From all-round academic master to chief scientist - Chapter 187 June 26, 2020

Italian University, Sapienza University of Rome.

In the office of Professor George Parisi.

“Huh? A review request from Physical Review Letters?”

After checking his inbox as part of his daily routine, George Parisi saw an email from Physical Review Letters.

As one of the most important scientists in quantum mechanics, George Parisi has won too many awards in the physics community. Basically, he has not won anything except the Wolf Prize in Physics and the Nobel Prize in Physics. In addition, I have won all the other awards that should be received, such as the Dirac Medal, the Boltzmann Medal, the Lagrange Prize… etc., and even the Wolf Prize in Physics and the Nobel Prize in Physics , he is completely waiting in line now. If ranked according to importance, he might be able to get it in the next few years.

His research directions are mainly quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems, so “Physical Review Letters” will often ask him to serve as a reviewer for some quantum mechanics manuscripts.

It just so happens that he has nothing to do now, so it would be good to review this article, and it would be worthy of “Physical Review Letters” to come to him for review, and maybe some good ideas can be found in it.

Then he opened the email and downloaded the attachment, but at this time, he saw a note in “Physical Review Letters”.

[Professor Parisi, the author of this article is the prover of Goldbach’s conjecture and the twin prime conjecture, so don’t just throw it away after reading the title and abstract of the paper. 】

Seeing this, George Parisi couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile. Although he had indeed done such a thing, it was because the paper was so nonsense that he did not reply for more than two months and was finally edited. Only after finding him did I find out the whole story.

Of course, since this paper was written by a genius in the mathematics world, he was even more interested. I believe that such a person would not be able to write such a nonsense paper.

So he opened the paper and started reading.

But after he read the title and abstract, he suddenly realized why the editor had to give him a special reminder.

At first glance, isn’t this paper even more nonsense than the one he reviewed before?

What multi-dimensional field, the same space field in all dimensions overlaps together, which means that all dimensions are closely connected, and dimensions influence each other?

What is this superposition of situations? The three-dimensional vacuum zero-point energy is actually the average of the total material energy in zero, one, two and three dimensions?

Why don’t you write science fiction novels here?

Is there any other theory that dark matter is actually the projection of matter from other dimensions in the three-dimensional world? The dark matter we currently observe all originates from the zero, two, and four dimensions. Since the projection of higher-dimensional matter cannot pass through interdimensional projection, it can only be projected one dimension after another. Therefore, the currently observed dark matter is only 26.8% of the total mass and energy of the universe, as well as dark energy and so on, also seep in from other dimensions——

At this time, George Parisi once thought that he had read something wrong. What he was actually reading was a science fiction author who, in order to reflect the awesomeness of his novel, then randomly made some very high-sounding theories. Come and do something.

However, after George Parisi thought of the author of this paper, all his impatience dissipated.

No matter how nonsense a theory published by a famous person in the academic world is, they still need to read it carefully, because only after reading it can they express an opinion on it. This is also a reflection of the other party’s achievements in the past. kind of respect.

In particular, the author of this quantum physics paper, which seems to be extremely nonsense, is a super famous scholar. After all, he is already a scholar destined to win the Fields Medal in the future.

For such a person, even a Nobel Prize winner in science would have to treat him as a scholar of the same status, so George Parisi stopped thinking about it and began to read Lin Xiao’s paper seriously.

Physicists are usually not as good at mathematics as mathematicians. Of course, there are some exceptions, such as George Parisi, who is very good at mathematics. So when Lin Xiao’s paper officially entered the process of mathematical method demonstration, although George Parisi Parisi’s understanding also slowed down, but he could still understand.

However, he still marveled at the use of mathematics in this paper. He had read countless physics papers, and the depth and breadth of the use of mathematics in this paper were unprecedented in George Parisi’s life. See.

Moreover, the relationship between them is so coordinated and the structure is so rigorous that even George Parisi would be amazed by the beauty of mathematics at this time.

Of course, he did not forget to verify the theory of this paper.

He wanted to find errors in it and reject the paper, which he still considered to be just a whimsical one.

However, the result disappointed him.

In these theoretical processes, he did not find any flaws in the argumentation process. No matter from the previous mathematical argumentation process to the subsequent physical analysis process, he could not find any errors.

If this was a paper written in other fields, he would probably have been unable to help but praise it. This kind of paper, which could be called a master, would be pleasing to his eyes even if he read it a hundred times.

But this paper is no ordinary paper. The results mentioned in it are still no less than “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, which is the article on the theory of relativity that Einstein first published.

Once this paper is released, the physics community, which has been silent for who knows how long, may be like a meteorite with a diameter of 100 meters falling into the ocean, causing a shocking wave.

Suddenly, his eyes became more solemn, and he also felt a great sense of responsibility.

Next, he must review all the processes in this paper more rigorously. If this theory shows its importance, then as a reviewer, he will also feel honored.

…………

…

2020, June 26——

For the world, this day will be remembered in history and will be remembered by future scientists forever.

Just because a paper was published.

…

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton School of Natural Sciences.

“Mr. Witten, this issue of Physical Review Letters is here.”

In Edward Witten’s office, his door was knocked, and a staff member from the institute came outside and handed him a journal.

“OK, thanks.”

Witten nodded to the staff member, took the journal, removed the plastic film outside, and took a look. “Physical Review Letters” Volume 124, Issue 25.

“It seems this is the last issue of Volume 124. Let’s take a look. It happens to be fine.”

As a top mathematical physicist, it is normal to take a look at these top journals every issue.

Then he put the journal between his elbows, left the office, and walked towards the afternoon tea restaurant. Reading the journal there was a good pastime for him.

Soon, he arrived at the restaurant, ordered a cup of coffee, and then looked for a seat in the restaurant.

There were quite a lot of people coming to have afternoon tea. He looked around, and finally came to sit down next to an old professor. He took a look at what the old professor was holding. It was the “Physical Review” “Express”?

So he smiled and said: “Adler, have you come to read the journal too?”

Adler is an important scholar in quantum mechanics. Many of his groundbreaking papers laid a certain foundation for the Standard Model. After all, being a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton is certainly no ordinary figure.

However, the old professor just looked up at him and said: “Okay, Witten, let’s not talk more nonsense now. You should hurry up and read the third paper of this issue.”

Edward Witten was stunned, “The third paper?”

But Professor Adler had lowered his head again and ignored him.

With doubts in his heart, Edward Witten opened the journal and saw the papers first. He wanted to take a brief look at the papers in this issue.

“Signal from the quantum universe? Sounds good… And this, the electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational wave event of the binary black hole merger? It’s kind of interesting.”

At this time, he finally saw the third paper.

He was slightly startled.

“On multi-dimensional fields and their situation superposition?”

What is the theory of multidimensional fields?

I haven’t heard of it before, but it seems quite interesting. But seeing Adler’s serious look in his eyes, he couldn’t help but have speculation in his heart.

Could it be that…this is a paper with more important results?

So he became impatient and quickly opened the third paper.

“The author is…Lin Xiao?”

Seeing this author, he couldn’t help but be startled. Of course he was familiar with this young genius, but now he was studying theoretical physics again?

There is also a reviewer’s introduction below this paper.

George Parisi: “After reading this paper, I felt complicated, because at this time I finally realized why the special theory of relativity was not immediately embraced by the academic community after it was first released. Because at this moment, like the scholars in the academic circles at that time, I felt extremely confused about this advanced theory – it must be false – but obviously I hope and believe that it is true, just like this article I could also find no errors in the argumentation process of the paper. 』

Seeing the comments of this world-famous physicist, Edward Witten’s eyes gradually became serious.

If a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics can make such a high comment, then he has to be extremely curious about the results in this paper.

Then, he moved his gaze downwards and began to look back from the abstract.

In this way, time passed slowly.

Until the end, Witten and Adler across from him almost raised their heads at the same time. After looking at each other, they both saw the deep shock in the other’s eyes.

At this time, they all realized that something very important to the world of physics—probably to the entire human race—had happened.