From all-round academic master to chief scientist

"As for this question, if you do this first..., then do this..., then do this..., and finally do this..., will it come out?"

In Lin Xiao's office at Beijing University, he was explaining the topic to Li Min.

After listening to Lin Xiao's story, Li Min nodded thoughtfully, "I understand."

"Well, if you study this aspect, the main thing is to continue to expand your knowledge... By the way, the book I told you last time was Jürgen Neukirch's Algebraic Number Theory. Have you read it? ?”

"This...well, I've looked at it, but it's a bit difficult."

Li Min had a helpless expression on his face.

Lin Xiao smiled and said: "It is normal to be difficult when studying mathematics. Wherever you encounter a problem, what you have to do is to try to start from this problem. You can check the literature, but I hope you check the literature to verify your answer. , rather than looking for answers for the sake of looking for answers, unless you really can’t find a solution.”

"I see."

Li Min nodded, indicating that he understood.

However, he asked with some curiosity: "Professor, what if you encounter a problem that you really can't solve? What will you do?"

Hearing this question, Lin Xiao frowned slightly and fell into thinking.

For a while, he didn't answer. Li Min was a little confused, but just when he was about to ask, Lin Xiao gave the answer: "I haven't encountered any problems that can't be solved so far, so I might give him some answers." I can’t answer you.”

"Ah this..."

Li Min was stunned.

Lin Xiao may have felt that it was a bit too offensive, so he smiled and waved his hand and explained: "Of course, maybe if I try to solve um...such as the Riemann Hypothesis, P=NP, or Navier-Stow I probably can’t solve problems such as the existence and smoothness of solutions to the Kers equation.”

Li Min: "..."

Thank you for your comfort.

According to what Lin Xiao said, wouldn't it be that only such world-level mathematical problems can stump him?

Even saying that is not necessarily true. After all, Lin Xiao solved Hodge's conjecture.

What if Lin Xiao really started researching it and solved it directly?

Thinking of this, Li Min turned around and said: "Professor Lin, my admiration for you is like a torrential river..."

The instructor is so awesome, what else can he do? Of course it's licking!

What's wrong with licking your own mentor?

No problem at all!

However, just when he started licking, there was a knock on the door.

"Please come in."

Hearing the knock on the door, Lin Xiao spoke.

The door opened and several people came in.

I saw six or seven professors running in from outside, all from the School of Physics, including Chen Xun, who was recruited by Lin Xiao to the Dingguang Research Institute.

The professors ran in, rushed up and surrounded Lin Xiao, and then said hurriedly: "Is high-temperature superconductivity also due to electron pairs? Or is it Cooper pairs?"

When Li Min saw several professors, he quickly moved out of the way, then looked confused.

What do these professors want from Professor Lin?

What high-temperature superconductivity?

When Lin Xiao saw so many people suddenly running in, he couldn't help but be startled: "What are you guys doing?"

"That's the article you published in Physical Review Letters!"

Chen Xun said directly, "I talked to you about your new yttrium barium copper oxide. At that time, I was still confused about why there was such a change. However, I didn't expect that it had only been so long before I immediately found out why. Got it!"

Lin Xiao said with a smile: "Didn't you also say that when the critical current density increases, the number of carriers increases? What are the carriers in the material? They must be electrons, and then wouldn't it be very complicated? Is it easy to understand?"

"this……"

Chen Xun was stunned for a moment, and then complained: "But who knew it would be an electron pair, or even a Cooper pair!"

"I didn't say it was a Cooper pair. It was still an electron pair, but according to the mathematical expression, it was a bit like a Cooper pair." Lin Xiao said.

The superconducting physicists who came over looked at each other and listened to you as if they were listening to you.

Another professor next to him asked: "Professor Lin, what do you think it would be if it wasn't a Cooper pair? A brand new electron pair?"

Lin Xiao shook his head: "I'm not sure."

He then said: "In low-temperature superconductors, Cooper pairs are formed because the arbitrarily small attraction between electrons causes electrons with energies lower than the Fermi energy to pair up with each other."

"But obviously, the Fermi energy is very low, and it only takes a little temperature for the electron's thermal energy to be enough for its energy to exceed the Fermi energy."

"Our yttrium barium copper oxide can maintain a superconducting state at temperatures up to 90K. In fact, I would rather believe that it is a completely new electron pair form, and Cooper pairs are just one type of this new electron pair. Special case."

Several professors were stunned.

Another professor raised a question: "Why? Why can't there be two situations? Cooper pairs are the situation at low temperatures, and this new electron pair is the new situation at high temperatures?"

They were all a little confused about this point raised by Lin Xiao. Why do they have to think that the two situations are the same?

Can't we discuss it in categories?

Quantum mechanics has said that the world is discontinuous. It is completely normal to discuss the high and low temperatures into two situations.

Lin Xiao replied: "Well...probably out of an intuition."

"intuition?"

"Yes." Lin Xiao nodded: "I think the world should be unified, and whether it is superconductivity of high-temperature superconductors or superconductivity of low-temperature superconductors, since their ultimate explanation is the unimpeded flow of electrons, then I believe , they can all be explained by a theory in the end, not to mention, whether it is high temperature or low temperature, it is only defined by us humans, so I think there is no need to care about this."

Hearing what Lin Xiao said, several professors were stunned again.

The world is unified?

There are people who have similar ideas, such as Chen Xun, who immediately agreed: "If you put it like that, I also think it is possible."

If the world is unified, it is entirely possible that the principles of superconductivity will be the same. Lin Xiao's idea convinced Chen Xun.

However, some people expressed objections: "Professor Lin, whether the world is unified still needs to be answered by future generations hundreds of thousands of years later, but I think there are linear and nonlinear things in mathematics. These two things, Can it also be unified?”

This question made them silent for a moment, but soon someone said: "Professor Hu, I don't think your question is necessary? Nonlinearity and linearity are just two different expression methods, just like superconductivity and Non-superconducting, we can’t unify superconducting and non-superconducting, right?”

Professor Hu shook his head and said: "Superconducting and non-superconducting are two physical phenomena. Of course they can be different. However, linearity and nonlinearity are mathematical tools. Since mathematics also pursues the Langlands Program, it unifies other mathematical tools. Come on, why can’t we try to unify linearity and nonlinearity?”

"Then your words are a bit unreasonable! Linearity is represented by a straight line, while nonlinearity is represented by something other than a straight line, such as a curve. This is also a real phenomenon!"

"You are using strong words to make sense!..."

…

By accident, two physics professors were quarreling over a math problem. Seeing this scene, Lin Xiao felt dumbfounded.

He immediately tried to dissuade her: "You two, okay, okay, it's just a problem. There's no need for us to quarrel over this issue."

After some restraint, the two professors finally stopped.

Seeing the two professors stop, Lin Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, but then said: "But, Professor Hu, I actually think that nonlinearity and linearity may be unified, and I can even give it to you now." Here’s some proof.”

Professor Hu glared: "What evidence?"

Lin Xiao replied: "Riemann Hypothesis."

Hearing this, they were stunned for a moment, and then they all looked astonished.

In the Riemann Hypothesis, wouldn't it be possible to classify the prime numbers, which seemed to have no laws at all, into a situation that can be described by a straight line?

"Professor Hu, what do you say?" The person who had just argued with Professor Hu did not forget to say this.

Professor Hu snorted and said, "This hasn't been proven yet, so it doesn't count."

Seeing that Professor Hu was still speaking harshly, everyone present laughed.

Professor Hu laughed so hard that he couldn't help but said: "Even if it is proven, it is just a special case. Unifying linearity and nonlinearity requires unifying all situations!"

However, Lin Xiao said at this time: "I can now unify all nonlinearities into linearity."

Professor Hu was stunned, and everyone else was also shocked and looked at Lin Xiao.

"Now? Professor Lin, are you sure?"

Lin Xiao can now unify all nonlinearities into linearity?

How is this possible?

Li Min, who had been watching, also showed an incredulous expression. How could his great mentor unify linearity and nonlinearity now?

Lin Xiao didn't speak, just took out a piece of paper, and then drew a few curves on it, then picked it up, showed it to them, and asked: "Look, is this line non-linear? "

Everyone present nodded, and at the same time they didn't know what Lin Xiao had to do to turn this curve into a straight line.

At this time, Lin Xiao smiled slightly and gradually turned the paper over so that the paper faced the ceiling and the whole paper was parallel to their line of sight. Then he said: "Everyone, look now, what I drew on it is A curve, should it be a straight line in your eyes now?"

Listening to Lin Xiao's words and looking at the piece of paper, everyone in the office was stunned.

Yes, that non-linear curve has now become a straight line in their eyes - although they cannot see the line on the paper because their line of sight is completely parallel to the paper, they can just ignore the entity of the paper , the curve drawn by Lin Xiao is a straight line from their perspective!