Martin Chalfi, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, once said in an interview that if you are lucky enough to make a little achievement, people will do a terrible thing to you.

They'll start saying to you, "Hey, you might win the Nobel Prize." "Then from the first week of October, you start to have insomnia and are extremely sensitive to any ringtone, even a neighbor's phone call......

Until, the day you actually get a call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In addition to the Swedish surprise, the main reason for this is to ensure that the winners do not show off in advance and undermine the sense of expectation of all mankind or the whole society.

The phone call to notify you of the prize will usually come a few minutes before the draw. As a result, the Nobel Prize phone call is arguably one of the most anticipated calls in the world, and it can make a bungee jumping thrill in just a few minutes.

Lu Zhou, who received this call, also experienced a bungee jump-like thrill in his heart in just one minute.

As for why he, who had not expected the Nobel Prize, would experience the thrill of bungee jumping in just one minute......

Because unfortunately, it is obviously impossible to find him Nobel......

It's Crawford.

Well, in fact, the Cafford Award is not bad.

It can even be said that it is very strong.

The prize was established in 1980 by the industrialist Holger Cratford and his wife Anna Greta Crawford, and was selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

As for why?

Because the original intention of this award is to fill the gap of the Nobel Prize, both the process and the specifications of the award ceremony are in accordance with the standards of the Nobel Prize.

The Prize is awarded annually in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, earth sciences and life sciences that are not covered by the Nobel Prize, and rotates between astronomy and mathematics, earth sciences and biological sciences.

This year, it will be the turn of the fields of astronomy and mathematics, respectively, to be awarded to the most outstanding contributors in the field in recent times.

At the same time, the prize money is half a million dollars.

Like the Nobel Prize, the Crafodford Prize, also awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is usually announced to the winners a few minutes before the lottery is held, so that Lu Zhou, who was having dinner with Witten, was caught off guard by the sudden phone call.

In fact, the reason why Lu Zhou won the award was not because of Goldbach's conjecture, but because of his series of studies in the field of prime numbers. However, the paper that appeared in the Annals of Mathematics a few days ago once again refreshed the list of his achievements.

And it's such an achievement that can't be ignored.

As a result, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences added the achievement of Goldbach-Lu's theorem to the winners' profiles published on its official website.

Somewhat dizzy by the $500,000 and medals that suddenly jumped from the sky, Lu Zhou couldn't even remember how he got back to the office from the cafeteria.

All he remembered was that Witten smiled and patted him on the shoulder, said congratulations to him, and by the time he came to his senses, he was already sitting in his office and had his computer turned on.

Landing on the official website of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lu Zhou refreshed it several times, and finally saw the list of Cafford Awards announced on the official website.

And his name is on this list.

As for the other two laureates, Professor Roy Kerr of the University of Canterberry in New Zealand and Professor Roger Branford of Stanford University in the United States. The two shared the Astronomy Prize for their significant contributions to the study of "black holes with angular momentum and their effects......

As for the mathematics prize, he is naturally the only one.

Seeing this, Lu Zhou breathed a sigh of relief, and was sure that the call he received just now was not a new type of fraud or a belated April Fool's joke, and a hanging stone in his heart finally fell to the ground.

Then, Lu Zhou casually closed the webpage of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and opened another webpage.

Now that the news of the award has been confirmed, there is only one thing he is curious about.

This is a prize of half a million dollars.

How much does it cost to convert to RMB?

……

Two hours after receiving the call, Lu Zhou's mailbox received an email from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

I don't know how they know their email number, but it doesn't seem like a hard thing to think that they can even get a private phone number.

After all, whether it is on the professor profile page of Princeton University's official website or in Arxiv's personal information, he has his own email account.

In this e-mail from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in addition to an electronic copy of the invitation, the content of the letter is mainly a written retelling of what has already been said in the previous phone call.

For example, the timing of the award ceremony, and the banquet after the award ceremony.

As part of the celebration of the Krafford Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences held a three-day academic exchange conference and invited him to give a presentation on the laureates.

As for the reporting time, it is, naturally, one hour.

Just as Lu Zhou turned off his email, took out the PPT used in the Princeton report, and was about to change it and use it again, another phone call suddenly came.

This time it wasn't a stranger who called, but from Old Tang.

As soon as the phone was connected, a familiar voice came from the other side.

"You proved Goldbach's conjecture?!"

Hearing this, Lu Zhou was stunned and replied subconsciously.

"Well, what's wrong?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long time before he sighed softly.

“…… Nothing, just a little surprised. After a pause, Old Tang smiled and continued, "Today, the Department of Mathematics was holding a conference, and in the middle of the meeting, suddenly a copy of the "Annals of Mathematics" was sent in. Originally, we were still discussing this year's enrollment plan, but it turned out that the content discussed in the second half of the meeting became all about you. ”

Although the tone was just an understatement, Old Tang's heart was full of emotion.

When Lu Zhou asked him about the distribution of Mersenne prime numbers in the cafeteria, he suggested that Lu Zhou should not think about these things and concentrate on functional analysis and applied mathematics.

As a result, fate is so wonderful.

It's only been a few years, and he's grown to where he is now.

For this student, Tang Zhiwei is very pleased and proud of him from the bottom of his heart.

Hearing what Old Tang said, Lu Zhou couldn't help but cry and laugh.

"This ...... I'm so embarrassed. ”

He originally thought that his paper would be at most a few unfinished papers, but he didn't expect to mess up the meetings of his alma mater.

Old Don smiled and did not continue on the topic, but continued.

"You have now completed your doctorate, and although the school is not in a hurry for you to come back quickly, there is still a graduation certificate and degree certificate waiting for you here. Principal Xu and Director Lu are urging me to ask you. I asked them when you plan to come back and finish this PhD? ”

At the beginning, Jinling University and Princeton University signed a joint training plan for Lu Zhou, and after Lu Zhou completed his doctorate at Princeton, he returned to China to give a report and get a doctorate degree from Jinling University.

Originally, there was actually a teaching position, but now it seems that it can be relieved a little.

Regarding Lu Zhou's intention to stay in Princeton as a professor, the school definitely supports it.

After all, talent is not RMB, and it will not increase in value if you hold it in your pocket, only leaders born in political work like to do this kind of thing.

In fact, many presidents born in scientific research know in their hearts that no matter how much they invest in the talent training of domestic universities, the hematopoietic ability of cutting-edge scientific researchers will definitely not be comparable with the world's strongest universities like Princeton.

Whether it's the academic environment or the hardware equipment, this gap doesn't change overnight, just like solving a major math puzzle, everything takes generations.

Encouraging talents to go to a higher level of platforms to absorb scientific research nutrients is also the talent training policy of major universities.

There are also supporting policies for the introduction of overseas talents, such as the Thousand Talents Plan and so on.

And this is also known as "send it out first, and then please come back".

Even if you don't come back when you're young, you can stay there and train a few more international students for your motherland.

To take the simplest example, if a scholar from the University of Kim can become a professor in Princeton, then the University of Kim can have at least one more student from Princeton every once in a while (in principle, only one foreign director of the same university is allowed), and this number of places is almost non-existent in previous years.

At the same time, even if Jin Da can't eat this place, it will not disappear out of thin air. Under the condition of equal ability, Chinese professors are more inclined to recruit Chinese students, which is almost a norm (there are counterexamples).

However, Jin Da's relief is redundant, Lu Zhou needs to learn a lot of things, and he also needs overseas scientific research experience, and at the same time, Princeton's various resources can also provide help for him to complete the system task.

When the time is almost up, he will naturally go back.

After all, he's a nostalgic man.

Lu Zhou thought for a while and replied: "I'm going to go to Stockholm first, but it won't be long, I'll be back in early June." ”

"Stockholm?" Old Tang was stunned for a moment and wondered, "What are you doing in Sweden?" ”

Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly.

"Claim the prize."