Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Connie hit the road with the cooperative R&D agreement while Professor Pablo Herrero sent a PhD student to Lu Zhou.
However, he didn’t send the student to Princeton.
He sent him to the Sarrot Research Institute in California.
After the signing of the cooperative R&D agreement, research on superconducting materials finally began. The two research teams joined forces and greatly increased their speed of research.
Even though the situation looked good, Lu Zhou didn’t expect any short-term results.
Science was based on trial and error, there were still many “errors” that they had to make.
Superconducting materials was only a subset of the nuclear fusion project.
After the superconducting materials research began, Lu Zhou also began his theoretical research on plasma.
Both the tokamak and stellarator nuclear fusion devices faced the same problems. The problems were on the high temperature, high density, and the running-time constraints.
The high-temperature problem had some solutions. For example, laser ignition, heating of the plasma itself, the compression of plasma, or a combination of solutions.
However, the difficult problems were the latter two— the high density and running-time constraints.
Plasma was a very unstable substance. According to the plasma’s Reynold’s number, Re=ρvd/μ, any tiny disturbance in the high-density plasma system would result in a cascade of turbulence effects.
The stellarator had certain advantages over the tokamak. For example, it had lesser disturbance factors than a tokamak.
However, even though it had lesser disturbance factors, containing the unstable plasma in a small space was no small feat.
The theory was important.
Having a reliable and concise theoretical model would be immensely important for the nuclear fusion project.
The current research was at a bottleneck due to the lack of the theoretical model for the plasma in the nuclear fusion device.
This was exactly the thing that bothered Lu Zhou.
Whether it was the Euler–Lagrange equation or the Navier–Stokes equations, both of these simple-looking theories became astronomically difficult when applied to the nuclear fusion plasma problem.
If the Navier–Stokes equations were the mathematics problem of the century, then the viscous fluid that satisfies the Navier–Stokes equations would be the physics problem of the century.
And Lu Zhou’s research of the “turbulence phenomenon of plasma” would be part of this century problem.
Lu Zhou sat in his office desk at the Institute for Advanced Study and stared at the fiber-reinforced plastic cup on his desk. It was almost like he was daydreaming.
The cup wasn’t big; it similar to a vacuum flask. The liquid inside the cup was bubbling and white smoke overflowed from the edges of the cup.
Vera walked over, and she was about to report on her previous number theory lecture. However, she suddenly froze.
Lu Zhou rarely daydreamed.
“Professor, what are you doing?”
“Looking for inspiration.”
Obviously, Lu Zhou wasn’t daydreaming, he was in deep thought.
He stared at the bubbling liquid in the cup and tapped his pen on his notebook.
There was a short line of equations in the notebook.
[ρ{∂V/∂t+(V.Δ)·V}=-ΔP+ρg+μΔ2V]
This equation wasn’t difficult; the left side was the rate of momentum change of the liquid, and the right was the various forces acting on the liquid.
However…
Vera didn’t interrupt his search for inspiration. Instead, she sat next to him and looked at the cup curiously.
Gradually there was less and less smoke coming out from the cup, and the liquid level in the cup was decreasing.
After a while, the liquid completely disappeared, Vera blinked and spoke.
“It’s gone.”
“Yeah.”
Lu Zhou didn’t explain anything. Instead, he gestured Vera to walk a few steps back.
Then, he put on his insulated gloves and picked up a small bottle of liquid helium under his desk. He poured the liquid helium into the fiber-reinforced plastic cup.
The fiber-reinforced plastic was filled with the transparent liquid; white smoke overflowed the cup again.
Lu Zhou placed the liquid helium bottle down and continued to look at the boiling liquid in the cup.
Liquid helium at low-temperatures exhibited a superfluid phenomenon; the viscosity coefficient became close to zero and the Reynolds number was to infinity. The fluid became close to an ideal state fluid.
Although it looked more chaotic than other fluids, from a mathematical perspective, the amount of computation involved was much lower.
In some sense, the plasma was magnetically constrained in a vacuum chamber. It also had a large Reynolds number. However, due to its viscosity coefficient, it wasn’t as “perfect” as liquid helium.
Because of this, the plasma’s mathematical calculations were far more complex.
“Professor, why do I feel like the office is so cold?”
Hardy was sitting at his desk next to Lu Zhou, and he shivered as he looked at Lu Zhou.
“Because I poured a little liquid helium,” Lu Zhou said. He suddenly remembered something, and he looked at Qin Yue before saying, “Qin Yue, open the window for me.”
Qin Yue put down his pen and said, “Okay, professor.”
The office became a lot warmer after the window was opened.
Hardy suddenly realized something. He began to clean up the things on his table and was about to leave.
Lu Zhou noticed his movements and asked, “Where are you going?”
Hardy smiled awkwardly and said, “I suddenly remember that I still have a few theses I need to read, I have to go to the library.”
“Helium isn’t poisonous, don’t be so nervous,” Lu Zhou said. He sighed and placed the fiber-reinforced plastic on the window ledge, letting it sunbathed.
Liquid helium was a lot more dangerous than helium air.
If someone accidentally touched liquid helium, they would get frostbite on their fingers.
Lu Zhou returned to his office desk and remembered something. He then asked Vera, “Have you studied partial differential equations?”
Vera thought for a bit and nodded. However, she suddenly shook her head and said, “I have, but not much. Do you need help with anything?”
Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “No, it’s fine, continue on the Collatz conjecture.”
There were only three people in the Collatz conjecture research group. If Vera left, Lu Zhou would have to rely on Hardy and Qin Yue. He was afraid that the conjecture would never be solved.
The little girl looked a little sad.
She wanted to help the professor.
However, her abilities weren’t enough…
Lu Zhou suddenly remembered there was someone else in his office. He looked at Wei Wen and asked, “Wei Wen, have you researched partial differential equations before?”
Wei Wen pushed his glasses and smiled.
“I have, why?”
The partial differential equation was one of his many talents.
He had conducted research in partial differential equations at Yan University.
He had been at Princeton for so long, this was his chance.
He had been waiting for this day.
He would prove that he was the second strongest person in this office!
Lu Zhou said, “I want to open a research project; it’s about the Navier–Stokes equations.”
Wei Wen’s smile disappeared; he didn’t look so confident anymore.
However, Lu Zhou didn’t notice his change of expression.
Right now, he needed manpower, and any manpower would be good.
Of course, Wei Wen alone wasn’t enough. Even though Wei Wen was outstanding, he was still only a graduate student.
Lu Zhou tapped his finger on the desk and began to think who else could help. Suddenly, he stood up from his chair.
“Oh yeah, how did I forget about him…”
Lu Zhou sounded excited.
He should be able to help me!