The top student must be diligent

Xiao Yi also paid tribute to each of them.

When he was first selected as an outstanding young scholar, there were some voices against him, but so far, such voices have disappeared.

Even Cui Yuanhao, who he met with Academician Pang Cheng at the beginning, no longer dared to say anything in front of him.

After all, strength is king.

When he returned to his seat, people from the School of Mathematics and the Institute of Physics on both sides strongly asked him to treat them to a meal. Of course, he did not refuse and said that he would treat them to a big meal after returning tonight.

The award ceremony continued.

What surprised everyone was that there were three first prizes this year. The other two first prizes were nano-confined catalysis and the creation and application of ordered mesoporous polymers and carbon materials.

They are all very important achievements.

But no matter what, the fact that there were three yolks in the first prize was also a history.

As all the first prizes were awarded, the second prize was next.

The value of the second prize is relatively low, because compared to the first prize, there are only three, and as many as 44 research groups won the second prize, which is more than ten times the difference.

Of course, no matter how valuable it is, it is still an award after all, and it is also an incentive for each winner.

In this way, as time passed, all the natural science awards were awarded, and then other awards gradually came.

Until a few hours later, all the awards were awarded.

As the news came out, it immediately caused a discussion on the Internet.

And what people discussed more was why Xiao Yi's twin prime conjecture did not win the award!

Chapter 168 A new physical field: X field? !

[The National Science and Technology Awards Conference was held! These three projects won the first prize of the National Natural Science Award! Click to view details →]

[The National Highest Science and Technology Award was awarded. Let's see which two scientists won this honor? ]

[The Goldbach Conjecture won the first prize of the National Natural Science Award, so what about the twin prime conjecture? ]

[Shocked! He actually did this at the National Science and Technology Awards Conference...]

...

After the National Science and Technology Awards Conference ended, major news media also released related news, and the discussion on the Internet was also very heated.

On Weibo, # National Science and Technology Awards Conference # was on the hot search list, and in addition, # Goldbach Conjecture # was also on the hot search list separately.

As for the other two first prizes, there was no prize, probably because Xiao Yi himself brought a lot of traffic.

Of course, the main reason is that netizens are still wondering why the twin prime conjecture did not win the prize.

[The status of the twin prime conjecture in the mathematical community should not be much different from that of the Goldbach conjecture? This should not be another first prize?]

[Come on, what kind of award is the Natural Science Award? It is considered a historical achievement to be able to award three prizes this year. ]

[There is a reason for choosing Gecai. After all, Gecai's lecture was held in the Great Hall of the People, and he has such a great influence in China. I can only say that Xiao Shen is awesome. He won the first prize in natural science at the age of 18.]

[And it was the first prize in mathematics. The last time he won the first prize in mathematics was in 1997. Strictly speaking, that project was not pure mathematics, but computational mathematics.]

[The first prize in pure mathematics is so rare. The earliest one seems to be Mr. Chen Jingrun's 1+2 theorem, right? Now it has changed from 1+2 to 1+1. It is a boomerang of history.]

[I feel that the first prize will be dominated by Xiao Shen in the future. Maybe next year it will be the twin prime conjecture.]

[There will be no awards next year. There is news that it will be changed to every three years. The next time will probably be in November 2024.]

[Oh my god, wait so long? 】

【The selection will be more difficult in the future. It can be regarded as a reform of the country in our domestic award evaluation. Only projects with real level can pass. I guess I was able to complete the award in the same year because the next time will be three years later. 】

【It’s good. There are so many awards now. It’s hard to guarantee that there are no fake ones...】

…

Various discussions on the Internet are in full swing, but Xiao Yi, who just received the award and returned to the Basic Science Park, didn’t pay attention to it. For him, the current priority is to study the mass gap problem.

After returning to the dormitory, thinking about which angle to solve the problem from once again came to Xiao Yi’s mind.

And this time, his eyes turned to the direction of TQFT.

TQFT, topological quantum field theory, emphasizes the topological properties of quantum field theory rather than its metric properties. It is also a very powerful physics tool.

During the research, Xiao Yi began to think about the topological invariants of Yang-Mills theory and its behavior in different topological spaces.

"According to Chern-Simons theory, the moduli space Σ of the Yang-Mills equation on a compact Riemann surface can be regarded as the configuration space Σ×[0,1] of the Chern-Simons theory on a cylinder. In this case, the moduli space can be geometrically quantized...geometrically quantized?"

Finally, on a cold winter night, in a warm dormitory with the heating turned on, Xiao Yi's boiling brain suddenly calmed down at this moment.

However, beneath the tranquil surface, there is a more majestic turmoil hidden.

"Doesn't this mean that after introducing the Chern number, the mass gap problem of Yang-Mills theory can be transformed into an existence problem about topological invariants?"

There seemed to be a light of wisdom shining in his eyes.

The pen tip couldn't stop on the draft paper.

And time passed again.

In this way, four months passed quietly.

…

The time has entered the end of February 2022.

The Spring Festival has ended, and the Lantern Festival has ended two weeks ago. Students have returned to their schools to start classes, and the screws of society have also returned to their posts and begun to contribute to the operation of the entire world. Do your part.

And on this day, February 25, the new issue of "Science" magazine was announced. On the cover, a huge W crushed the disk representing the major elementary particles in the Standard Model.

At the bottom, there are two lines of letters explaining the meaning of this cover.

【overweight! W boson mass measurement higher than expected! 】

[From the cover of the April 2, 2022 issue of Science magazine, the overweight W boson is also a real occurrence in the world of physics. (I adjusted the time slightly, it’s a bit crooked)]

With the announcement of this issue, it immediately detonated the entire physics community.

There is no doubt that what this cover represents is that the cooperation between the Huaguo Institute of High Energy Physics and CERN has been completed, and their final result is the same as Xiao Yi originally predicted!

The W boson is indeed overweight!

For a time, all physicists around the world were excited by this news.

On major forums, the voices of discussion became fierce again.

【Oh my god! This time it’s real! CERN and the Chinese Institute of High Energy Physics calculated a total of 1 million sets of signal data about the W boson! This time there is definitely credibility! 】

[I have read the paper. According to the results, the mass of the W boson is 40844±6MeV. Damn, the previous paper by Xiao Yi, the amount of 2000 sets of data, ended up being just over 5 standard deviations. Now The amount of data is 1 million sets, which exceeds 10 standard deviations. There must be some problem here, right? 】

[Incredible, our research team is already preparing to go to CERN. It is estimated that CERN will be busy in the next period of time. 】

[Can anyone tell me what is the reason for being overweight? ! Damn it, can I really encounter major events in the physics world in my lifetime? 】

[Wasn’t the Higgs particle a big enough event back then? 】

[When the Higgs particle was discovered, I was still a high school student and had no idea what high-energy physics was. 】

[Hey, maybe it’s caused by supersymmetric particles? 】

[We can only look forward to the final conclusion. 】

…

Amidst all the discussions, an extremely important meeting was being held at CERN, and the meeting was discussing exactly this conclusion.

"... We mainly used Shaw's error analysis theory to process 1 million sets of W boson signal data and came to this final conclusion. Now we have sufficient reasons to believe that the actual W boson signal is The quality exceeds the predictions of the standard model.”

In the large conference room, Professor Frank Wilczek, the Nobel Prize winner and the main person in charge of this W boson mass verification project, is making a report.

"I think this is enough to be regarded as one of the most important discoveries in the field of particles since the discovery of the Higgs boson. Therefore, it is necessary for CERN to continue to study the super-heavy mass of the W boson as a top priority. Maybe this will allow us to discover another theory of relativity?"

"No one can tell."

After Professor Wilczek finished speaking, he also won applause from many physicists present.

At this time, CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti asked: "Professor Wilczek, can you tell us specifically whether the statistical method you are using is really effective? Is it really reliable?" Is it reliable? I have always been curious about why this statistical method can give us such a huge difference from the results of previous statistical methods.”

Hearing this question, Wilczek smiled: "Professor Gianotti, we have discussed this question of yours many times over the past few months. Why does this new statistical method show such a difference?" , we have already answered that the primary problem lies in its more refined handling of errors.”

"Accuracy is very critical, and the mathematical methods used here are also advanced enough."

"In addition, one thing I must say is that the difference between the results of the previous statistical methods and the current statistical methods is actually not huge."

"The difference between the two results is only 0.1%. But when observed at a microscopic scale, the difference becomes huge. It is like 0.1% of the W boson, which is almost equal to the mass of 157 electrons."

"But high-energy physics is like this. In other physics, any difference may be regarded as an error, but in our high-energy physics, we have a lot to consider."

"It's like the 5σ criterion, which was proposed by high-energy physics."

"I believe Professor Edward Witten will agree with this."

Everyone looked at an old man sitting in a seat in the conference room. Professor Edward Witten was sitting in this seat.

When Witten heard Wilczek suddenly cue him, he smiled and said, "Yes, I agree with Frank."

There was applause in the conference room.