Genius of the Rules-Style System

Chapter 465: Chapter 281: Winning the Nobel Prize in Physics?

Early morning, hotel.

Edward Witten got up early, sat in front of the computer to organize files and data, busy for over an hour.

"Knock Knock Knock~"

The room door was knocked.

Edward walked over to open the door, frowning displeasedly, "Lars, why so late?"

"Sorry, professor."

Lars Selburg looked somewhat awkward, but still complained, "I slept too late last night." freewёbnoνel.com

Edward nodded and didn’t say anything.

Selburg didn’t sleep late because of leisure, but because he was helping to sort out data, including some research materials on string theory, and some additional knowledge materials, even course materials from Princeton University.

The mentor and apprentice were busy until past midnight and now it was just seven in the morning. Selburg could hardly be considered lazy.

The day began.

Edward was busy getting ready to wash up.

As Selburg walked into the room, saw the things on the table, he knew the teacher must have gotten up very early, and he frowned unhappily.

When the two went to the restaurant for breakfast together, Selburg couldn’t help but ask, "Professor, is all this emphasis worth it? It’s just an academic exchange. If he doesn’t even know these basics, how can he help you?"

"You’re wrong."

Edward took a sip of milk from his cup, looked at Selburg, and explained after a pause, "Once you delve deeply into a field of research and produce results, you’ll find that many things are interconnected. In some fields, even if you spend a lot of time, you may not be able to compare to someone else’s few days of dedicated effort. Do you understand?"

"Are you talking about talent?"

"No."

Edward shook his head, "It’s not purely about talent, it also has to do with whether you pay attention or not. I’ve won the Fields Medal, but that doesn’t mean that my ability to conduct mathematical research is superior to those mathematicians who have not won the Fields Medal."

"Whether you win awards or not is often just a matter of luck."

"It’s because I use mathematics as a tool for researching physics, not as a focus of study."

"The waveform was his creation, a very perfect and astonishing thing. Perhaps we can understand more about the waveform through the data, but we can never surpass him in terms of application."

"Even if he has no understanding of string theory, his understanding of the waveform would be of great help to me."

Edward explained seriously, he still valued Selburg greatly.

Selburg was talented, and willing to put in the effort to do research. He had been Edward’s most proud student over the last ten years, and perhaps he would become one of the top physicists in the future.

It seemed as if Selburg understood, and nodded. But in fact, he just felt that Edward was attaching too much importance, doing some work that he saw as meaningless, simply equivalent to wasting time.

After yesterday’s exchange with Zhao Yi, Edward knew that Zhao Yi had no understanding of string theory at all. So he and Selburg prepared a lot of materials and made a lot of preparatory work, aiming to explain the necessary knowledge to Zhao Yi.

Selburg felt a little sour in his heart.

He was Edward’s student!

Why... why was Edward showing such importance to a guy who had no understanding of string theory at all? Knowing that the other party doesn’t understand string theory, yet spending a lot of time preparing materials, with the aim of letting the other party understand the necessary knowledge?

Selburg could only give a wry smile.

...

It was only eight o’clock when breakfast ended. Edward called Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi was sleeping.

He was nesting alone at home, sleeping a little later if he could, unexpectedly the phone rang so early.

"Okay!"

"I’m at home!"

"Come on!"

Zhao Yi made a somewhat helpless reply. He knew that it was impossible to avoid Edward. Since he couldn’t avoid him, he might as well face it head-on. He got up and washed up, casually ate a few bites of milk and bread, and waited for the arrival of Edward and his student.

This time there was no one else.

Zhao Yi cleared the desk in the study, and talked to Edward there. They started to talk about very professional content related to string theory.

Edward brought out several pages of files and started to explain specifically.

The atmosphere in the study was somewhat like a lecture. Edward constantly explained the documents, Zhao Yi listened very carefully, occasionally taking notes.

Selburg did the same, but he recorded more than Zhao Yi did.

One teacher, two students.

Yesterday, Selburg wasn’t paying too much attention. He just felt that Edward was talking in a very eclectic way, interspersed with a lot of professional mathematical calculation content. He just thought that Zhao Yi could keep up with the thought process because Zhao Yi himself is a top mathematician.

Now Selburg found the problem.

Most of the content that Edward talked about he could understand, but there were also some profound and unfamiliar knowledge, probably Edward’s research content, or some content in papers.

Whenever new content came up, Selburg found it hard to keep up, and was constantly jotting down notes, occasionally unable to help reminding Edward to slow down.

At this point, Selburg noticed that Zhao Yi had no problem keeping up at all.

Even though at the beginning Zhao Yi often raised very basic questions, clearly showing a lack of understanding in the related field, later he was able to discuss with Edward in the field of mathematical calculations, even wrote out determinants, correcting the content Edward was explaining?