Chapter 199 A Problem that Will Take a Lifetime to Solve

After staying in his hometown for a few days, Xu Chuan found that there was another thing in the world that was more tiring than academic research.

That was interpersonal relations.

I don’t know who leaked the news, but since he came back, people have come to visit him every day.

At first, it was the neighbors in the village. When they heard that the great scientist who appeared on the news broadcast had returned, they came to see him, chatted with him, and asked him for learning experience to see if they could get their children into a good university.

Then, the teachers and principals of the school came to visit with gifts, and then the local leaders of the county and city came to express their condolences and asked him to give a report, speech, award, etc.

Although Xu Chuan was not very resistant to interpersonal relations, he was tired of receiving guests in waves.

A New Year was more tiring than studying mathematical conjectures wholeheartedly.

After spending the twelve days of the New Year at home as usual, Xu Chuan bought a ticket back to Princeton.

In early February, at his request, four students who received his admission notices rushed to the school from all over the world.

It is very troublesome to let students who were originally scheduled to enroll in the fall enter the spring ahead of time, involving many aspects.

For example, students' visas, school enrollment, accommodation arrangements and other things.

However, for Xu Chuan, these things are not a problem.

Princeton can just change the enrollment time to spring, and as for dormitories and so on, can't a full professor apply for four dormitories?

As for whether students can solve their own problems, that is the students' own business.

Theoretically, if you apply for admission in the fall semester, some students may not graduate from their original school in January and February.

If they are exchange students, it's okay, but if they are international students, it's troublesome.

But Xu Chuan doesn't care about these.

He issued a task, and how the students complete it is their own business.

The relationship between doctoral supervisors and doctoral students is very similar to that in the workplace. Doctoral supervisors are bosses and doctoral students are workers.

Even if you are on vacation with your girlfriend, you have to come to work and move bricks as a laborer when your supervisor calls you.

Compared to the workplace, the slightly better thing is that the doctoral supervisor will give you some help and guidance in your academic career.

When he is working with you, he will pass on some knowledge and experience. If you don’t understand something, you can ask him. The supervisor has the obligation to answer. This is more like a "manager" or "old man" at work.

Of course, the premise is that your supervisor is a normal supervisor.

If you encounter an unscrupulous supervisor, it can be said that it is worse than the workplace.

Forget about help. You will be lucky if you don’t graduate and let you work for a few more years.

In the United States, for doctoral students, the power of the supervisor is even more amazing. If the supervisor is not satisfied, there is a way to expel the student.

Of course, this is generally not done.

After all, if you expel students, it will be more difficult to recruit students later. Students who apply for you have to consider whether they can graduate from you, right?

According to Xu Chuan’s request, in February, four students came to Princeton one after another.

The first to Princeton was Gu Bing from Jiaotong University in China.

He even arrived earlier than Xu Chuan, who returned to Princeton after celebrating the 12th day of the Lunar New Year in his hometown, while he had already set off on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year.

Gu Bing, who had stayed in the hotel for more than ten days, was very excited and nervous.

His mentor was a top math expert who had proved the seven millennium problems. He had never thought about this before.

He submitted his application just to give it a try, but he didn't have much hope.

After all, he knew how much competition there would be for such a mentor and professor.

He had applied to many foreign universities with good mathematics majors before, but because of oral English and nervousness, he basically failed.

If he still failed this time, he would probably turn to submit his resume to a slightly lower-level university.

Who would have thought that the turn of events would turn out to be a surprise, and the resume he submitted with a try-it-out mentality would be selected.

It was just like a dream.

No, I can't even dream of such a dream!

So after receiving the fantastic notice, he celebrated for two days, and then quickly dealt with all the domestic affairs. He didn't even visit relatives during the Chinese New Year, and left as soon as possible after the Chinese New Year.

He didn't ask for anything else, just to leave a good impression in front of his mentor as soon as possible.

After staying in the hotel for ten days, he finally received a message from Xu Chuan, asking him when he would arrive.

After receiving the message, he immediately appeared in front of this mentor who was several years younger than him.

Looking at Gu Bing standing in front of him, Xu Chuan was stunned for a moment and asked, "When did you come?"

Gu Bing touched his sparse hair and smiled embarrassedly, "I was afraid of wasting your time, so I left on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year."

It must be said that this wave of favorability really touched Xu Chuan's heart. After all, which boss doesn't like an employee who is sensible and obedient and will work overtime on his own?

Nodding, he said, "Did you bring the documents? If you did, I'll take you to complete the admission procedures."

Hearing this, Gu Bing nodded quickly, "I did, they're all in my schoolbag."

After taking Gu Bing to complete the admission procedures and letting him get familiar with the environment, Xu Chuan returned to his office.

He had to prepare the study schedule for these students and the big class at Princeton.

It was the most basic obligation to fulfill the duties of the position.

As a professor, he naturally had to teach the students well.

In fact, these things should have been thought about during the Chinese New Year, but at that time, he was exhausted by the interpersonal communication. During the Chinese New Year, he was also thinking about his next arrangements.

In essence, compared with the identity of a Princeton professor, his more basic and important identity was a researcher at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

As a researcher, doing his own scientific research is the most important thing.

So the focus of his thinking during the Chinese New Year has always been on his next arrangements.

As for students and classes, based on his experience as a professor in his previous life, it was not a big deal and could be done casually.

However, the next arrangements really need to be considered carefully.

In the two years at Princeton, solving the Hodge conjecture was something Xu Chuan did not expect, which disrupted his study schedule.

He went to Princeton with a learning mentality at the beginning, and did not think that he could break through such a top problem in a short time.

However, this also made him see his talent in mathematics, which can be said to be not inferior to physics.

After all, problem solving itself is an important means of learning. It can apply the knowledge you have learned to integrate and integrate into a whole.

Being able to solve the Hodge conjecture within two years and build a bridge between the three major fields of algebraic geometry, analysis, and topology, even with the help of mathematical knowledge in the previous life, can be said to be different from ordinary people.

Considering that he still has to stay in Princeton for a year or so, Xu Chuan does not want to be left in the United States, so in the following time, he will not be able to touch the science related to application.

Although I don’t know why the other party has not contacted me yet, it is certain that he is now on the form of the US Immigration Bureau.

Perhaps it is the huge difference between the field of pure theoretical science and the field of applied science.

All the results of the former are public, and every country can view them publicly, and it often takes an extremely long time to transform pure theoretical science into practical technology.

And the latter, talents in the field of applied science, each of them can create incomparable value for a country.

Qian Lao, who returned to China a few years ago, was a top genius in the field of applied science. After he returned to China, the changes he brought to China were huge and could be seen by anyone.

In his previous life, he was locked in the United States because he participated in the application and development of nuclear physics.

Considering this aspect, Xu Chuan set his sights on the purely theoretical fields of mathematics and physics.

In addition, he might only have a few months in Princeton, so he set his sights on the two major systems of manifolds and chaos.

The former is generally considered to be an intersection of mathematics and physics.

The ultimate development of manifolds in mathematics is the Navier-Stokes equations in the seven millennium problems.

This aspect involves his ultimate goal of coming to Princeton - 'Turbulence control in controlled nuclear fusion'.

In the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, both mathematics professor Feldman and physics professor Duncan Haldane are top professors in the field of manifolds.

If he could not bring back some knowledge in the field of manifolds from Princeton, he would not be willing.

So he set his first goal on the field of manifolds.

In fact, there is one thing he really wants to learn in Princeton.

That is ‘fluid mechanics’.

He really wants to have in-depth exchanges with physics professors in Princeton to learn about this knowledge, but after thinking about it, he finally gave up the idea.

There is no other reason. Although fluid mechanics is the basic knowledge of physics, this direction has a strong application nature and is the foundation of many industries.

The study of fluid mechanics has played an important role in the development of science as a whole, and has played an indispensable role in many industries and engineering related to the national economy and people's livelihood.

It has both the nature of a basic discipline and strong applicability, and is an important part of engineering science or technical science.

The most prominent example is the aerospace industry. It is no exaggeration to say that without the development of fluid mechanics, there would be no aerospace technology today.

For example, if you sit on a Boeing 747 aircraft, imagine that there are more than 400 people sitting in it, the total weight exceeds 300 tons, and the total length and width are more than half a football field. It is supported by air that is lighter than a feather. This is the achievement of fluid mechanics that no one can help but marvel at.

So after some consideration, he finally gave up the idea in this regard, chose the manifold with only theory, and gave up the fluid with applied properties.

As for chaos mathematics, it is a further in-depth study based on his previous mathematics.

It is a new mathematics developed from measure theory, probability theory, random process, dynamic system, and fractal theory.

The main purpose is to figure out how unpredictability can be reconciled with determinism.

In the simplest terms, chaos mathematics is actually the study of the "butterfly effect".

The purpose is to make the butterfly effect work for you. Small changes in initial conditions produce large changes in subsequent behavior, which can be an advantage; all you have to do is to ensure that you get the big changes you want.

This aspect is not only related to mathematics, but also to physics. It can even be involved in the control of high-temperature plasma turbulence in controlled nuclear fusion.

If he can bring some knowledge of these two aspects back to China from Princeton, Xu Chuan believes that his future research on controlled nuclear fusion will be greatly improved.

As for solving the problem of controlled nuclear fusion, even if he is reborn once, he is actually not sure.

Even if he has stood at the top of this field in his previous life and has advanced it a lot, he is not sure at all.

Because there are too many problems to be solved.

Superconducting materials are one of the problems in controlled nuclear fusion, turbulence is also one, and tritium self-sustaining is also one.

And as the progress is made, no one knows how many such problems there will be in the future.

Xu Chuan never thought that he could solve controlled nuclear fusion immediately after returning from Princeton. That was a foolish dream. Not to mention rebirth, even rebirth again may not be able to do it.

As the ultimate energy in human dreams, if it is so easy to solve, it would have been solved long ago.

Anyway, he is ready to spend his whole life to work on this technology.

As for whether he can finally get it done, in addition to hard work, the rest is up to God.

In the office, Xu Chuan pondered for a while and took out a brand new notebook from the drawer.

For the four students he led, he could not use the same method to teach them and lead them to the same field.

At least, a good mentor would not do this, this is not the way to lead students.

Of course, this can be done before graduate school, but it will not work after graduate school.

Especially for doctoral students, because for doctoral students, everyone's previous learning direction has different focuses, and the subsequent development will naturally be different.

In addition, what these students have to do in the doctoral stage is not only to learn knowledge in depth, but also to create knowledge in the field they are studying.

So he has to make a general arrangement for the application of these four students. As for the specific direction, he needs to wait until they arrive before communicating.

However, although everyone's learning direction is slightly different, the general goals are still unified.

And he has a very suitable goal in hand.

"Algebraic variety and group mapping tool!"

Yes, it is the mathematical tool he used to prove the Hodge conjecture.

This tool is very suitable for these four students to learn.

Whether it is Gu Bing and the other three who were selected to study pure mathematics, or Amelia who was selected to study mathematical physics, they can learn this set of mathematical tools in depth.

It is a tool that connects the three fields of algebraic geometry, topology, and analysis. There is no need to say more about the field of mathematics, and in mathematical physics, topology and analysis are also very important mathematical tools.

So even if Amelia studies mathematical physics, she will not have any problems when facing this set of mathematical tools.