Witten also commented below: [As you can see, no matter how I deal with it here, and how I change the calculation method in front, the mass here always becomes positive infinity, like a sudden explosion up! 】

Below it, Witten wrote another line: [To be honest, I am a little scared now. I have not told anyone about the problem I encountered. I only told you now. I believe you should also know that this There are only two possibilities for this situation, first, my calculation process is wrong, and second, the theory is wrong. But for the first case, I have repeatedly verified it for an unknown number of times, and I have not found any problems in the calculation process, so now only the second possibility remains.

It's hard for me to accept this fact, so I hope you can help me find the third possibility, please! 】

The last "please", it can be seen that Witten was very struggling to write.

But Li Mu understood very well.

At the same time, he also understood what Witten meant by "almost insoluble".

"The theory is wrong" means, M-theory is wrong!

This mathematical model, which was established by purely mathematical derivation and considered to be mathematically perfect, now has flaws in mathematics.

Once the news gets out, this theory, which has not been refuted for its mathematical rigor, will immediately be labeled as a "failure" in the physics community. \b\b

Of course, there is another possibility, that is, the Lie expansion is wrong.

But this possibility does not exist, and Li Mu has no doubts about it, not to mention that even Witten did not question the Li's expansion.

After Witten discovered such an astonishing error, he would definitely not believe that it was a problem with M theory at first, and he would definitely conduct more tests on Li's expansion.

Obviously, he determined that there is no problem with Li's expansion. \b

The most likely wrong thing can only be M theory, but he couldn't find the existence of the problem.

Why can't find the problem in both, but the wrong one can only be M theory?

Because the former is only a mathematical processing method after all, but it has only been applied to theoretical physics. Mathematical theory is "real" and there is no "falsifiability".

M theory is a physical theory, and any physical theory always has a "falsifiability" that can lead to its overthrow.

Therefore, Li Mu could imagine Witten's panic.

Moreover, this news is no less than a magnitude 18 earthquake to the entire physics community.

[M theory is wrong], in a sense no less than [the theory of relativity is wrong], [quantum mechanics is a pseudoscience].

Any physicist would probably go crazy after hearing the news.

However - Li Mu actually didn't care too much about this point.

He moved his gaze to his draft paper.

"Looks like, I found something incredible... something?"

This fatal problem encountered by M theory seems to be the inspiration to solve the problems he encountered?

With a little excitement and disbelief in his heart, he picked up his pen and began to deduce the somewhat obvious truth below.

"If you use the idea of ​​reverse quantum statistics... yes!"

"Whether it is the change in the mass of the W boson, or the concealment of the Zcs (3985) neutral companion state particle, or the problems encountered by the M theory, there must be another factor that has been hiding all the time."

[λφ^4+1/2σφ^2+c...]

until finally...

Li Mu looked at the solution he finally got in horror.

"Could it be... a new fundamental force!??"