The meal was eaten until eight o'clock in the evening, when it was nearing its end.

The Wittens had long been accustomed to the delicious taste of Chinese food during their time in China, so they did not lose their temper too much.

On the contrary, the Drignes and Wileses ate red and authentic Chinese food one by one, as if a new world was opened for them.

After dinner, everyone leisurely drank tea and chatted in the living room.

At this moment, there was a sudden banging on the door.

Pang Xuelin was slightly stunned and went to open the door.

Appearing in front of him were Eddie, Deligne's assistant, and a tall, thin man in his fifties wearing glasses.

Before Eddie could introduce, the thin man took the lead in stretching out his hand and said, "Professor Pang, hello, I'm David Gross, a professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University!" ”

"David Gross?"

Pang Xuelin was taken aback, this name, Edward Witten once mentioned to him.

David Gross, a professor of physics at Princeton University, was one of the founders of quantum chromodynamics in 1973 when he published a paper entitled "Ultraviolet Behavior of Non-Abelian Gauge Theory", reporting on their discovery of quark asymptotic freedom and giving a negative β function, which revealed the structure of hadrons and explained strong interactions well, causing a storm in physics.

In the '80s, Gross also collaborated with Jeffrey Harvey and others on the hybrid string, which led to the first superstring revolution with Michael Green, John Schwartz and Edward Witten.

When Pang Xuelin and Edward Witten created the M theory, they referred to Gross's paper on the higher-order progression of string perturbations as the behavior of the scattered amplitude of a chord at the high-energy limit.

After coming to Princeton from China, Pang Xuelin was still thinking about whether to communicate with this big man, but he learned from others that David Gross went to CERN in Switzerland for exchange half a year ago and never came back.

Pang Xuelin originally had some regrets, but he didn't expect that the big guy hadn't gone to him yet, but he had already taken the initiative to come to the door.

"Professor Gross, Add, please come in!"

Pang Xuelin smiled at Gross and Eddie, and hurriedly turned sideways to let the two in.

"Oh, who do I say? Gross, old man, long time no see! ”

Seeing Gross and Eddie coming in, Witten was slightly stunned, stood up first, walked up and laughed and hugged Gross to say hello.

Deligne and Wiles also stepped forward to say hello to Gross.

Then, Deligne turned his gaze to Eddie and said, "Add, what's going on, why did Professor Gross come over?" ”

Eddie said, "Professor Gross just got off the plane not long ago, and as soon as he came back, he shouted to find Professor Pang and Professor Witten, and it happened that I knew that you were all having dinner at Professor Pang's house today, so I brought him here. ”

At this time, Witten and Gross also finished greeting, and Witten was curious: "Gross, how did you find here?" Is there anything urgent? ”

Gross said: "Did you and Pang come up with M theory?" ”

Witten was slightly stunned, and said in some surprise: "How do you know M theory?" Those two papers haven't been published in Science yet, are you? ”

Gross sighed and said, "Sure enough, it's you!" ”

After a pause, Gross said: "The two papers of you and Pang were thrown to me, Michael Green, John Schwartz and Turio Reggie by the editorial department of Science, and it just so happened that Green and I were both at CERN. In addition, that article about AdS/CFT duality is simply a stroke of genius, which greatly increases the possibility of the existence of M theory, and you are throwing a super hydrogen bomb into the theoretical physics community. I've been studying your and Pang's papers for the past two days, and the more I researched, the more interesting I became, so I flew back from Switzerland overnight and wanted to talk to you face-to-face......"

Witten laughed and said, "So, both of my papers and Pang's papers have been approved?" ”

Gross smiled: "I don't think it's a big problem, and it is estimated that it will be published in March at the earliest." ”

With such a break from Gross, the people who were originally going to disperse suddenly couldn't leave.

Pang Xuelin simply took Witten and Gross to the study, and the group chatted about M theory.

Although Drinne and Wiles did not know much about the cutting-edge research in theoretical physics, they also came to join in the fun.

Unconsciously, this gathering turned into a small academic seminar.

Gross discussed M theory with Witten and Pang Xuelin before and after they let them go.

By this time, it was already eleven o'clock in the evening.

After Pang Xuelin sent Wei Teng and them away, it was already after twelve o'clock.

Pang Xuelin went to take a shower first, and then walked into the bedroom in a bathrobe.

Wang Muhui was sitting at the head of the bed reading a book, and when she saw Pang Xuelin coming in, Wang Muhui smiled and said, "It's all over?" ”

Pang Xuelin smiled bitterly: "It's finally over, I originally thought that I would accompany you well on Chinese New Year's Eve, but I didn't expect it to become like this." ”

Wang Muhui smiled: "I think it's very good!" ”

She went to the study to refill tea a few times, although she didn't know what Pang Xuelin and Witten were talking about, but judging from the expressions on the faces of these people, Pang Xuelin must have done something amazing.

"Okay, Xiaohui, it's not early, let's go to bed early!"

Pang Xuelin turned off the ceiling light in the bedroom with a click, leaving only the dim light of the table lamp on the bedside table.

Pang Xuelin turned over and entered the quilt, and soon, he was rolled by the waves.

……

Fortunately, except for the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, in the next few days, Gross did not continue to look for Pang Xuelin and Witten.

Pang Xuelin can be regarded as An An who accompanied Wang Muhui for a few days.

On February 16, Pang Xuelin and Witten successfully received a receipt from the editorial department of Science magazine, and their paper has successfully passed the peer review and will be officially published in March.

In this regard, neither Pang Xuelin nor Wei Teng made too many waves in their hearts.

Time passed day by day, and before I knew it, it was March 1st.

On this day, Pang Xuelin had just returned to his office after taking a theory class in Ponzi geometry, when Eddie, Deligne's secretary, hurriedly walked in with a magazine.

"Professor Pang, this is the latest issue of Science, and Professor Deligne asked me to send it to you."

"Thank you!"

Pang Xuelin took the magazine from Eddie's hand, and when he saw the cover for the first time, he couldn't help but be stunned.

On the cover page of the Science Magazine, there is a side portrait of himself and Edward Witten looking at each other, and in the center of the photograph is a very large headline.

M-Theory – The Ultimate Theory of Physics? 》

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