"Hey, Professor Cheng? I'm Junxin. After returning to the hotel, Junxin borrowed the phone in the hotel directly through the channel of the organizing committee of the competition and dialed Professor Cheng's office on the other side of the ocean.

At this time, it was evening, and according to the geographical location, Beijing at this time happened to have breakfast in the morning. However, if you want to get through the transatlantic phone call in the 80s, it will take at least half an hour or so to transfer. So when I received Professor Cheng's office, it was estimated that Professor Cheng should also come to the office after dinner to prepare for the day's tasks.

"Oh, it's Jun, aren't you in Toronto for a meeting? Why do you have time to call me? "After accurate inference and calculation, I naturally waited for the result I wanted. Professor Cheng had already arrived at the office.

"There are two things that need to be reported to you, which are more important!" Junxin fiddled with the phone line with one hand and said, "It's about this conference." ”

"Say, I'll remember it here!" Professor Cheng heard that it was serious, and his tone became obviously serious.

"That's right, just now, Professor Watney, the current president of the International Union of Crystallography, approached me for an exchange of views, which involves some future arrangements, and I would like to discuss it with you."

"Good news or bad news?" Professor Cheng's words were obviously a little nervous.

"That's good news!" Jun Xin first calmed Professor Cheng's heart, and then said, "Professor Watney came to me for two things, the first thing is to prepare for the establishment of an aperiodic crystal academic committee under the International Union of Crystallography; The second thing is that he proposed to hold the 12th International Federation of Crystallography Congress in China, and I can win our school as the organizer, but I need the support of the school's senior management. ”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Professor Cheng was obviously spending a certain amount of time digesting the news brought by Junxin. After a long time, he asked in a somewhat dry voice, "How did you answer?" ”

"The aperiodic crystal academic committee is a very important matter, and it is impossible to really set up in such a hurry, so I think it is okay to prepare, but it is absolutely impossible to establish it in a short period of time, and even the next internal meeting of the committee may not be able to approve this proposal."

"You're right, the stakes are high, and there are too many interests involved, so you'd better not get involved." After a pause, Professor Cheng continued to say calmly, "Did Professor Watney say anything else?" ”

He also said that the preparations will continue until the next convention, where he hopes to be able to pass with home advantage in the next one. Jun Xin replied truthfully.

"Home field advantage?"

"Yes, that's what he said. According to my understanding, I hope that I can continue to work hard in the next three years, and make great progress in the field of quasicrystals, so that I can pass his proposal next time. Junxin thought about it and said his understanding.

"Well, that's how I understand it!" Professor Cheng said, "What do you want me to do? ”

"I hope you can give me a clear answer to whether our school can host the next International Federation of Crystallography, only by knowing this, I can determine the next work." Jun Xin's tone also became serious and asked.

Professor Cheng said categorically: "You don't need to ask this question to others, I can answer you now." Our school can hold the next International Federation of Crystallography, and I can tell the principal that I can win this matter nine times out of ten. What are you going to do? How do you organize your work? ”

"If the proposal for the establishment of an academic committee on aperiodic crystallography is to be adopted at the next International Union of Crystallography, then the work over the next three years will be key. Although I already have two professors in my laboratory, Xu Jiang and Zhang Yang, I am afraid that the strength is not enough, so I plan to cooperate with other laboratories to carry out cooperative research in the form of joint research, and strive to maximize the influence of quasicrystals. ”

"Just two days ago, Professor Guo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences called me to ask me about some things about quasicrystals, and he and Professor Ye and others recently cooperated to prepare a quasicrystalline substance, and began research in this area. I'll go and say that there is no problem with Xiang, but do you have any arrangements for Xiao Jiang and Xiao Zhang? ”

"Most of the tasks assigned to Professor Xu before focused on the physical and chemical properties and other aspects of quasicrystals, mainly studying some basic laws of quasicrystals; Professor Zhang's side focuses on the preparation of applications, including the research of preparation methods and materials, etc., and they have no requirements for adjustment for the time being, but they can appropriately increase the progress of their work. "Since Professor Xu and Professor Zhang have been given a schedule of their schedules, Junxin really doesn't need to adjust the work arrangements of the two professors, and the only thing that needs to be adjusted is the progress of the experiment.

"Okay, I'll remind them about that. Anything else? Professor Cheng continued to ask questions after answering this matter.

Junxin thought about it carefully and said: "There is another thing that you can do by yourself, but this requires a lot of experimental data, so it is better to do it after a large number of experimental reports and papers come out." That is, you can make a large-scale classification of enough quasicrystals, and I will publish a mathematical table of crystallography in a little later, mainly using Galois's group theory to classify crystallography, but there are also other things involved, you can refer to it, I will ask Zhang to bring it back in the next two days, and you can ask him directly for it when the time comes. I think that through the classification of crystallography, you can use the classification of quasicrystals, and when it is systematically summarized, it can have a decisive effect. ”

"I'll think about this, I'm not in a hurry, after all, my research is mainly focused on organic chemistry, and I'm not good at crystals, so it's not good to change it rashly." Professor Cheng was noncommittal to Junxin's suggestion, and after a brief response to two sentences, he continued to ask, "Is there anything else?" ”

"Oh, there's one more thing I need to tell you. Professor Watney, along with Ms. Dorothy Crawford Hodgkin, Professor Aaron Kluger, and Professor Max Peruz, among others, agreed that I would be the keynote speaker for the closing session of the last day of the conference. But I don't know what I'm going to talk about, can you give me some advice? ”