With the arrival of December, the superconductivity group officially completed their mathematical training and entered the paper-writing phase.
Actually, according to Li Zheng’s original plan, the group should have completed their study of mathematics through self-learning and gone straight into paper-writing.
However, after two months of study, he had gained new insights into learning itself.
As frontier knowledge, whether it’s superconductivity or something else, it’s like a new bud on a tree. If one only focuses on the appearance of this new bud, then they can easily fall into a kind of "formalized learning," filled with thoughts of how to force the leaves to grow quickly, thereby recklessly gambling on experiments in the hopes of striking it right just once.
This is roughly the layer where Hu Haibo is, of course, it’s not that he’s not good, but this may be the only choice for ordinary people within the scale of a human life.
A deeper layer would be paying attention to the branches that bear the leaves, realizing that they are the channels through which the leaves continuously receive nutrients. People in this group would place more emphasis on the progress of the broader discipline, striving to draw nourishment from beyond their own narrow frontiers.
Go even deeper, and one would see the entire trunk of the tree of natural science, not just mastering various disciplines, but also striving to understand every frontier field throughout a lifetime of learning, and even trying to use the results of their own field to nurture other disciplines. Nobel prizes often emerge quite naturally in this process.
Li Zheng had always been at this level.
It’s not that his vision was extraordinary, but rather that he was born this way, loving to learn without any other choice.
Even deeper?
That would be the roots.
Hidden beneath this visible great tree, are the gnarled roots buried in the soil of reason.
In this dimension, reason has only one form of existence—
Mathematics.
This is the origin of every frontier leaf, and it will ultimately become the resting place for seekers of knowledge.
In two months’ time, just like how he had guided the reconstruction of the edifice of physics two years earlier, Jie Qifen led them in reconstructing the entire field of natural science.
Starting from that seed originating in mathematics, using the most rigorous deductions, they built the trunk of natural science.
In fact, Jie Qifen himself hadn’t expected to teach so extensively. Initially, he only wanted to clarify the part about matrices, but these two always had deeper questions.
On the other hand, even though Li Zheng and Lin Yujing had sharp wits, their knowledge structures and compositions were as messy as a field of wild grass in Jie Qifen’s view. Sorting and clarifying them like this also had an element of compulsion.
In fact, much of the content he himself had only clarified after reaching the age of 30. Being able to teach in such a way also gave him his first taste of the joy of being a teacher.
And for Li Zheng and Lin Yujing, accustomed to self-study, wasn’t this the first time they also felt the pleasure of being students?
Of course, Jie Qifen didn’t have the time or ability to restore the entire tree of natural science. Once the roots were firmly planted and the trunk secured, the rest would naturally grow.
They were finally ready to enter the paper-writing stage.
When study in a certain direction reaches a certain level, papers and experiments become the only two sources of knowledge.
This just so happens to be the content of "summary" and "observation" in scientific research.
A very small part of it will one day be written into textbooks, and the rest will eventually become lost data.
And now, what they had to do was to identify the part of the massive amount of superconductivity-related papers that might make it into textbooks.
Setting the past five years as a limit, Li Zheng gathered data and used a set of weighting algorithms to roughly filter out the 500 most valuable papers, with each of them roughly reading 3 to 5 papers a day.
If there was no useful content, they would cast it aside.
If there was useful content, they would extract the core parts.
Discuss together, and if it was particularly valuable, push it to each other for in-depth study.
In this process, Jie Qifen seemed to transform from a teacher back to a colleague and fellow student, no longer offering top-down guidance, but rather learning and improving together.
For them, this was a campaign to digest knowledge, reconstruct thinking, stock up on ammunition, and then advance towards the frontier.
There was nothing more joyful than this.
However, the more joyful they became…
The more worried everyone else was.
Not to mention Jie Qifen, who was elusive as a dragon, showing his head but never his tail...
The key was Li Zheng and Lin Yujing, two young men and women known as the famous mute couple. When together...
They were actually reading papers and spouting off learning insights at each other?!
It shows that their passion for certain theories had far exceeded the hormones secreted during puberty.
After all, most people are still at the level of "seeing only the leaves and not the branches," and such fervor is incomprehensible to them.
What is incomprehensible is a precursor to madness.
At the beginning of December, on the first Tuesday morning, Zhou Xiao knocked on the door and entered Sui Miao’s office.
```
He realized that Lu Dongsheng was also sitting here, next to him a leader, likely the deputy dean in charge of teaching at the School of Physics.
At this moment, they were deep in conversation, with Professor Lu definitely stirring the fire.
"Mad, it has already started going crazy," Lu Dongsheng shook the cup he was holding and said, "I’ve suggested to him and to Yingpei several times to come over for a visit, but I get absolutely no response... this working behind closed doors... my gosh..."
"I’ve never been clear about it," the deputy dean responded more calmly, only frowning as he spoke, "Jie Qifen transferred to the experimental center at the start of term, but how did they manage to collaborate?"
"It must have been from the physics competition training before," Sui Miao shook her head and sighed, "The teacher in charge was occupied, and no one knows who invited Jie Qifen over..."
"Which session?"
"Two years ago, I think."
The deputy dean recalled and said, "I remember, the student responsible for organizing that session was Lu Yang... he’s in his first year of graduate studies now, isn’t he?"
"Lu Yang?" Lu Dongsheng’s eyes widened, "That kid? He’s under my supervision. So he’s the main culprit behind this."
"Alright, alright..." Sui Miao waved her hands repeatedly to calm him down, "Things have already gotten to this point, no use blaming him now."
With that, he signaled to a stunned Zhou Xiao with a wave of his hand, "Come on, sit down."
After introductions, Zhou Xiao sat down, feeling extremely apprehensive.
He had been progressing the project work with a lot of effort and confidence, but ever since he got involved with the School of Physics, he felt like he had become a mere tool with no say in anything, and if it weren’t for the adamant signatures from Niu Gang, he probably would’ve had no part to play at all.
"Did you bring it?" Sui Miao asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I did." Zhou Xiao quickly took out from his bag what Sui Miao had asked him to find.
"I’ve also made a copy on my side," the deputy dean said, getting up to pass a piece of paper from his bag.
Lu Dongsheng also hurried over to the desk.
What everyone was staring at were none other than—
Midterm exam score sheets!
Being engrossed in project research, grades slipping, wasn’t this the perfect excuse to halt the project?
Without arranging beforehand, their eyes simultaneously turned to the column listing the rankings.
And then, they saw a neat column of—
1
1
1
1
1
...
"Who... who’s is this?" Lu Dongsheng swallowed hard.
"Li Zheng," Zhou Xiao said on the side, "If he continues like this, he’s sure to become the person with the highest GPA since Yingpei’s establishment... no... not just Yingpei, but probably in the whole history of Ji University..."
"What’s going on? Why is his transcript so..." Lu Dongsheng’s eyes scanned back and forth several times, "Why is it so long? How many exams did he take?"
"He took about 27 subjects," said Zhou Xiao, steadying his glasses.
"Isn’t it usually around 10?"
"Yes, he seemed to have used some connections, intentionally choosing three times the normal course load." Zhou Xiao pursed his lips and shook his head, "We still don’t know how to calculate this coefficient, we need to discuss it with the Academic Affairs Department, I remember the maximum is just 15 courses in a semester or something, there might even be disciplinary issues involved."
"Absurd!" Lu Dongsheng scratched his head, "This is the first time I’ve heard of using connections for this..."
"First place in 27 subjects... is this even possible..." the deputy dean also kept looking back and forth several times, "Wait, there’s also the history of philosophy, microeconomics, evolutionary psychology, am I seeing this wrong?"
"Microeconomics is indeed difficult, but the rest is actually not that bad...," Sui Miao singled out each subject on the transcript, "These few courses at the math department are the real terror... I seem to remember that their own pass rate is only about 40%..."
"Ha!" Lu Dongsheng’s eyes lit up as he saw the math courses, "There are two 2s here!"
"That must be because he encountered Gu Jianfeng," nodded Zhou Xiao after a glance.
After being sufficiently shocked by Li Zheng’s transcript, they turned to Lin Yujing’s.
Lin Yujing’s grade trajectory was much more colorful.
All the sciences were a 1.
The rest were mostly two-digit figures.
Especially in Ideological and Moral Cultivation, out of the roughly 100 students in the four physics classes, she was ranked 100th!
```
```
It’s simply... morally corrupt.
At first, the trio from the School of Physics seemed to have caught some opportunity, earnestly pondering whether they could use this reason to call out Lin Yujing.
But it also seemed rather comical, with a sense of self-mockery.
After an intense exchange of looks, the vice dean sighed deeply and sat back down on the sofa.
"So it seems that research had no impact on their academic performance..." He picked up his cup, took a sip, and shook his head, "Then that’s the only thing we can do."
"..." Sui Miao’s face darkened, "Think it over again... It will be hard for them to accept this."
"Think it over? We’ve been thinking for two months," Lu Dongsheng clapped his hands, "Continuing this way, they will only get deeper into it. Do they have to end up like Jie Qifen’s last student who couldn’t be saved for things to be over?"
"That incident is still controversial." Sui Miao waved his hand, "It seems that the graduate student already had mental issues before enrolling, but his family insists that the problems were caused after enrollment... Jie Qifen also claimed that he just provided normal guidance, and in the end, we silenced the matter to keep the peace, absorbing the loss without a word."
"Ah..." The vice dean sighed along, "Dean Zhong had just come at that time, and after speaking with the faculty and staff, we intended to give Jie Qifen a chance by letting him mentor a graduate student in theoretical physics... Who knew it would lead to such a mess."
"Dean Zhong is just too soft-hearted and values talent," Lu Dongsheng shook his head, "We should have just asked Jie Qifen to leave then, not fearing the cost of feeding him for nothing, but he was a menace..."
Listening to their back and forth, Zhou Xiao finally gathered the courage to speak up during this brief interlude.
"Teachers, dean..." Zhou Xiao spoke timidly, "I’ve talked with Li Zheng a few times, and his feedback is that he’s undertaking fundamental mathematical studies and making rapid progress, achieving a lot. I have personally met with Teacher Jie several times and seen his handwritten teaching plans, and although I don’t understand them, they are completely exemplary of a teacher."
"Exemplary?" Lu Dongsheng gesticulated, "Back then he was more than exemplary, almost becoming the Messiah of the School of Physics. Everyone looked up to him, expecting him to lead a physics leap forward."
"Professor Lu, I’ve also looked into the inside story," Zhou Xiao gestured, "But we should still give people a chance to turn over a new leaf, and besides, Jie Qifen can’t really be said to have made any grave mistakes, it’s just that he opposed mainstream theories a bit too vocally."
"That’s not just being vocal, that’s madness!" Lu Dongsheng waved his arm, "Forget it, I won’t discuss it with you; you didn’t experience it."
With that, he turned to the vice dean and said, "It’s up to you to weigh the options, my opinion is the same as in the beginning; the smarter they are, the more easily they go insane following Jie Qifen’s methods, whereas mediocre kids don’t really matter."
"Hmm..." The vice dean turned to Zhou Xiao and nodded, "Then we’ll discuss it further, if you have any new information, still communicate with Sui Miao."
"Okay." Zhou Xiao understood he was being dismissed, immediately picking up his bag to leave, but still couldn’t resist asking, "When you said ’then that’s the only thing we can do...’ what did you mean by that?"
"We need to discuss it still, we need to discuss it still," the vice dean nodded as he saw the guest out.
...
Noontime.
The deputy director of the Experimental Center brought a document to Jie Qifen’s desk.
Jie Qifen was focused on the paper on his screen and only realized after a good while that the deputy director was standing beside him.
He glanced at the document on his desk in a natural manner.
[Lecturer Jie Qifen, due to teaching needs and after research by the Human Resources Department and approval by the leadership, it has been decided to transfer you to Ji University Information Technology Service Co., Ltd., to be responsible for relevant training activities.]
[Please...]
Jie Qifen didn’t continue reading, his expression showing no significant change, and after pondering for a few seconds said, "Give me one more month."
"It’s not up to me," the deputy director shook his head, "It’s the school’s decision."
"Then ask the school to give me one more month," Jie Qifen returned his gaze to the screen, "Tell those leaders that I will find a reason to leave myself in a month, and everyone can part ways amicably."
"This... maybe you should tell them yourself..."
"I don’t have time," Jie Qifen stared blankly at the screen, picked up his cup, and took a sip of hot water, "Forcing me out now, Li Zheng and Lin Yujing will hate this school to death. Do they really think Ji University can compete with MIT or Stanford?"
"..."
Jie Qifen set down his cup and gestured, "Go out, relay this sentence to them exactly as I said, delay the time by one month, bring it to me for my signature."
...
That night, the trio’s discussion was particularly intense.
The focus was the paper Jie Qifen paid attention to during the day—
[Continuous Medium Model of Twisted Bilayers]
This was an eight-year-old paper, not included in the collection of papers given by Li Zheng, found by Jie Qifen as a reference cited in a paper titled [Origin of the Magic Angle in Twisted Bilayer Graphene] from two years prior.
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As Jie Qifen’s explanation deepened, he revealed a rather magical fact—
Eight years ago, several scientists from Portugal and Singapore had already perfectly predicted the magic angle of graphene, even giving the precise numerical result of 1.08 degrees.
This discovery predated the publication of Yuan Yuan’s paper by six years.
Of course, this did not detract from the novelty of Yuan Yuan’s findings; verifying predictions and hypotheses is part of science after all, but his brilliance somewhat overshadowed these excellent "theoretical experimenters."
Li Zheng and Lin Yujing had also heard snippets of "there was an early prediction" before, but at that time, they did not take it seriously.
There are always countless predictions in the world, and inevitably some will be correct; there’s no need to mythologize the matter.
```
They just couldn’t imagine that the predictions given in this paper were so precise, so meticulous.
In their research, they used a mathematically robust "tight binding model" as the main tool, carrying out a series of comprehensive simulations and calculations on electron interactions, wave functions, atomic orbitals, and superposition states. With only mathematics and computer simulations, they computed a result through 13 pages—
θ = 1.08º.
Within this extremely narrow space, the law seemed like a devil that had suddenly fallen asleep, electrons took the opportunity to instantly pair up in fury, and the physical properties of graphene underwent a series of qualitative changes.
After this astonishing discovery, the experts from Portugal tried to conduct further mathematical expansion and physical reduction, but progress was limited, eventually presenting a set of "possible models."
[The study of the "Magic Angle" is leading towards a complex, profound, and fundamental mathematical structure.]
[Revealing it is left for the future.]
This was the conclusion of the paper.
Having finished speaking, Jie Qifen put down his pen and sat on the chair, rubbing his forehead with some fatigue, "Hmm, it has not been revealed to this day."
"Such a wild angle," commented Lin Yujing, still out of breath, "But after Yuan Yuan confirmed this, I guess someone is working on it... but it doesn’t matter, this angle is too wild."
"This approach," Jie Qifen leaned back, resting his head against the chair and glancing at Li Zheng with a bit of a provocative taste due to the angle, "What do you think?"
Li Zheng pondered, "I still need to take a closer look. I’m not sure if there is still room for mathematical excavation..."
"Dumb fool, what’s there to excavate? Apply it!" Lin Yujing pushed Li Zheng, saying, "Superconductivity in a dozen classes of materials, use this model to apply it. We don’t even need validated superconducting materials; we can optimize and improve this tight binding model and apply it to any substance, without any ultra-low temperature or high pressure environment, to search for more materials’ ’Magic Angles’ and then integrate these to propose our hypothesis."
Li Zheng’s eyes widened, "Brilliant!"
"Oh, my foolish apprentice..." Jie Qifen lay back and laughed, "Your wife is much smarter than you."
Li Zheng didn’t care what he said, and excitedly stood up to pace back and forth in the laboratory.
"This could work, it could..."
"But the workload... is a bit heavy..."
"We need a whole set of high-performance computers and a compatible simulation system..."
"Or..." Li Zheng turned his head sharply, "A Gu Jianfeng..."
Just as he thought of this, suddenly a series of system prompts popped up before his eyes.
[Discovery of "high-temperature superconductivity"!]
[Discovery of "Magic Angle Model"!]
[Discovery of "Superconductivity Theory"!]
!!!
In the technology cards, the superconductivity physics direction that had been silent for a long time suddenly lit up an entire area as if it had been pierced.
He then realized that the superconductivity theories he had learned before did not exist on this technology tree.
No wonder he couldn’t reach the frontier no matter how deep his studies went.
Upon closer inspection, the superconductivity theory model was still far off, not yet available for Scholastic Wealth to inspire, this part was likely just a region inadvertently explored in discussion. To tackle this, at least seven or eight prerequisite cards needed to be unlocked first, with some still shrouded in mist.
The "Magic Angle Model" was closer, already satisfying the requirements of mathematics and physical theories, just a few chemical cards needed to be lit up.
As for "room-temperature superconductivity," all the prerequisite conditions had been met, seemingly only lacking a world-class laboratory.
Anyway, there was a prospect.
Good, good, good!
Excited, Li Zheng leapt to Lin Yujing’s side, pounced on her, and began a fierce and intense stare.
No technique, just strength.
Taken by surprise, Lin Yujing’s eyes widened now.
About half a minute later.
"Pop!"
Li Zheng finally let her go.
"I love studying!"
As he watched Lin Yujing slowly collapse and Li Zheng grow increasingly agitated.
Jie Qifen couldn’t help but nod.
"Hmm, live streaming is indeed more thrilling than videos..."