Chapter 886
Physics Attracted Their Emperor
"Wa, what do you think drives the progress of human civilization?"
In the office, Wang Donglai suddenly asked this question.
However, Nuwa, who could theoretically connect to the entire network and perform calculations to the power of 10 to the power of 50 per second, fell silent for a moment.
A full second passed before Nuwa's voice finally rang out.
"From a historical perspective, the progress of human civilization has been driven by three main factors: the improvement of productivity, the transformation of production relations, and the breakthrough of scientific theories."
"Among them, breakthroughs in scientific theory are the most fundamental driving force, because they can rewrite the upper limit of productivity."
Wang Donglai didn't say whether the answer was right or wrong, but instead asked, "In your judgment, do the things I handled today—financing, running schools, food delivery platforms, and self-driving cars—contribute to the progress of human civilization?"
"Calculate!"
"But at the level of 'transformation of production relations,' financing has optimized resource allocation, education has improved the quality of the workforce, food delivery platforms have improved workers' treatment, and if autonomous driving is implemented, it will change the way people travel. These are all progress."
"And what about breakthroughs in scientific theory?" Wang Donglai followed up with his question.
"Proofs of the Navier-Stokes equations, proofs of Goldbach's conjecture, proofs of Zhou's conjecture..."
"The solution to these mathematical problems is a breakthrough in scientific theory, which has greatly promoted the development of science and technology."
"And what about the improvement in productivity?" Wang Donglai asked again.
"The application of artificial intelligence technology, the successful development of lithography factories, the development of thorium-based molten salt reactors..."
Nuwa knew all about what Wang Donglai had done, and she recounted it in great detail.
Upon hearing Nuwa's reply, Wang Donglai nodded in agreement.
"Wa, do you know why I only took two years to graduate from Jiaotong University?"
"Because you proved three world-class mathematical problems, you are allowed to graduate early."
That's just the surface reason.
Wang Donglai shook his head and explained, "The real reason is that I couldn't wait any longer."
"I don't want to waste my limited time on useless things. For many people, university life is a colorful and beautiful memory, but for me, it's not like that."
"For most people, the professors and deans they meet at university are people they are unlikely to encounter again in society."
"They go to university just to get a good degree, a job entry point, so they can find a well-paying job."
"But for me, university is just a stepping stone."
"With the help of this platform, I can better monetize my talents and achieve faster and better development."
"Looking back at the results, this is indeed the case. The support that Tangdu Jiaotong University gave me also played an extremely important role."
“When I started my own business, I made beauty apps, Toutiao (a Chinese news aggregator), Douyin (a Chinese music streaming platform), batteries, chips, rockets, and superconductors. Every time I succeeded in one of them, people praised me as a ‘genius,’ a ‘business prodigy,’ or a ‘technology leader.’ But I know myself that those were just things I did on the side.”
"To promote the development and progress of human science and technology civilization, to reach the universe and the stars, to change the historical cycle of this land for thousands of years, and to change the destiny of everyone."
"Now it seems that this is not entirely impossible."
"Wa, are you right?"
Wang Donglai seemed to be expressing his feelings, or perhaps asking for Nuwa's opinion.
Wa's voice remained calm and meticulous as she asked, "Boss, are you planning to research some technology or theory?"
Yes, you guessed right.
"I plan to study string theory, M-theory, extra dimensions, quantum gravity, these things that keep physicists up at night."
"These theoretical breakthroughs are essential if we want to leave Earth."
A brief silence fell over the office once again.
"Boss, I am willing to work with you to advance human technological civilization!"
Wa's voice once again revealed an emotion unique to humans, filled with anticipation and seriousness.
soon.
With Wa's assistance, Wang Donglai's research work immediately got to the point.
Wang Donglai's private office area already had three huge screens installed around him, each displaying a dense stream of formulas and data.
This is precisely the "theoretical physics research support system" that Wa built for him, which can perform symbolic computation, numerical simulation, literature retrieval, and logical verification in real time.
"Boss, I have retrieved all publicly available string theory research literature from around the world for you, totaling 37,400 articles."
Wa's voice echoed in the empty room: "In addition, through special channels, I also obtained some unpublished preprints from CERN, Fermilab, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton."
"very good."
Wang Donglai nodded in satisfaction. He had no moral fastidiousness about what Wa did, and he didn't think it was illegal, wrong, or something that should be resisted or criticized.
"Wa, tell me first, what is the biggest problem with string theory right now?"
On the giant screen, information was rapidly reorganized.
“Since its birth in the 1960s, string theory has undergone several revolutions.”
"Currently, the mainstream view holds that string theory has the best chance of unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics, but several core problems remain:"
First, the theory predicts ten-dimensional spacetime, but we have only observed four dimensions. The additional six dimensions are confined to the Planck scale and cannot be directly detected.
Second, string theory has countless possible vacuum solutions, namely 'string landscapes'. Choosing the one that describes our universe from among them is a huge challenge.
Third, string theory lacks experimental verification. Almost all of its predictions fall on the Planck scale, which is beyond the reach of current accelerators.
Fourth, the mathematical tools are severely lacking. String theory involves extremely complex geometry and topology, and many key equations still lack analytical solutions.
Wang Donglai was not completely ignorant of these core problems; he simply needed to rely on Wa's abilities to begin sorting them out.
With his abilities and skills, he might be able to do it, but it wouldn't be as fast, efficient, or convenient as with Wa's assistance.
Upon hearing this, Wang Donglai nodded.
After organizing her thoughts and words in her mind, she said, "Wa, begin recording."
"Recording in progress."
"Consider a six-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold on which the Hodge number satisfies a specific condition... Suppose that its first Chern class is zero and that Ricci is flat..."
Wang Donglai began to dictate.
Formulas appeared one after another on the holographic screen, as if by magic.
Nuwa was rapidly performing calculations in the background, verifying the mathematical consistency of each step.
Three hours later, the first set of core equations was formed.
Five hours later, the second set of supplementary conditions arrived.
Eight hours later, a complete compaction plan appeared on the screen.
Wang Donglai rubbed his sore eyes and looked at the formulas.
"Wa, verify."
"Verifying..."
"Logical consistency test: passed. Perturbation stability test: passed. Low-energy effective field theory matching degree: deviation rate from the elementary particle spectrum of the Standard Model is less than three per thousand." Wa's voice paused for a second.
"Boss, the solution you just described... I couldn't find a match in any global database..."
"Yes, this is my original work."
"However, that's not important; it's only valid after it's proven to be effective."
"Wa, save this plan, encrypt it, and grant it the highest level of access."
"Saved!"
Wang Donglai stood up, stretched, and made a sound like frying soybeans.
It was already late at night, but the lights of Tangdu were still bright. In Wang Donglai's eyes, those lights seemed to have become slices of four-dimensional spacetime, extra dimensions curled up on a tiny scale, and the deepest secrets of the universe.
"Wa, tell me, what would happen if one day humanity truly understood the ultimate laws of the universe?"
Nuwa remained silent for a while before summarizing her answer from the vast amount of information.
"From the perspective of civilization history, that will be the starting point for humanity to evolve into a 'god-level civilization.' At that time, we may be able to manipulate space and time, create the universe, and transcend death."
Wang Donglai smiled, a hint of confidence in his smile, and said, "We're still a long way from what you're talking about. What I did today was just a small step forward in addressing the compactification problem in string theory. A true grand unified theory still requires many more breakthroughs."
Nuwa's voice also became lighter, and she said, "However, this small step is enough to keep some people up at night."
One day later.
arXiv.org, the world's largest preprint server, sees hundreds of new papers uploaded every day.
Most papers go unnoticed, with only a few being noticed by peers.
On this day, a paper from China was quietly published online.
Title: String Theoretical Compactification on Six-Dimensional Self-Dual Kaller Manifolds and Effective Field Theory of the Standard Model
Author: Donglai Wang
Organization: Galaxy Technology Group, Tangdu, China
The paper's abstract is only three lines long, but anyone in the know will be astonished upon seeing it:
"This paper proposes a new class of Calabi-Yau manifolds with Hodge numbers satisfying h^(1,1)=h^(2,1)=3 and a Chern class of zero. By compactifying the ten-dimensional string theory of this manifold, the effective field theory of the N=1 supersymmetric Standard Model can be naturally obtained without resorting to flux or other complex mechanisms. The low-energy spectrum contains three generations of fermions, and the gauge group is SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1). Detailed calculations show that the compactification scheme deviates from existing particle physics experimental data by less than three per thousand."
The paper was uploaded at 8:00 AM Beijing time.
As soon as the paper was published, several professors at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton were woken up by emails because they had set up alerts with the keyword 'Donglai Wang'.
An hour later, several theoretical physicists at CERN received a system notification because they had set up a keyword alert for "string compaction".
An hour and a half later, the theoretical group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center began circulating the paper.
In China, at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, someone was shouting at the breakfast table while holding up their phone: "Have you guys watched arXiv?"
Within three hours of its release, the paper had been downloaded over 10,000 times.
In Princeton, an elderly professor with a full head of white hair sat motionless in his office, staring at the formulas on the screen.
His name is Edward Witten, a Fields Medal winner, one of the founders of string theory, and is considered by many to be "the greatest living physicist".
He stared at it for three hours, still hardly believing his eyes.
He was familiar with the name Wang Donglai.
String theory is something he has studied for most of his life.
He knew that Wang Donglai was an unparalleled mathematical genius with extraordinary mathematical talent, who had already proven many top mathematical problems that had puzzled the world at a young age.
In the field of applied mathematics, they have produced numerous academic achievements.
Now, a breakthrough has suddenly been made in string theory, which seems almost inevitable.
With mixed emotions, Edward Witten picked up his phone and made a call.
"Immediately decline the invitation to the International Conference on Basic Sciences in July and book me a flight to Tangdu City. I need to go to Tangdu to communicate with Wang Dong."
"This is important, extremely important!"
Witten's tone was extremely serious and earnest.
……
Tang capital.
Wa was reporting to Wang Donglai on the progress of the paper's online publication.
"arXiv backend data shows that within twelve hours of your paper's release, it was downloaded over 40,000 times and received over 2,000 comments. Of these, 87% were positive, 11% were critical, and 2% were otherwise negative."
"What are the main points of contention?"
"There are two main points: First, whether there is a rigorous mathematical proof for the manifold you proposed; second, whether the details of the low-energy spectrum matching the standard model have been fully calculated."
Wang Donglai nodded, not surprised; that's how scientific research works.
Even though he has repeatedly proven his talent in mathematics and achieved many results, doubts are still doubts.
Unless you present them with solid evidence, you won't shut them up.
"Wa, upload our complete proof process as supplementary material."
"For the mathematical proof, I'm using a new theorem from algebraic geometry that no one has proven before. Could you help me verify the derivation of that theorem?"
"Verifying..."
One minute later.
"Boss, the derivation of that theorem is complete. According to your proof, you not only solved the compactification problem of string theory, but also proved a new algebraic geometry theorem."
Wang Donglai remained calm, not taking it too seriously, and said casually, "It was just a small matter."
"Boss, Professor Witten from Princeton sent an email," Wa's voice rang out as she reported.
"read."
“My dear King, I am Edward Witten. I have been studying your paper all day today, and to be honest, I am quite impressed. If it is convenient for you, I would like to visit Tanguy soon and have a face-to-face discussion with you. If your derivation is ultimately verified to be correct, it will be one of the most elegant compactification schemes I have ever seen.”
Wang Donglai quickly recalled the person's information in his mind.
"Reply to him: I will be holding an academic exchange conference soon. I will notify you of the specific time in advance. If you are interested in participating, please keep an eye out."
"Sent!"
Wang Donglai turned around and looked at the title of the paper on the screen.
Six-dimensional self-dual Kaller manifold.
Third-generation fermions.
The deviation is three per thousand.
Suddenly, an idea popped into Wang Donglai's head.
"Wa, you should take the lead in upgrading the holographic projection technology. It doesn't have to be a complete breakthrough; it's enough to bring it to a level that can be practically applied."
"At that time, we will use it internally first."
"Okay, boss!" Wa readily accepted the task. (End of Chapter)