From all-round academic master to chief scientist

For the physics community in this century, progress has stalled somewhat.

In other words, this century is more like what physicists generally believed before the two dark clouds came over a hundred years ago - the building of physics has been built, and the rest is just patchwork. That’s all.

Around this point in the early 20th century, the emergence of relativity and quantum mechanics brought a broader theoretical world to physics, and everything became difficult for people to understand. At least for ordinary people, they had already seen it. I don’t understand those theories anymore, because quantum mechanics is a counter-intuitive theory. Unlike classical mechanics, ordinary people can at least understand it based on their own life experience.

The superstring theory in the second half of the twentieth century brought the world of physics into a mysterious and mysterious world.

Such rapid development has made the entire physics community somewhat overwhelmed, so when digesting these theories, it seems that the development of the physics community has stalled.

However, even though there are still so many unresolved problems, the physics community is still looking for new things to emerge.

After all, pursuing new theories is the desire of physicists, and human desires are endless, so of course they are not satisfied.

However, since M theory, there has been no new theory that can shock the physics community.

And although superstring theory is correct in terms of the demonstration process, because no physical experiment can prove even one of its arguments, superstring theory has never been fully recognized by the physics community, just like the proposer of M theory. , Witten only won a Fields Medal in recognition of his application of mathematics, but the Nobel Prize in Physics was still not awarded to him because M theory has not been experimentally verified.

The Nobel Prize in Science first has a criterion, which is that it must be verified by experiments. Without verification, you cannot win the Nobel Prize in Science. Just like Higgs proposed the Higgs mechanism for decades, and until After the Higgs particle was discovered in 2012, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year.

Therefore, this has always been a pity for Edward Witten, because he is a physicist. Although he feels honored to have won the highest award in mathematics as a physicist, he was able to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. A scholarship is what he wants most, after all, it means recognition of his achievements.

However, for such a long time, there has been no result that can prove the M theory. He once lost such hope and even prepared not to hear about such a result before his death.

However, Witten now sees a hope in this issue of "Physical Review Letters".

Although this article "On Multidimensional Fields and Their Situation Superposition" discusses multidimensionality from another direction and has no theoretical intersection with M-theory, there is obviously an intersection between what the two parties discussed, which means that, He can try to find out where the two can intersect and then communicate with each other. This is entirely possible.

What's more, this paper is also based on quantum field theory.

And why Witten sees hope in vindicating M theory is because this theory has successfully found a logically consistent argument for vacuum catastrophe.

There is a huge gap of 107 orders of magnitude between the upper limit of vacuum zero-point energy predicted by quantum field theory and the actual upper limit of vacuum zero-point energy. This phenomenon is called vacuum catastrophe, and it also makes physicists feel puzzled. untie.

Multidimensional field theory has provided an answer to it, because according to the values ​​predicted by quantum field theory, because of the original flaws of quantum field theory, the influence of multiple dimensions was not taken into account. According to the conditions of multidimensional field theory, as long as multiple dimensions are taken into account, The influence of dimensions on the vacuum zero-point energy will obviously allow the prediction results and experimental results to be infinitely approximated.

Although the calculation results are not explicitly given in the paper, anyone who is slightly better at mathematics can get the final result based on the calculations inside.

And it is this empirical evidence that provides an excellent proof for multidimensional field theory.

This is also the most important.

In turn, it is equivalent to saying that it has been experimentally confirmed.

Einstein's theory of relativity was not recognized until 1919, when Arthur Stan Lee Eddington detected the curvature of space-time through the observation of a total solar eclipse, which finally proved the correctness of the theory of relativity. Einstein then He was promoted to the altar of world physicists and was compared with Newton.

As soon as Lin Xiao's multi-dimensional field theory was published, it solved a dark cloud in the physics world. He even made predictions about dark matter and dark energy. Although this prediction has not yet been verified by experiments, Obviously, no one can deny its explanation of the phenomenon of vacuum catastrophe.

Therefore, Witten was extremely pleasantly surprised.

He looked at Adler and shouted:

"Adler."

But just in time, Adler also called him: "Witten."

Then both of them smiled.

Regardless of how incredible this paper is, at this time, they all feel that they are the happiest people in the world.

Because in their own lifetime, they once again witnessed an advancement in physics, and they once again got one step closer to the truth.

Suddenly, Edward Witten stood up and looked around at the people around him.

There are mathematicians, theoretical physicists, astrophysicists, historians, political scientists, etc. here, as well as many postdocs from the Institute for Advanced Study.

At this moment, Edward Witten just wanted to share the good news with all of them.

So he shouted: "Friends! Everyone, look over."

Suddenly, everyone looked over.

People who were familiar with Witten all asked with a smile: "Witten, could it be that your grandson is getting married?"

Edward Witten smiled and said: "No, the news I am going to say next is believed to be more important than this matter."

Everyone couldn't help but be stunned. What is it that can make an old man think that it is more important than the life events of younger generations?

And Edward Witten did not sell out the answer and revealed the answer: "We in the physics community can now tell you with confidence——"

————

"There are really multiple dimensions in the world!"

Such a piece of news spread all over the world on television, the Internet and other major places where news can be spread.

All the media jumped on the news and conveyed this shocking news to everyone that the public could understand.

And the whole world was like a powder keg, which was directly detonated by such a fire.

For such news, no matter whether it is academic scientists or the general public, no one will not be extremely interested.

Discussing the universe always makes people feel mysterious and full of style. Anyway, it is very high-end and classy.

For example, are there aliens, can they travel through time and space, is it possible to teleport, etc. Obviously, one of the most attractive things to discuss is whether there is a multi-dimensional space.

If so, how do beings in other dimensions live?

There is no need to discuss the following issues first, because for the physics community, there is no argument that can prove the existence of multi-dimensional space.

Even in the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, discussions are more about phenomena in the three-dimensional space where humans live. As for higher dimensions, their existence can only be assumed but cannot be verified.

However, multidimensional field theory can be considered to prove the existence of multidimensional space, because it is the only theory that can explain vacuum catastrophe. In other words, vacuum catastrophe is caused by the influence of multidimensional space, and then Indirectly proves the existence of multidimensional space.

Of course, the details here are incomprehensible to the general public. For them, they only need to know that there is such a thing.

As a result, this topic unsurprisingly topped the hot list in major forums around the world, and almost all netizens who saw the news participated in the discussion.

"Ohhhhhhhh!" ! ! ! Multidimensional space is simply unbelievable! 』

"It's really incredible!" 』

"Sometimes I really envy the brains of these physicists. I really don't know how they came up with it."

"I heard that the person who came up with this was only twenty years old. It's incredible! 』

"Not only that, Lin Xiao is also a mathematical genius. He even proved Goldbach's conjecture! 』

"Oh my God! 』

"Linshen!" My forest god! you make me Crazy! 』

"Can we have a top physicist like Einstein in China?" 』

"We already have one Mr. Yang, and now we have the second one, but Lin Xiao's achievement seems to be even more powerful."

"Isn't it too strong? ! Simply outrageous! 』

…

People talked excitedly. When discussing the greatness of such an achievement, they would of course pay attention to the person who made this achievement. Lin Xiao's name once again appeared in front of the world, and at this time, people also I am more concerned about the status of Lin Xiao's theory in the world of physics. Can Lin Xiao really be compared with the top physicists in history?

The world-famous magazine "Times" invited Edward Witten to conduct an interview on these matters.

"Professor Witten, how do you evaluate multidimensional field theory?"

Witten: "This is an achievement that can be called a miracle. Its theory has successfully explained countless difficult problems in physics for us. I am extremely excited that such a breakthrough can be made in the physics community. To be honest, in recent years, I didn’t even get a good night’s sleep.”

"Does this mean that this is a theory comparable to the theory of relativity?"

Witten shook his head and gave a rigorous answer: "The theory of relativity has been developed for more than a hundred years and has produced rich results, so we can confirm the correctness of the theory of relativity. However, the multidimensional field theory was only born recently, so it is not yet It cannot be compared with the current theory of relativity, although it has explained the problem of vacuum catastrophe for us."

"However, what needs to be known is that there are countless straight lines passing through one point, and a straight line can be determined only through two points. What if it is just a coincidence that it solves the vacuum catastrophe? Therefore, only if it can get more actual verification, it can be regarded as A truly successful theory.”

"Of course, if we compare it with the years when the theory of relativity first appeared, I think multidimensional field theory may be more valuable and charming. After all, it involves multidimensional space. In any case, even if it just sounds, it will feel very interesting. Interesting, right?"

The interviewer smiled: "As you said, multidimensional space does make us more interesting."

"So, what do you think of the fact that Lin Xiao, the proposer of multidimensional field theory, is only 20 years old this year? Is this a little too incredible?"

Edward Witten smiled and said: "Einstein published the theory of relativity at the age of 26, Newton came up with calculus and the law of universal gravitation at the age of 23, and Lin Xiao solved Goldbach's conjecture at the age of 19 and came up with it at the age of 20. Another theory that shocks the world of physics, it doesn’t seem so impossible. Of course, for me, I still find it incredible.”

"Okay, let me ask you the last question now. Just like after the theory of relativity was first published, few people in the world could understand it, so can you understand multidimensional field theory now?"

Edward Witten laughed and said: "Physicists back then couldn't understand the theory of relativity because their thinking was still limited by classical physics, but now physicists are very creative and imaginative. So no matter how amazing this paper is, it may still be somewhat understandable.”

"But I believe that there is only one person who knows the most in the world right now, and that is Lin Xiao."

…………

As the person who knows the most about multidimensional field theory, what is Lin Xiao doing now?