The shorter the word, the more informative.

Thinking of what Academician Lu said to himself after returning from the Brussels International Conference on Theoretical Physics, Lu Zhou had a vague premonition that Professor Frank might have something important to say to him.

So, he didn't slack off in the slightest and quickly replied to the email.

[I can do it anytime, see when you are free?] 】

After waiting for a while, Professor Frank did not reply.

Lu Zhou glanced at the time, estimated that he was probably asleep, so he got up and walked into the bathroom to take a shower, and went to rest.

Nothing was said all night.

Early the next morning, Lu Zhou got up listening to the alarm, checked his email, and received a reply.

[The day after tomorrow, I will go to Stony Brook University, and I will stay there for about three days. If you have time, we can meet there. 】

Lu Zhou glanced at the calendar.

Two days later there was a lecture, but he had already asked Professor Deligne to take a leave of absence.

After thinking about it, he edited an email and replied.

[Okay, then noon the day after tomorrow, I'll contact you when it's time.] 】

The reply is only two letters.

【OK】

……

Located on the West Coast, New York is the economic and cultural hub of the entire West Coast, and is also one of the science and technology centers of the West Coast.

Many people know about Wall Street and Broadway on Manhattan Island, but few people know that right next door on Long Island is also home to one of the world's top comprehensive scientific research bases, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

It has been the birthplace of many Nobel Prizes, including the non-conservation of cosmic symmetry by Yang Zhenxi and Li Zhengdao, and the J-particle discovered by Ding Zhao. There are currently about 3,000 researchers and engineers here, and an average of more than 4,000 visiting scholars work with it every year.

It's not as good as CERN, but it's a pretty impressive number.

To a large extent, this is where the collider comes in. On the surface, the discovery of a novel particle does not seem to immediately change human life, but it can attract a large number of scholars to gather here, give birth to a large number of suppliers focusing on cutting-edge equipment, and form a huge "scientific research ecology".

For example, the storage ring of the hadron collider requires near-harsh vacuum conditions, which led to the development of ultra-high vacuum technology, which eventually exerted industrial value in the medical and electronics industries.

And there are many similar things.

The lab is currently part of the Department of Energy, but is managed by the Brookhaven Society of Science, a company established by Stony Brook University and the Battle Institute.

It happened to be Monday, and Lu Zhou arrived in New York with his newly bought car.

Professor Frank and he booked a meeting at the café in front of Stony Brook University. I don't know if it's Lu Zhou's delusion, but I always feel that the professors he knows have a soft spot for things like coffee.

After sitting in the café until twelve o'clock, Professor Frank arrived at the meeting point on time, still with his laptop in hand.

"I'm sorry, I delayed the meeting for a while, and I kept you waiting."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No, I just arrived." ”

Sitting across from Lu Zhou, Professor Frank saw the waiter and said in a relaxed tone, "Bring me a cup of Americano and a tuna sandwich." ”

Waiter: "Do you need to add sugar?" ”

"No, you don't."

While ordering food from the waiter, Professor Frank put his laptop on the table, opened the folder, looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "You brought a USB flash drive?" ”

Lu Zhou nodded, took out the USB flash drive from his pocket and put it on the table, "Take it...... Can you tell me what the hell is going on? While I wouldn't mind having coffee with you, if it's just data, why don't we use email as we normally would? ”

Professor Frank did not answer the question immediately, but operated the computer, opened a chart file, and then turned the laptop around and presented it to Lu Zhou.

Looking at the image on the screen, Lu Zhou frowned slightly, "This is?" ”

Professor Frank moved his chair to the side of the table, the image on the screen said.

"This is CERN's latest experimental record, and the two graphs above are the distribution curves of collision cases in each energy region collected by the ATLAS and CMS detectors, as well as statistical charts, and you should be able to see the meaning of this graph."

Staring at the image for a while, Lu Zhou's expression gradually became a little solemn, "The confidence level has dropped?" ”

Professor Frank sighed softly, "Yes, no matter how many sets of experiments we repeat, the confidence level is still not up to the 3sigma standard. In the experiment at the end of last year, the characteristic peak in the 750 GeV energy region even showed contraction...... That's what you see as confidence drops. ”

After staring at the icon for a long time, Lu Zhou didn't speak for a long time.

He had vaguely guessed why Professor Frank wanted to talk to him face-to-face.

Seeing that Lu Zhou didn't speak, Professor Frank paused for a moment and continued.

"At the end of the year, in Brussels, this big international conference on theoretical physics is very large, and it's a shame that you missed it."

The latest discovery on the report accelerator at the time was the newly elected 16th President of the CERN Board of Governors, Ms. Fabiola Gyanotti. The presentation was packed, with many people sitting on the ground and even in the corridors outside. ”

"That presentation was a lot of things, especially the full 20 minutes that took CERN's findings on the 750GeV."

"You should be able to read these pictures, or you can take them back for study," Professor Frank sighed and said softly, "though it doesn't mean much anymore." ”

Lu Zhou didn't look at the computer again, but stared at Professor Frank, waiting for him to continue.

In response to the junior's gaze, Professor Frank shrugged his shoulders, trying to make his tone sound less heavy, and continued, "But you've been a great helper anyway. From May last year to two months ago, there was a flood of papers on Arxiv, including many novel physical models. They are not necessarily correct, but they are useful. And the two papers we have co-authored have also been cited many times by our peers. ”

Although this sentence sounded like comfort, Lu Zhou didn't get any comfort from it.

He has devoted half a year to this project, although for a theoretical physicist, half a year is nothing, and it is not even enough time for them to grow their hair back, but for Lu Zhou, the meaning of this project is completely different.

Not just because of the models he took out of his busy schedule to build, but also because of the hope he poured into the 750GeV......

Taking a deep breath, Lu Zhou looked at Professor Frank and said slowly, "What do you mean?" ”

Professor Frank's reaction confirmed his suspicions.

I saw the old man stand up, take off his hat, and nodded slightly, expressing his gratitude,

"CERN's official explanation to the experts of the council members is that there is still hope, but it is clear that from January 1 onwards, there will be no more experiments to retrieve the anomaly of the 750 GeV characteristic peak, because it is disappearing and every collision of the particle cluster is burning money. It was a pleasure to work with you and I would like to thank you for your work, but ......"

As he spoke, Professor Frank cleared his throat and lowered his eyes slightly, expressing regret, "Reason tells us that it is much easier to build a physical model to explain why 750GeV does not exist than to find this particle that does not exist. ”

It's just that this work doesn't make much sense anymore.

Speculations that explain why a particle does not exist are neither falsifiable nor verifiable at best, at the level of a doctoral dissertation. It may be able to help a few high-energy physics PhDs who can't finish their studies to get their degrees, but it's far from "new physics".

Lu Zhou was silent for a long time.

After a long time, he seemed to have made up his mind and said.

"But I haven't given up yet."

Professor Frank didn't say anything more, put his hat back on, and sighed softly.

"Good luck then."

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