Chapter 234 Starts Nuclear Radiation Countermeasures Experiment
The awarding of the Nobel Prize was a feast, and it also disrupted some of Xu Chuan's research arrangements.
Although he himself does not care much about this, this is the Nobel Prize after all, and its influence is the largest among all awards in the world.
Congratulations from relatives and friends, interviews from major media, and various social events kept him busy for several days.
However, as time went by, new hot spots replaced the old ones, and his life gradually stabilized.
Although he was busy these days, Xu Chuan also took the opportunity to learn about some of the happenings in the outside world, mainly in the mathematics world.
Since the Fields Medal was awarded, he temporarily left the mathematics world and began his journey of application.
But as the main research direction in this life, he must understand clearly the major events in the mathematics world.
As of early October this year, two big things happened in the mathematics world.
The first is that German mathematics professor Peter Schulz, who recently won the Fields Medal, and Professor Jacobi Stix of Goethe University jointly issued an article saying:
"They found a "serious and irreparable error" in the paper proving the ABC conjecture by "Mochizuki Shinichi", a mathematics professor from Sakura Country. ”
In 2012, Sakura Country mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki announced that he had proved the century-old problem ‘ABC Conjecture’.
But in the six years since then, only a handful of mathematicians have said they understood Mochizuki's proof and agreed with it.
Most mathematicians are confused when faced with Mochizuki Shinichi's lengthy and confusing proof, which also leads some people to doubt Mochizuki Shinichi's proof.
To this day, Schultz and Jacobi have raised major flaws, which undoubtedly confirm the failure of the proof of the ABC conjecture.
Xu Chuan has some memory of this incident.
Because the ABC conjecture is of great significance in the world of mathematics, it has a high status in number theory, almost as famous as the Riemann conjecture.
Many famous conjectures/theories are its corollaries, such as Fermat's last theorem, Beer's conjecture, Mordell's conjecture, and the twin prime conjecture.
In 1995, Professor Andrew Wiles spent more than two hundred pages in a paper to complete the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. But if the ABC conjecture is true, then the proof of Fermat’s conjecture only requires the following lines:
Let a=x^n, b=y^n, c=z^n; where a+b=c
According to ABC conjecture: c≤(rad(abc));
That is, Z^n≤(rad(x^ny^nz^n)≤(xyz)＜z)
So n<6, and n=3, 4, 5 have been proved by Euler and others;
It can be concluded that Fermat's last theorem is true.
These few lines of mathematics, which can be understood by anyone who has learned factorial in junior high school, can be described as extremely simple.
But it can prove Fermat's big conjecture, which took three hundred years to be solved in history.
And its basis is based on the ABC conjecture.
Xu Chuan also read Mochizuki Shinichi's proof paper, but he couldn't understand it either.
In a paper of more than 600 pages, Mochizuki Shinichi created a new mathematical theory that is completely his own, even mathematical symbols and words.
Specifically, this paper is full of all kinds of strange symbols, such as gold, wood, water, fire, and earth in traditional gossip literature.
Not only the words, but also the Bagua diagrams are used.
In addition, there are a large number of definition names with strange styles in the paper. For example, "The Dark Edge of the Universe", "Hodge Cinema", "Alien Arithmetically Pure Structure" and so on.
To understand these things, you have to read the more than 600 pages of the paper and more than 500 pages of other papers (these 500 pages are all Mochizuki Shinichi's own.)
So after roughly looking through the proof paper of the ABC conjecture, he threw it aside.
In Xu Chuan's view, Mochizuki Shinichi's proof paper is comparable to Minke's proof of the mathematical unification of the sky and the square earth.
Although the former is a truly internationally renowned mathematician.
And the fact is that until he came back from rebirth, Mochizuki Shinichi's thesis was still in a state of self-interest.
Although he insisted that he had confirmed the ABC conjecture, the mathematical community no longer had any hope for his paper.
As for the other thing, it's the extension of mathematics to quantum computers.
2018 was supposed to be the year that quantum computers achieved “quantum supremacy,” that is, evidence emerged that quantum computers far outperform ordinary classical computers.
However, this is not the case.
In August, when the Fields Medal was awarded, Tang Yiwen, an 18-year-old Chinese boy, proposed a traditional computer AI algorithm.
Its computing speed can be compared with quantum computing, and it has achieved exponential growth in computing speed compared with previous traditional algorithms.
This discovery not only overturned the quantum acceleration myth of the two quantum computing heavyweights, but also proved that there is a fruitful interaction between quantum algorithm and classical algorithm research.
Interestingly, Tang Yi originally intended to prove that such an algorithm does not exist.
But over time and with her own research, she discovered that such an algorithm does exist.
The delay in quantum supremacy has even led some theoretical computer scientists to believe that quantum computers will never surpass the best classical computers.
Xu Chuan really didn't know much about this matter.
But he is clear that the development of quantum computers has not been abandoned by people in the future.
After all, Moore's Law has limited the computing speed of traditional supercomputers.
But currently, Xu Chuan is very interested in the AI algorithm proposed by Tang Yiwen, so he found a paper and looked through it.
However, he didn't know much about algorithms, so he could only take a rough look at them to understand some of the ideas and core inside.
After thinking about it, Xu Chuan wrote down the name in his mind.
If there is an opportunity, maybe you can mention it to the superiors to see if this talent can be poached from the United States.
He understands the importance of traditional supercomputers better than anyone else.
For at least the next twenty to thirty years, traditional supercomputers will still be the mainstay of large-scale computing.
The importance of talents who can provide algorithms for supercomputers is beyond doubt.
After struggling for a while, after the Nobel Prize incident passed, Xu Chuan finally returned to his normal life.
Delayed nuclear energy and lithium-sulfur battery research and development projects have been re-entered.
Under his leadership, the research and development progress of the two major projects has significantly improved.
Especially nuclear energy projects.
On the basis of the already perfect theory and the 'prophet' Xu Chuan, coupled with the stimulation of the Nobel Prize, the development of new radiation-resistant materials is progressing rapidly.
With the help of advanced equipment at the Academy of Sciences' Magic City Nuclear Research Institute, the R&D team successfully produced the most primitive "crystalline erbium zirconate" in less than a month.
Although it can be confusing to cross from one familiar field to another unknown field, Xu Chuan's specially arranged one month to familiarize himself with the paper shortened the confusion period and observation of the eight researchers to the shortest time. "Professor, the first batch of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' manufactured using nanotechnology has completed preliminary processing."
In the Institute of Atomic and Nuclear Research in the Magic City of the Academy of Sciences, researcher Xi Xuebo looked at the young man in front of him with reverence, who was more than ten years younger than him, and reported seriously.
The first ever winner of the Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal.
Let alone China, even if it is released to the whole world, it is still a super power standing on the top of Mount Everest overlooking the entire planet.
Being able to engage in scientific research under such a super expert, even those who have spent eight lifetimes may not have this opportunity.
As a postdoc, he actually had the opportunity to join the scientific research project of such a big boss among the first batch.
Xi Xuebo didn't know how to describe his luck. He could only choose to do everything he could to do his best.
In the laboratory, when he heard that the first batch of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' had been produced, Xu Chuan didn't even raise his head, but just whispered 'hmm' to express that he already knew.
In front of him was another ongoing material experiment, which was a follow-up expansion of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material.
The experiment with the materials in his hands lasted for nearly an hour. After preliminarily handling the various materials in the experimental box, Xu Chuan took off his gloves and looked at Xi Xuebo, who had been waiting aside.
"Let's go, take me to see your results."
During this time, he did not follow up on the manufacturing of 'crystalline erbium zirconate'. For this material, he had prepared a quite detailed manufacturing process in advance and handed it over to others.
As for himself, he had more important work on hand.
It is true that 'crystalline erbium zirconate' can isolate nuclear radiation, but it is a solid material similar to ceramics.
There is nothing wrong with this material being used to make containers to store nuclear waste, but it simply cannot be used to make protective clothing.
When faced with nuclear waste carrying high-intensity ionizing radiation, most electrical equipment will malfunction.
This is because electronic equipment generally relies on circuits to transmit signals to achieve functions. Nuclear radiation, especially the radiation from some neutron and proton fluxes, can damage the structure or generate interference signals, causing electronic equipment to malfunction or permanently fail.
In this case, it is unrealistic to use robots or mechanical equipment to complete experiments on nuclear waste.
Therefore, when he later faces nuclear waste carrying high-intensity radiation, a protective clothing that can isolate radiation is indispensable.
Metal clothing made of lead metal can adapt to some experimental environments, but due to inherent defects, lead protective clothing cannot be applied to all experiments.
A protective clothing that can perfectly isolate nuclear radiation without affecting experimental operations is the basic prerequisite for starting nuclear waste experiments.
This is the kind of material experiment that Xu Chuan is conducting in front of him.
Using atomic recycling technology, he is creating a relatively lightweight protective material for subsequent nuclear energy beta radiation energy concentration and conversion into electrical energy projects.
Following Xi Wenbo, the two of them came to another laboratory.
The first batch of processed "crystalline erbium zirconate" is stored here. The quantity is not large, and the total weight is less than one hundred kilograms.
However, it is enough for the first batch of isolation experiments to verify the effect of this new material.
Under the leadership of Han Jin, several scientific researchers are processing the manufactured "crystalline erbium zirconate" into containers.
These containers vary, some are box-shaped, and some are cylindrical. They are not very large, only one meter in length and only about ten centimeters in diameter.
These things are customized based on the nuclear fuel rods in nuclear power plants.
Typically, nuclear fuel takes the form of uranium dioxide ceramic pellets sintered from a uranium mixture powder.
The porcelain core block is a cylinder with a diameter of one centimeter and a height of one centimeter. Hundreds of core blocks are stacked together and put into a slender zirconium alloy material casing with a diameter of one centimeter, a length of about four meters, and a thickness of about one millimeter, and then formed into metal plates.
Because the nuclear fission reaction is like burning atoms, these metal plates are called nuclear fuel rods.
After five to eight years of use, fuel rods will be retired from nuclear power plants and become nuclear waste that gives everyone a headache.
Xu Chuan needed to use the material "crystalline erbium zirconate" to show the progress and phased results of his nuclear energy research and development project to the superiors.
The best way is to use containers made of it to store nuclear waste and test its performance.
By loading nuclear waste and then storing it for a period of time, it is tested to check the stability, isolation and other properties of the container.
Then by comparing the data with traditional containers, you can see the advantages of this new material.
With the phased results, subsequent experiments, whether it is scientific research funds or corresponding talents, can be quickly approved or fully assembled.
Of course, with his current status, it is easy to apply for these resources from above even if there are no phased results.
But there are limits to the level of trust between people.
He is now squandering his reputation in exchange for resources, but if there are no results, it will be difficult to obtain the support of the country in the future.
The Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal are not omnipotent. They bring glory, but they are also a double-edged sword.
As for how to use it, it’s up to the winners themselves.
After the processing of the first batch of containers made of "crystalline erbium zirconate" was completed, the nuclear energy laboratory started the first batch of conventional radiation countermeasures project experiments.
The experimental method is not too complicated.
Through instruments and equipment, a strong radiation source is created, and then the container made of "crystalline erbium zirconate" is tested to collect a series of data.
But for the scientific researchers on the nuclear energy project team, it is a crucial step.
They worked hard for two months, and under the leadership of a Nobel Prize winner, they created a new type of radiation-resistant material.
And how effective this material will be will be known today.
This is related to whether the "atomic cycle" theory is correct, and also related to whether the "Nuclear Energy Beta Radiation Energy Concentration and Conversion Electric Energy Mechanism Technology Project" can continue in the future.
After all, after this period of research, everyone knows that the entire project is based on the theory of atomic cycles.
If the most basic theory collapses, the project will be disbanded sooner or later.
This is something that is difficult for the researchers in the project team to accept.
After all, it was not easy to get the opportunity to do experiments with the Nobel Prize winner. If the project was disbanded, it would be a huge loss.
Therefore, everyone except Xu Chuan was nervous and anxiously waiting for the results of the radiation resistance test.
(End of chapter)