Free Web NovelChapter 620: Chapter 355: The Logic of ’Stolen’ Quality
"Stealing?"
"This word has profound implications. It can be understood from many perspectives!"
"Chinese culture is indeed profound and extensive!"
"However...can the process of particles gaining mass also be described as ’stealing’?"
Zhao Yi was contemplating the concept of ’stealing’. Unknowingly, his train of thought shifted towards the process of particles gaining mass, a mechanism he had been pondering for a while.
The simplest explanation related to the generation of mass in our current physical system is the Higgs mechanism.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research has announced the discovery of the Higgs particle. The existence of the Higgs particle has been confirmed and the Higgs mechanism has been accepted by the physics community; however, in reality, the Higgs mechanism is still unprovable.
In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism allows elementary particles to gain mass.
Why do fermions, W bosons, and Z bosons have mass, while photons and gluons do not?
The Higgs mechanism explains this by ’implementing spontaneous symmetry breaking’ to assign mass to gauge bosons.
’Spontaneous symmetry breaking’ is a characteristic. It describes a phenomenon where the natural laws that a physical system follows contain a certain symmetry, but the physical system itself does not possess this symmetry.
The straightforward explanation is that local gauge invariance dictates that the mass of gauge bosons is zero. However, the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field in which the bosons are situated is not zero, creating a contradiction between the physical system and the particles themselves.
Particles with this contradictory nature, gain mass within the Higgs field.
Although this is the explanation provided by the Higgs mechanism, it can also be understood from other perspectives...
"For instance, gauge bosons that have ’stolen’ mass exist."
Zhao Yi carefully contemplated, "Gauge bosons that have not ’stolen’ mass dissipate because they cannot maintain their energy balance?"
Viewing it from this perspective can also explain why many particles suddenly vanish: the imbalance of their own energy leads to disintegration. One can almost understand it as ’self-dismantling’.
Zhao Yi lay on his bed with his eyes closed, continuing his deep thoughts.
If particles possessing ’spontaneous symmetry breaking’ need to ’steal’ mass from the Higgs mechanism or, as an alternative understanding, from the boundaries of multidimensional space, ’spontaneous symmetry breaking’ must exhibit a ’plundering’ or ’attracting’ characteristic. This could be interpreted as having certain similarities with matter existing in multidimensional space.
For instance, if a type of viscosity appears on a two-dimensional plane, it might be able to stick flying small particles or dust to the two-dimensional plane making them immobile.
Although the understanding is still quite complex, the general meaning is more or less the same.
Zhao Yi continued his contemplation. Unbeknownst to him, dawn had broken. He wasn’t sure how long he had slept—he seemed to have dozed off, yet it also felt as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night.
Voices could be heard from the living room. Feeling exhausted, he decided to get up. His body felt weary, and his spirit was somewhat languished.
He needed to use Study Coins!
After spending five Study Coins to replenish his energy, his thoughts became more agile. However, the physical weariness remained from staying up all night.
Zhao Yi dressed himself and left his bedroom, his eyes bloodshot.
"Zhao Yi, you’re up!"
Zhao Linlin, who was sitting on the sofa, looked up and greeted him, then rose to her feet and exclaimed in surprise, "Why are your eyes so red? Didn’t sleep well?" A mischievous smile spread across her face.
Zhao Yi sat next to her, "I was lost in my thoughts, and didn’t sleep much."
"Thinking about—things?" Zhao Linlin deliberately drew out her words.
Lin Xiaoqing exited the bathroom and walked over in her slippers, expressing her concern, "You should sleep some more." She looked somewhat flushed, perhaps because of what happened last night.
Zhao Linlin glanced at Lin Xiaoqing and then looked at Zhao Yi. Her eyes darted back and forth, unable to hide her teasing smile. After all, she knew what had happened the previous night, she just couldn’t say it out loud.
"As if I don’t know."
"Hmph, hmph!"
It was uncomfortable to talk about such matters openly, so Zhao Linlin kept her knowledge to herself.
Zhao Yi felt a bit hungry. Instead of continuing his sleep, he decided to join them for an outdoor breakfast. In the hallway, they ran into Qian Hong.
Qian Hong immediately spotted Zhao Yi’s lackluster look and asked casually, "What’s the matter? Didn’t rest well?" She then glanced at Lin Xiaoqing and Zhao Linlin.
Lin Xiaoqing’s face turned red immediately.
Zhao Linlin returned Qian Hong’s gaze nonchalantly, as if to say, ’It has nothing to do with me.’
Zhao Yi didn’t have the energy for their games, he just nodded and said, "I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t sleep well."
"Thinking about—things?" Qian Hong also drew out her words.
Catching onto the insinuation, Zhao Yi touched his forehead and said, "Think a little healthier, will you? I was really thinking about things."
"Alright."
Qian Hong looked at the other two, hiding a laugh, and said, "Are you guys going for breakfast? Shall we go together?"
"Let’s go."
The group ate breakfast together.
Maybe it was the satiating effect of the meal, but Zhao Yi felt quite refreshed after it. His eyes returned to normal, and his thoughts began revisiting the ideas that had enthralled him the previous night.
While Lin Xiaoqing and Zhao Linlin were planning their day, he simply stated, "You guys go out, I’m not going. I am going back to catch up on my thoughts."
"Or to catch up on sleep?" Qian Hong joked.
"You should go back to sleep." Lin Xiaoqing voiced her concern.
Zhao Yi, who didn’t want to explain further, went to the School of Sciences office instead of his dormitory, for the office had a more conducive working environment.
The office was completely empty during the holidays.
In the main office on the first floor of the School of Sciences, only Hu Zhibin was present.
Hu Zhibin, who had just attended a workshop and had just returned two days ago to write a report, was surprised to see Zhao Yi coming, "Why are you here?"
"I’ve got something to think about, you carry on." Zhao Yi said in response and went into his own office.
Hu Zhibin was somewhat puzzled, so he simply continued with his own work.
Zhao Yi began his work as soon as he entered his office.
The first thing he did was sort out his thoughts from the previous night, recorded the important points, and then proceeded to construct the mathematical framework.
That’s the basic bit.
His research could be divided into three parts, one being the ’mathematical construct of particle energy composition’, the second being the ’logic of acquiring mass’, and the third being the boundary of multidimensional space, or the mathematical construct of Higgs field.
What he’s doing now falls into the second part, ’the logic of acquiring mass’. The most important thing was to analyse the ’spontaneous symmetry breaking’ problem from a mathematical perspective. Specifically, the key was to explain where the ’breaking’ takes place.
That’s a complex problem.
The simple explanation of the Higgs mechanism is the asymmetry between the physical system and the particle’s own properties. ’Breaking’ inevitably involves the Higgs mechanism and the issue of local gauge invariance, which is considered a prerequisite for grand unification theory.
It’s impossible to research each theory involved one by one.
Zhao Yi was acquainted with the related theories and even knew their mathematical logic bases. What he needed to do first was to assemble all the mathematical constructs and logic that were involved, ponder and infer based on them, and construct a new theoretical logic.
This hard work is time-consuming. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Zhao Yi worked till the afternoon. Lin Xiaoqing even helped bring him lunch. He decided to begrudgingly get some sleep when he couldn’t endure anymore. After refreshing his energy from sleep, he crawled up and continued his work.
Three days later.
He had more or less sorted out the materials and embarked on some serious deductions and thinking.
Constructing new content along the lines of inspiration based on the existing theory is a very difficult task. Unlike proving mathematical conjectures, he had to think carefully about a lot of new content and needed a lot of inspiration to perfect.
Zhao Yi wanted to complete all the work in one go. After working for several consecutive days, he found his idea too simplistic. Sometimes, he would get stuck on a single problem and make no progress for several hours, even with the aid of causality thinking.
"Constructing a theoretical system is indeed complex work, no wonder theoretical physicists are geniuses."
He mused.
The existence of academic disdain chain is reasonable, mathematics and theoretical physics are at the top of the pyramid due to their difficulty.
Of course, other fields also require geniuses, but the difficulty in achieving results is somewhat lower. Some fields can make significant progress simply with hard work.
Mathematics and theoretical physics are different.
If you’re not exceptionally gifted, it’s pointless to struggle in these two fields. For many people, just understanding most of the basics can make them feel desperate, let alone achieving research results.
"It’s difficult to solve everything at once."
Zhao Yi thought frustratingly, "I should probably start with simple research to shift my thinking..."
The so-called simple research refers to laboratory work.
Zhao Yi had been doing particle mathematics research for several days without visiting the laboratory, and had accumulated a lot of work. The most important of which was examining the mice that had been injected with shapeshifting bacteria and E. coli.
"You’re here at last!"
Upon seeing Zhao Yi walk in, Fan Lei said hurriedly, "If you were any later, I would have gone to find you. Quite a few mice have already died."
"So pitiful..."
He pointed to the bodies in the glass box.
The dead mice couldn’t even rest in peace, as their blood was extracted, and the environment inside the box made their corpses look somewhat shriveled, reminiscent of those which died in a corner and were left out in the scorching sun.
Zhang Wei, dressed in a white lab coat, was in the sterile room, continuing to draw blood from the mice.
This task had to be handled very carefully.
The surviving mice were considered to have strong immunity, but they were all listless. The experiment hoped the mice could live longer. The mice that had their blood drawn should last a few more days, the concentration of antibodies in the blood drawn the second time would be higher, and the research value would be better.
Zhao Yi asked Fan Lei, "Have you been making observation records these past few days?"
"Of course."
Fan Lei picked up a sophisticated notebook from the table, "You said this record was useful last time, so I’ve been more meticulous. Even the miserable state of the poor mice before they died is recorded. You don’t know! I haven’t eaten anything last night or the night before..."
His expression looked somewhat pitiful as he spoke.
"It’s okay."
Zhao Yi didn’t care at all, "Hang in there, keep observing. You’ll eventually become immune to it."
"Exactly!"
Liu Chengjie pushed the door and walked in, chimed, "You get used to it. You’re just too young. I couldn’t stand it before, but later, I just didn’t care. I also wondered if it would taste good when cooked, to tell you the truth, I’ve tried it once."
"What?"
"Yeah, I sneaked a bite." Liu Chengjie said softly, "It was a few years ago when I was working on a project with my mentor. My classmate and I took a few lively ones, kill..." He even chuckled as he spoke, clearly trying to disgust Fan Lei.
Fan Lei couldn’t bear it any longer, he dashed to the other side and found Yan Yi who was adjusting equipment, "Sister Yan, Brother Liu said he ate mice!"
"..."
"..."
Yan Yi looked at Liu Chengjie disgustingly.
Liu Chengjie instantly darkened his face, he raised a big middle finger towards Fan Lei.
