Free Web NovelChapter 379: Chapter 248: Searching for ’Singularity’
After the meeting, Zhao Yi followed Chen Ming to the workspace. They were assigned together, which made it convenient for Chen Ming to guide Zhao Yi’s work.
Chen Ming first explained what Ruan Wenye meant.
"The team from California Institute of Technology just wants to impress us. They are merely a university team, and we are representing a nation."
"Do you understand? If we lose to a university team, at the very least... it will be disgraceful."
Zhao Yi understood, "Not only will it be disgraceful for us, it will also be a national humiliation."
Though this interpretation may seem to exaggerate the issue, the fact remains as such, and that is the opponent’s intention.
While technology knows no borders, scientists do have nationalities.
Western scientists harbor prejudice against domestic scientists, showing disdain for domestic technological development. The construction of the European Particle Collider was completed through the cooperation of many countries and departments. Our country is one of the participating parties, possessing the qualifications to participate in some experiments. However, the teams representing various countries will not truly unite unconditionally. Competition exists even in collaborative research.
That’s what’s happening right now.
They were assigned to the same work, but the team from California Institute of Technology suggested that the work should be completed individually, undoubtedly aiming to compete and beat them in terms of speed of completion. Losing would be extremely humiliating.
Hearing this, Zhao Yi became much more serious, and began studying the materials.
Chen Ming, while examining the data, roughly explained the work. After the completion of the particle collider, two test experiments had been conducted.
Although it was only test time, they obtained valuable data.
The majority of the current experiments and research work have a clear major objective—
The standard model of particles has been constructed, but it remains a theoretical concept. Theoretical physics, which has never been proven 100 percent, requires constant experimentation and data collection to prove the correctness of the standard model.
The process of proving the standard model of particles can be likened to ’blind men touching an elephant’, metaphorically representing the process rather than mocking the inability of blind men to touch the entire elephant.
The elephant here represents the standard model of particles.
The process of blind men touching the elephant represents the process of proving the standard model.
How can a blind man know what an elephant looks like? He needs to touch every part of the elephant, and then compile all the results to represent the elephant.
If there is any discrepancy in the process, it only proves that the constructed standard model is incorrect.
Of course.
Given the current results, over 99 percent of the constructed standard particle model is correct. However, regardless, physics is a rigorous subject. Without achieving 100 percent, it cannot be confirmed as correct.
Each particle collision experiment yields massive data. They need to analyze and calculate this data, seeking evidence of the standard particle model from the data.
The domestic team was assigned the task of analyzing and checking the data from Division D. Their work involves two tasks: One is to identify the patterns in the data to provide an overall explanation of some situations.
This is the work of the physicists.
As mathematicians, Chen Ming and Zhao Yi do not need to participate in analyzing the massive data, but rather strive to identify the ’singularity’ in the data.
’Singularity’ refers to special points, such as a tiny portion of data differing from the rest in a large mass of data.
This data is much more meaningful than the average data. It may confirm something, advance the proof of the standard model, or even potentially negate the standard model.
"So are we looking for something special in this pile of data?"
"Using mathematical methods? Are there any references?" Zhao Yi asked.
"Don’t rush, just read the materials. Some people will do the groundwork." Chen Ming replied and continued his work.
One day later.
Zhao Yi understood what Chen Ming meant. Many people participate in data plotting, that is, inputting individual data into the computer and creating complex graphs.
This provides a more intuitive understanding of the obtained data, making it easier to find patterns in the data and draw conclusions.
It may seem easy to find ’singularities’ from the data graph, but in fact, it’s not. The data is too complex, looking much like stock market graphs with various annotations, and includes various methods of analysis.
And so on.
Zhao Yi felt his scalp tingle after a brief glance.
The things in front of him resembled the analysis of stock market trends. Looking at a bunch of similar things and wanting to know whether the probability of the stock price rising or falling the next day was higher...
Well then!
This analogy isn’t very accurate, because it’s the analysis of past data, not what will happen in the future.
Anyway, the work is extremely tedious.
After a day of studying the materials, claiming to understand quantum physics would be nonsense. Quantum physics is far too vast; even with several months or a year it would take genius-level talent to gain a deep understanding of it.
He focuses on the work at hand, at least understanding what the materials are and having a general understanding of the work.
That’s enough for now.
The job of the two mathematicians involved seeking out ’anomalies’. Data analysis was the simplest part, yet finding these ’anomalies’ was very challenging. The general approach was to use mathematical methods to summarize patterns in the various components of the data, and finally detect any parts that didn’t match these patterns.
However, there was no definite method for ’summarization,’ it depended a lot on individual efforts.
Once special ’anomalies’ were detected, explaining the cause of these ’anomalies’ was the work of physicists.
It took Chen Ming two days just to mark out two spots. By using series of mathematical analyses, he felt there was something wrong with these two spots. He wasn’t sure though, since the mathematical method he used wasn’t completely rigorous, and may not necessarily conform to the laws of physics.
During his rest, he explained to Zhao Yi the reason for picking these two spots. "I used a substitution method and created a virtual function..."
Zhao Yi listened attentively.
Once Chen Ming finished his explanation, Zhao nodded and pointed to a spot on the data plot on the computer screen. "Here! Zoom in!"
Chen Ming enlarged the image, revealing a series of data.
"Here."
Zhao pointed to a surge on the curve, "I feel something is off here."
"It should be normal. I noticed this spot before, there are several similar bulges ahead." Chen Ming explained.
Zhao shrugged, "Well, since you have no clue right now, why not check if there’s an issue here?"
"Why not. Good idea for a break." Chen started to dig into the data, He wasn’t initially concerned, but as he continued to study it, he started to suspect something was indeed wrong there. His countenance grew significantly more serious.
Zhao went back to reading his references.
He was curious about why that spot was an anomaly. But owing to severe resource limitations, Supervision Law merely provided a vague location and no specifics.
The interpretation of such an anomaly could certainly have been worked out in detail using Connection Law but alas, due to lack of resources, it was impossible to apply.
The root cause was his limited understanding of Quantum Physics. The information he had at hand would take quite a length of time to comprehend, let alone conducting research on it.
The two continued with their respective tasks.
An hour later, Chen suddenly looked up and asked in surprise, "How did you know something was wrong there?"
"What?"
Chen’s sudden question startled Zhao, who after recovering said, "It was just a feeling. Something felt off there."
"Really? Just by feeling?" Chen was confused.
"Is your analysis done?"
"Yes." fгeewebnovёl.com
Chen nodded earnestly, "I’m absolutely certain that something’s wrong with that spot. By using certain physical equations and incorporating the Yukawa potential function, it seems the data here..."
"Blah blah blah ..."
Chen spouted off a lot of technical terms.
Zhao nodded continuously while listening, maintaining a very serious expression, as if he wholeheartedly agreed with Chen. In actuality, he didn’t understand anything.
"You’re absolutely correct!"
"You’re so knowledgeable!"
"You’re brilliant!"
Seeing Zhao’s serious expression, Chen felt validated and gained immense satisfaction.
After he was done talking, Chen subconsciously asked, "What do you think about the method of importing the potential function?"
Zhao lowered his head and continued reading his references. fгeewebnovёl.com
Chen asked one more time, and Zhao looked up in confusion, "What did you just say? I’m sorry, I was engrossed in my text."
"..."
The research fell into a slump again rather quickly.
Finding the anomalies proved to be quite challenging, akin to looking for rare, exotic stones in a mountain filled with rocks.
The mountain was full of rocks — identifying the one with value felt just like finding a needle in a haystack.
However, seeking out these ’anomalies’ was the most valuable part of the research, because each starting point could potentially represent new discoveries, which would contribute bricks to validate the Standard Model. Each brick was a potential breakthrough in the field of physics.
When Chen run out of leads again, he asked Zhao for ideas.
This time, Zhao walked over, and directly pointed out four spots, "I think there’s something wrong with these spots, you can check them out."
"Is it?"
Chen couldn’t understand how Zhao could detect anomalies. He felt that Zhao had good luck the first time. But regardless, with no leads, it didn’t hurt to check the spots that Zhao pointed out.
He began to check each spot individually.
