Into Unscientific

That's right.

The boss who appeared at this time was none other than Old Yang.

So far in the Chinese physics community

highest peak.

Mr. Yang was born in 1922, and now he is just a hundred years old, and he has made great achievements.

And at the same time.

He is also the most controversial scholar in the Chinese physics field so far, and there is no such thing as one of them.

People who like Mr. Yang can't wait to love Mr. Yang shoulder to shoulder, and Bordillac can only kneel down to shine Mr. Yang's shoes.

What about people who hate Elder Yang?

I can't wait to call him a rare classmate who can't even count F=ma.

But how high is the actual achievement of Mr. Yang?

When introducing Hawking before, he once refuted the so-called [Yang Lao ranked 18th among the greatest scientists selected by "Nature" magazine], but did not introduce Yang Lao's specific achievements (see Chapter 211)

Actually.

There are many achievements of Mr. Yang, but there are only two most important points:

Parity violation and Yang-Mills fields.

Mr. Yang won the Nobel Prize by virtue of the former, and became great by virtue of the latter.

Students who were Einstein in their previous life should know.

After the problem of universal gravitation is solved.

The old love heard the last words of Captain Olga before he died, so he didn't stop him.

He saw a new big problem before physics, which is

Unification of gravitational force and electromagnetic interaction force.

Therefore, in his later years, Lao Ai devoted a lot of energy to the work of unifying gravitation and electromagnetic interaction.

But unfortunately.

Lao Ai failed to unify the two until his death.

Moreover, the scientific community has discovered two other types of interactions inside the nucleus—weak interactions and strong interactions.

At that time, scientists didn't even know how to describe the strong and weak interactions.

At this time, Elder Yang appeared.

1954.

Mr. Yang published his Yang-Mills gauge field theory.

Next, Gell-Mann, Weinberg and other outstanding scientists used this theory as a framework to give a quantum chromodynamics describing the strong interaction and a unified theory of weak electricity.

That is, the unity of weak interaction and electromagnetic interaction.

so far.

Among the four kinds of interactions, the electromagnetic interaction, weak interaction and strong interaction are all completed under the framework of Mr. Yang's gauge field theory.

The fundamental particle model mentioned above is the result of the development of the gauge field theory, which almost dominated the physics research after the 1950s.

This is why it is said that Mr. Yang has made great contributions to the physics community.

Therefore, this theory did not help Mr. Yang win the award, but it is the core of his current influence.

Of course.

It needs to be explained.

At the beginning of Yang Lao's theory, he did not directly give how to describe the interaction, but he proposed a general framework.

That is to say, a foundation has been laid, and everyone will add bricks and tiles to build a building later.

For example, Te Hooft, who arrived earlier.

Before Te Hooft, when people were doing electroweak theoretical calculations, they often had to do violent truncation, and the results obtained were far from those of experiments.

Therefore.

The electroweak theory was not widely accepted 70 years ago.

It is precisely because of Te Hooft's work that the electroweak theory has really become "useful".

Therefore, there has been a saying in the academic world:

Although Te Hooft is younger than Mr. Yang, he has made Mr. Yang and Weinberg a success.

Nowadays, many people have a tendency.

It is because the Yang-Mills field is located at the bottom of the theory that the entire Standard Model and even the entire quantum field theory are attributed to Yang Lao.

This is also not objective.

If Mr. Yang's situation is to be benchmarked, it is probably a bit similar to the "Journey to Floating Miao" in the online article.

That is to say, it belongs to the originator of the so-called "Xianxia" novel category. Almost all subsequent Xianxia novels have its shadow, and it must be mentioned when talking about Xianxia novels.

But you said it completely delineated the pattern of Xianxia novels?

This is obviously a bit extreme.

Readers of "Star Change", "Immortal Rebellion" and "Mortal" are definitely not happy.

So as said before.

Mr. Yang belongs to the type of 'founder', but strictly speaking, he cannot be regarded as a 'pathbreaker'.

For example, Mr. Yang had Edward Mills Purcell before him, that is, Mills in the Yang-Mills gauge field theory.

Before Mills, there was Schrödinger.

Backtracking back and forth, and finally back to the early days of the physics world more than a hundred years ago.

So some of the old Yang's sayings that he is the top ten in the history of physics and sits around and looks at the five are actually recruiting him.

It's not that the strength is not enough, but that the time is wrong.

The era in which Mr. Yang lives is doomed to be impossible for him to open up a big road, or to open up a big road independently.

Objectively speaking.

Mr. Yang's overall ranking in the physics field is probably around 35.

About the same as Stephen Weinberg, in the 1.2th gear of Landau's ranking.

Whether it is "traitors, trash, traitors, old and young love shameless", or "the top five in history, even comparable to Einstein, better than Weinberg, Witten, Feynman, Dirac, Heisenberg, etc., between Hawking and Yang Lao There are still 100 Feynmans short." These are fallacies with strong personal emotions or misunderstandings.

And among living physicists.

regardless of nationality.

Mr. Yang can probably be ranked in the top five or top three-especially after the death of Gell-Mann in 19 and Stephen Weinberg in 21, Mr. Yang is firmly in the top three from any angle.

Of course.

With a little personal feeling, it doesn't hurt to say that Mr. Yang is number one.

But there is one thing to correct here.

It is wrong to say that Mr. Yang is also regarded as the first person in physics abroad.

For example, many institutions in Europe believe that Mr. Yang and Weinberg are in the same class, while Europe and the United States believe that Glashow's achievements are higher than that of Mr. Yang, but the gap is very, very small.

And the above-mentioned big guys are slightly inferior to another person at the same time.

another.

There is even a debate about whether he is a physicist for a 'physicist'.

Compared with Higgs who had been present earlier, Mr. Yang was in a much more sluggish state, only slightly better than Mr. Wang.

So soon.

After a brief chat with Hou Xingyuan, Old Yang was transported away by a team of security personnel.

but

After seeing off Mr. Yang, Hou Xingyuan still did not leave the airport.

It is not difficult to see another meaning from this move:

It seems that some giant has yet to emerge.

At this time, Weinberg and Gell-Mann had already passed away, and it was obviously impossible for Glashow to escape from the ICU to Chengdu.

Higgs had already arrived before Elder Yang.

See this situation.

A guess suddenly popped up in Xu Yun's mind.

Could it be

It's him?

It has been more than 15 hours since I was called to the scene to pick up the plane in the morning.

Therefore, even young people like Xu Yun and Lu Chaoyang couldn't hold on at this moment, and their eyelids were shaking like they were fighting like eggs.

Fortunately, this time Xu Yun stuffed a few Snickers bars in addition to the nut sticks in his clothes. Although these things are boring to death, they are still very good at fighting hunger.

"Professor Lu."

I glanced at the banner of "Warmly welcome well-known physicists from all over the world to Chengdu" which was still held up high.

Xu Yun handed the Snickers bar to Lu Chaoyang and asked:

"How long do you think it will take for today's pick-up?"

Lu Chaoyang took the Snickers bar, rubbed the corners of his eyes lightly with his fingers, and thought:

"It should be soon. Seeing Dean Hou's non-resting posture, he is obviously ready to pick up the next one and leave—or he will sit up and down for a while."

Xu Yun nodded in agreement.

It seems that Lu Chaoyang agrees with him, and Hou Xingyuan's physical fitness is estimated to be almost at the upper limit.

Therefore, there is a high probability that there will be only one boss who has not arrived yet.

About twenty minutes passed.

When the time came to about forty in the morning.

The atmosphere at the airport pick-up port became solemn again visible to the naked eye.

Xu Yun noticed.

Even several physicists who had arrived earlier but had not left on the bus with the other bosses stood up one after another.

Among them, there are even Nobel Prize winners like George Parisi.

Also worth mentioning is that.

The majors of these bigwigs are basically related to topological quantum field theory and supersymmetric gauge field theory.

See this situation.

The guess in Xu Yun's heart became a little more certain.

five minutes later.

There was the sound of a suitcase rolling.

At the end of the special passage, there appeared an energetic, tall, tall foreign old man with an oval face and a straight nose.

This person was about sixty or seventy years old, wearing a gray woolen sweater with his collar upright, dragging his suitcase alone, without anyone accompanying him.

Judging from his demeanor and dress, he looks like a foreigner visiting Rongcheng.

See this situation.

Even some media reporters who don't know much about the physics circle can't help but have a question in their hearts:

What's the situation?

Could it be a passerby who strayed into this occasion by mistake?

After all, whether it's ostentation, age, or appearance, he really doesn't match the posture that Hou Xingyuan prepared in advance.

But soon.

The doubts of the reporters were completely dispelled by the same deafening applause as when Mr. Yang appeared on the stage.

Xu Yun also clapped his hands, feeling relieved that he had guessed the answer:

It really was him!

well known.

There are only two top scientists in human history, Maverick and Lao Ai.

But if someone tells you one day that there is a person in the scientific world who is only at the 1-1.5 level of Landau, but once his theory is verified successfully, then he will immediately be promoted to the level of peer-to-peer love, you think is it possible?

The answer is yes.

Such a person really exists.

he is the one.

Edward Witten.

A man of God who is as good as Mr. Yang in terms of existing achievements, and a physicist who has been debated whether he is a physicist.

if you don't know the name well

Have you watched the American drama "The Big Bang Theory"?

Shelton said that he was studying M theory, and he was very disgusted when others said that he was studying string theory.

The founder of this M-theory is Edward Witten.

Edward Witten was born in 1951 and is only 72 years old now. He is a topical existence that is not inferior to Yang Lao.

In college, his first major was history—yes, he was a liberal arts student.

Majored in History and minored in Linguistics.

With a keen interest in linguistics, Witten also had ambitions in politics.

After graduation.

He also worked on George McGovern's presidential campaign.

Early 1973.

Witten entered Princeton University, studying applied mathematics.

He then earned a Ph.D. in Physics in 1976 under the supervision of theoretical physicist and 2004 Nobel Laureate in Physics David Gross.

Completed the thesis titled "Several Issues in Short-Range Analysis of Gauge Theory".

Yes, it took three years to go from the first year of undergraduate to the Ph.D.

In the years around Witten's graduation, string theory was in full swing.

At the time, physicists were looking for ways to bring fermions into the spectrum of string theory, which led to the proposal of supersymmetry, a mathematical model that transforms bosons and fermions.

But the path to developing this new theory was not as easy as it seemed.

By the middle of the 20th century.

Theoretical and mathematical physicists have developed five different versions of string theory, and no one can figure out which one is the real string theory.

These five different versions of the theory are called Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, and the two types of hybrid string theory (SO(32) and E8xE8.

The big question at the time was deciding which theory was the actual theory of everything and which theory's low-energy limit was consistent with the physics observed today.

The result was in the spring of 1995.

Speaking at a string theory conference at the University of California, Witten came up with a surprising insight into the solution that would later start the second superstring revolution in physics:

He argues that the five theories are not actually distinct, but rather different limits of one theory.

He then unified all five theories into a new master theory, called M-theory.

That is.

superstring theory.

Up to now.

Superstring theory is still considered by modern science to be the most promising candidate for a theory of everything, that is, the theory that unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Notice.

Superstring theory and string theory are two different things.

but!

It must be mentioned that

Superstring theory is a theory based on supersymmetry, and no such supersymmetric particles have been discovered so far—at the conference site of the Kamiokande detector, Suzuki Atsuto played a word game.

The lack of experimental evidence, therefore, is a serious limitation of M-theory.

Although it is theoretically accurate and mathematically very consistent.

For example.

Other physical theories generally have physical inferences first, and then look for mathematical tools.

For example, for the general theory of relativity, Einstein learned Riemannian geometry for a year.

Another example is that in order to study the universal gravitation, Mavericks came up with the art of flow, which is calculus.

But the most unacceptable thing about M-theory is that

It is based on pure mathematics with a physical explanation.

So the current situation of M theory is very delicate:

Not only can you not prove it to be true, but you also cannot prove it to be false.

So in the scientific world, Edward Witten's situation is also very special:

First of all, he is extremely well-known in mathematics circles.

The 1990 Fields Medal was awarded to Edward Witten, who was also the first physicist to be awarded the medal by the International Mathematical Union.

But in physics

You can refer to Yang Lao in China, who is constantly controversial.

He has won almost all scientific awards except the Nobel Prize, and was named the sixth most influential person after World War II by the American "Life" magazine, and he is also the one with the highest H index among contemporary physicists—Tian Liangwei's H The index is 77 and Edward Witten is 287.

How outrageous is he?

In 2018.

Edward Witten wrote two lecture notes for summer school, which he then posted on RMP. (doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.90.045003, doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.92.045004)

The impact factor tmd of this thing is as high as 44+

At the same time, in addition to M theory, Witten has many outstanding contributions.

For example, some work on topological field theory, the most important of which are the Donaldson-Witten, Gromov-Witten, Seiberg-Witten theories, and the non-Abelian Chern-Simons field theory.

In addition, he will explain the Jones polynomial and its derivatives as the object of quantum field theory, which is also a very important work.

There is another proof of his positive energy theorem, and a physical proof of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, etc.

These theories may not be able to beat Yang Mills one-on-one, but when combined, Witten's current achievements are actually not inferior to Yang's old man.

It's just that because of the high professional barriers, Witten's reputation outside the industry is not that big—this is basically the case for characters who don't appear in primary and secondary school textbooks.

Say something very objective.

Mr. Yang may be regarded as the number one person in today's physics field from a domestic perspective or a perspective with the same ethnic tendency.

But from an international perspective, the ranking distribution generally looks like this:

Before 19 years.

About 1.50% think Mr. Yang is number one, 1.50% think Glashow is number one, and 1.50% think Weinberg is number one—these three are considered to be in the same echelon.

Then Gell-Mann, Higgs, and Te Hooft each accounted for 10%, and Witten accounted for 20%—sometimes Te Hooft would replace Yang Lao or Glashow's positions.

The remaining 0.50% are other people.

However, with the death of Gell-Mann and Weinberg, the proportion of relative mainstream has also changed:

Elder Yang and Glashow 20% each.

Higgs, Te Hooft 1.5% each.

Weiteng 2.5 percent.

The remaining 0.50% is still other people.

Of course.

The reason why Weiteng can rank first is that the M theory is not fixed now.

Whether it is Lao Yang or Siegstehooft, their theories are all complete, equivalent to a novel that has already been written, and everything has already been determined.

And Witten?

He is like a work that is as famous as those complete novels after one-third of the serialization, maybe it will be the next Lord of the Mysteries if it is written down.

Nowadays, the reason why many people oppose Witten is not a question of ability, but that he is a mathematician and should not participate in the selection of physicists.

Like a calf.

Was his calculus great?

Of course great.

This is a tool that can be enshrined in the history of mathematics.

But if you say that Maverick is a physicist with calculus alone, it must be very controversial.

Another example is wheat.

Are Maxwell's equations beautiful? strong?

Of course beautiful, of course strong.

But if Hertz hadn't discovered electromagnetic waves ten years after Wheat's death, no one would have known that Wheat's model was correct.

Witten is such a situation.

Although many people now murmur that string theory is dead, this actually refers to its employment enthusiasm, just like the four tiankengs of biochemical and environmental materials.

Actually.

Currently there are at least 15 Nobel laureates engaged in research in this area.

When the Higgs particle was discovered.

Domestic Shuimu University also organized a symposium, and Edward Witten was invited to come, and the seat was the first one—for details, you can search for the symposium on the theme of "After the Higgs Discovery: Where is Fundamental Physics Developing" at Shuimu University.

Even the Weiteng dinner table after the meeting was arranged at the top.

Indeed.

In the eyes of many people, M theory may be the wrong model.

But at least as of now.

In the process of unifying the two pillars of modern physics, quantum mechanics and general relativity, and unifying the four fundamental interactions in nature, superstring theory has been the most successful.

all in all.

Although Edward Witten's current controversy continues, his position is indeed quite stable.

Compared with Higgs and Yang Lao, Edward Witten, who is only in his early 70s, looks very energetic, shaking hands and chatting with everyone.

Then under the guidance of the staff.

Edward Witten left the scene with other bigwigs.

And to this point.

The two tool people, Xu Yun and Lu Chaoyang, were finally liberated.

Afterwards, the two of them and the reception group took the bus back to downtown Rongcheng, and returned to the Niccolo Hotel where they stayed.

After washing up, I went to bed early to rest.

In the next few days.

Xu Yun and Lu Chaoyang were occasionally called to act as welcome mascots, and sometimes they were helping to proofread reports.

that's all.

Time passed slowly day by day.

finally came

The opening day of the report.