And it was exactly as Northoldton expected.

As the incident fermented for a few days, finally, the voices of discussion in the chemical community almost all became Li Mu's four papers.

The greeting that chemistry researchers greet when they meet these days becomes, "Hey, have you read those papers?" ”

Then the person who answers will usually respond, "Of course I did." ”

Or a frustrated reply: "I'm not very good at math, I can't read it well from the second page." ”

Yes, when these chemists boarded ARXIV with curiosity under the rumors of others and downloaded these papers, they would reluctantly find that if they want to understand Li Mu's four papers, they must first have a strong foundation and ability in mathematics.

Otherwise, in the face of the endless mathematical methods that start from the second page, that is, the second part after the end of the introduction, they can be confused in an instant.

I don't understand!

I can't understand it at all!

No way, chemists who are used to doing experiments don't attach much importance to mathematics.

Therefore, in the face of Li Mu's cross-border articles, the vast majority of people were immediately stumped.

However, they can't understand it themselves, and they can always hear the comments of various bigwigs in the academic world, and their hearts feel as uncomfortable as scratching an itch.

There are always exceptions, though.

For those who study computational chemistry, their mathematical fundamentals are better than those of other branches of chemistry.

As a result, Li Mu's papers immediately made scholars in the field of computational chemistry ecstatic and discussed.

In particular, his "Computational Chemical Model of the Interface Reaction of Two Types of Conductors" is regarded as the Bible.

In fact, the derivation process of the computational chemistry model in this paper, as well as the application method, have brought them an excellent case.

This paper is enough to be used as a classic material for research in any computational chemistry textbook.

As for the other three papers, the content related to computational chemistry is also very valuable.

For a while, scholars in the field of computational chemistry seemed to be living a carnival in the entire chemistry community while enjoying their computational chemistry feast.

In this way, the boiling tide in the chemical world finally reached a climax one day at the end of May.

Because on this day, there happened to be an international chemistry academic conference.

WATOC, 12th Triennial Congress of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists.

This conference is a discussion conference for scholars of theoretical and computational chemistry, held every three years, and has a very important position in the chemical community, each time it can attract thousands of chemists.

And this time it's even more so.

Even many chemists who did not plan to attend the conference because of something happened suddenly sent an email to the organizing committee of the conference, expressing their willingness to participate.

And the reason why they are like this, their intentions are also very obvious.

It was for Li Mu's four papers.

……

On May 29, the conference officially began.

Russell Boyd, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Conference, first delivered a speech: "Welcome to our conference, and before the conference report begins, I would like to announce a very exciting news that we have more than 1,500 chemists attending the 2017 WATOC. ”

"This year, we expected that there would be less than 2,000 people to attend, but to our surprise, more than 3,000 people signed up for the conference, and nearly half of them sent us temporary emails during the half-month period."

"To do this, we had to change the conference hall, which, as you can see, is here."

There was laughter, and then a round of applause.

These chemists spontaneously gave applause to the organizing committee.

Until the applause stopped, Russell Boyd smiled: "Thank you for the applause, of course, I know why everyone is so positive all of a sudden, but it's a pity that we couldn't invite that young mathematical genius to come over - now, he can also be called a young chemical genius." ”

There was another discussion in the audience.

They all know that Russell Boyd is talking about Li Mu, and in the past few days, Li Mu has become an upstart in the chemical world, and the people who discuss him don't know how to go.

After all, it was he who turned the entire chemical world upside down during this time.

It's a pity that he didn't make it to this meeting.

Otherwise, they would like to hear from Li Mu what he thought of those papers.

Russell Boyd continued: "But anyway, everybody's here, so let's get our discussion started. ”

"I hereby announce the official opening of the 12th WATOC Triennial General Assembly, and I would like to invite Professor Stanley Whittingham to open the curtain on our conference."

Amid loud applause, Stanley Whittingham stepped onto the podium.

Stanley Whittingham had been invited to give the first plenary report at the conference a few months earlier.

After all, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year, and Goodenough is almost 100 years old, and the other Akira Yoshino is Japanese, so he is the most suitable.

Walking up to the microphone, he unfolded his speech and then turned to the audience and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you here, and it's an honor to be invited by WATOC to give a presentation. ”

"Originally, the topic of my talk was 'What is the Future of Theoretical Chemistry?' 》。 ”

"But in the past half a month, I have changed my theme, and as you can see, it is the title on the PPT."

Everyone looked up and looked at the big screen behind him.

New Directions and New Thinking in Theoretical Chemistry.

"At first, I was at a loss as to the future direction of theoretical chemistry, but after reading the papers that everyone has been discussing recently, I suddenly found the direction."

"It's simple, just two words, math."

"There are traces of mathematics, even though it's hard to find."

"But our chemistry is always nowhere to be found."

"Of course, we have such a great discovery as the periodic table, but when we apply it to experiments, everything will become random and accidental again."

"It is this randomness that restricts our development."

"Through these papers by MuLi, I was surprised to find that mathematics can really guide us in the direction of progress."

"Just like the role of mathematics in physics, mathematics must also enable us to find the way forward in chemistry."

"Even though I know it's troublesome, it's more subtle."

"It's a hard thing to do, even for those of us who study chemistry."

"After all, we're not good at math—"

Stanley laughed at himself, "Including me." ”

There was laughter.

But soon, Stanley's voice became serious again: "But now that it is in front of us, we cannot give up because the road to it is too difficult." ”

"The search for the truth is bound to be difficult."

"So, go study the math, chemists."

"The treasure is already in front of us, but we just open the lock of the treasure and tell us that the key must be obtained by mathematics!"

Off the field, the applause was thunderous.

(End of chapter)