Son of the Stars

Chapter 24 Academic Committee

As a rheumatologist and immunologist who is engaged in clinical work in a teaching hospital and has a girlfriend who is a physicist, Lu Chen is no stranger to the "committee".

With the strong support of the coalition government, scientific research and technological development have received unprecedented attention.A large number of government-funded research projects were quickly promoted-as if the group of scientists was completely unaffected by the collapse.

In the words of Yang Weimin, scientific and technological workers are actually a group of hamsters kept in cages.You don't even need to give them any incentives, this group of hamsters can go crazy on the running wheel of the cage.When the running wheels are not enough, the hamsters will even eat less to fight for the opportunity to burn their lives on the treadmill.

It can be seen that involution is actually an instinctive reaction of living things.

In the past, there were few scientific and technological achievements and slow progress, mainly because more hamsters could not grab the running wheels.Today there are fewer hamsters and more running wheels—and the results are indeed more and more obvious.

But in general, there are still more hamsters than running wheels.No way, the total amount of material in a certain period of time in human society is always limited.In order to grab the running wheel, the group of hamsters started to roll in again.

They began to propose a variety of topics, from the utilization and preparation of dark matter, to the capture and conversion of quantum fluctuations in energy.Some people even proposed to use criminals directly as experimental materials to transplant the brain tissue of patients who died of the crash to their brains, so as to observe whether the crash was contagious.

Many experimental plans and projects are aimed at "occupation" from the very beginning.But there are also some experimental plans that are... very inhumane, and may even pose a very serious threat to the entire society and even human civilization.

As a funder, the coalition government that also acts as a "human guardian" certainly cannot tolerate such a situation.But interlacing is like a mountain, if the government is allowed to review scientific research, the result will inevitably be that the government's management projects will become more and more trivial and inefficient, and scientific research will have a serious tendency to "please" and "seek stability".

Ultimately, the Coalition decided to let the scientific community govern itself - and the Academic Council was born.

The thirteen members of the academic committee are all academicians, and their appointments are based on random draws based on black-box photon calculations that violate Bell's inequality.Members cannot be re-elected, but there is no limit to the number of times they can serve, and each term of office is half a year.The academicians of the academic committee need to review and approve the submitted experimental projects, and if a simple majority of members object, the experimental application will be rejected.Only with the consent of ten committee members can those hamsters get a new "running wheel".

This set of operating rules provides stable, relatively fair, scientific research project screening rules that match rights and responsibilities.At the same time, a group of "professionals" who form a lineup of academicians of the research committee and make profits from it have also been raised.

In most cases, the committee is a passive organization. Unless an application is submitted, they will not take the initiative to pay attention to a certain experimental project group or research group.After all, many academicians are usually too busy to die, how can they have the time to take the initiative to pay attention to the content that has not been reported?

Only those projects with equally compelling prospects and risks are likely to allow the committee to hold special hearings-let's talk face-to-face if there are problems.

Of course, in order to ensure the confidentiality of scientific research projects, the contents of these hearings may not be released for several years.

Because of this, Lu Chen and Mu Zhiran looked nervous.It's almost one thing to go to the head teacher when you have nothing to do, but it's a completely different thing to be called to the office by the head teacher.

"You don't need to be too nervous." Tang Qinglong saw the worry and anxiety of his students. He smiled and comforted him. "This time, I mainly communicate with the committee. They have some questions they want to ask."

Mu Zhiran glanced at his boyfriend who was desperately swallowing, and then asked Tang Qinglong, "Are you sure? Teacher, you have never been a committee member..."

Tang Qinglong rolled his eyes choked by his good student. He originally wanted to reveal the content of the communication with the two of them in advance, but you questioned my qualifications?
After boarding the low-pressure maglev train, it took the three of them about an hour and a half to finally arrive at the Special Administrative City of Feuerbach, where the committee is located.It was agreed that Yang Jianmin would meet with them here, but... when they arrived at the gate of the committee, they realized that the person standing at the gate of the committee...was actually Watanabe.

"Why are you here?" Lu Chen was deeply shocked by Watanabe's appearance, "Where is Teacher Yang? Today is the hearing of the Academic Committee, Brother Yang still can't come? Are you too strict?"

"This is force majeure." Watanabe's answer was as watertight and itchy as ever, "We have submitted a written application to the committee and obtained the permission of the committee——I will attend this hearing as Professor Yang's agent meeting."

The hearing of the academic committee is the nightmare of every scientific worker.

This is actually easy to understand-when you are completely unprepared, a group of top experts and scholars in the field of human scientific research suddenly decide to defend your thesis, which is already a nightmare at the beginning.

However, the more nightmare is yet to come.Among the thirteen academicians, there are usually no more than two academicians who completely overlap with your research field.The remaining eleven academicians either only partially overlap with your professional content, or they are completely irrelevant.

However, the thirteen academicians all wanted to ask questions.This led to such a consequence - the questions of two academicians were sharp and direct, and the questions of three or four academicians looked simple but were full of pitfalls.The rest of the academicians ask questions...you don't know how to answer them at all.

An expert in the field of solid-state luminescent materials came to the hearing. As a result, an academician in the construction field asked, "Can your material be used as a building material, and can its structural properties meet the LB-5411463 standard?" The expert thought There is a dead heart.

What is this LB-5411463 standard?
Also, why are academicians in the clinical field curious about the LD50 lethal dose of a light-emitting semiconductor?

What's worse, you have to answer these questions seriously-these committee members who don't know what to ask will also need to vote later!
How to answer these questions quickly, accurately, and decently in a short period of time is an extremely important task for scientists.Asking Yang Jianmin to answer, Lu Chen was worried that his answer was not appropriate enough.Now let this Watanabe, who is always angry, come here?
Are the academicians' cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems okay...?
The office building of the academic committee is not too luxurious, the main building is just a small three-story building with two basements.The main building is the office space for the permanent staff of the academic committee, and the place where the hearings are actually held is the independent academic lecture hall on the west side of the main building.

The academic lecture hall covers an area of ​​about 7000 square meters, of which about 5000 square meters is a huge overall lecture hall - the report stage covers an area of ​​more than 500 square meters, and there are tens of thousands of soft seats under the stage.

The scale is huge, but there is no use at all.

When the number of users of the huge space is insufficient, it is easy to give users an inexplicable sense of oppression.Especially when under the huge rostrum, there are thirteen academicians sitting sporadically on the many soft seats that can accommodate tens of thousands of people.

Can you guys at least sit in the same place?
(End of this chapter)