Academician Li was right to be jealous.
Actually, almost the entire Chinese academic community was envious of Lu Zhou.
With a Nobel Prize and a Fields dal under his belt, not to ntion two academician positions, he could easily initiate a ten-figure project just by writing a letter. Thousands of noob researchers would kill to just publish one thesis.
Not to ntion, he was only in his twenties...
He was the apex scholar of all scholars.
However, he wasn’t just jealous.
In addition to his jealousy, Academician Li Qingquan also admired Lu Zhou. Professor Lu’s achievents in China would take most people multiple lifetis to accomplish.
Therefore, it made sense Lu Zhou was being taken so seriously by the Chinese governnt.
Lu Zhou was miles ahead of ordinary scholars.
By the ti the State Administration for National Defense conference on the lunar mass driver project ended, Lu Zhou had already left Beijing and was on his way back to Jinling.
He finished all of his work for the Lunar Orbit Committee for now. He finally had so ti to set the Lunar Orbit Committee aside and focus on Jin Ling University.
Not to ntion he still had to mark his students’ theses. Hence, he had to co to the mathematics departnt office every day.
“Yesterday I received a reply from the International Materials Reviews editorial departnt. Congratulations, your thesis has been published.”
Han ngqi stood in front of Lu Zhou’s desk, and she was pleased to hear the good news. She sighed in relief and had a comforting smile on her face.
She had been preparing for the past six months for this graduation thesis. The knot in her heart was finally untied, and she could take a break for now, at least until next sumr.
Lu Zhou looked at Han ngqi and smiled.
“Don’t relax just yet, have you thought about what to do after graduation?”
Han ngqi scratched her head and shook her head. She hesitated for a bit and said, “I... haven’t thought about it.”
“Start thinking about it...” Lu Zhou looked at her with a serious expression and said, “If you want to do a PhD, you should start preparing by the beginning of next year. If you want to graduate, you should start looking for a job soon. If you’re applying for jobs, I can write a recomndation letter for you.”
Han ngqi stared at the ground and said in an awkward manner, “Professor, can I ask you a question?”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Go ahead, answering questions is my job.”
“What does... doing a PhD feel like?”
“What does it feel like? That’s quite a generic question.” Lu Zhou contemplated it for a second before saying, “How should I describe it... Actually, it’s quite similar to what you’re doing right now. The only difference is your ntality.”
“ntality?” Han ngqi tilted her head, and she was intrigued. “Can you be more specific?”
Lu Zhou: “Simply speaking, PhD and master’s students do roughly the sa thing. The difference is that master’s students are mainly focused on learning scientific research tools, such as graphical models or Markov chain simulations. They use these tools to solve the small problems they encounter in their scientific research. During this stage, the tools used to solve these problems are recomnded to the students by the supervisor. The students are responsible for finding the solution.”
“But for PhD students...” Lu Zhou paused for a second and recalled his ti as a PhD student. He then said, “Phd students are mainly responsible for solving problems with new tools. The problems can be created by the students or the supervisors. At this stage, the students would have the ability to find new, novel problems. They might also be able to create new tools. That ans, when you’re a PhD student, you’re doing scientific research on your own... Do you get what I’m trying to say?”
“Ah...”
Han ngqi, who wasn’t paying attention, suddenly looked at Lu Zhou.
She noticed Lu Zhou was staring back at her, and she suddenly blushed and scratched her head as she said, “Sorry... I kind of dozed off.”
Lu Zhou said, “It’s fine, I can tell you’re thinking about a million things right now. Whenever I get confused because of a problem, I tend to lose my attention span as well. No need to apologize.”
Han ngqi asked, “You get confused by problems as well?”
Lu Zhou played with the pen in his hand. He went silent for a while, as if he didn’t know how to answer this question.
However, after contemplating for a bit, he answered vaguely, “Of course, everyone encounters difficult problems at tis. Even I can’t make the right decision all of the ti. Even today, there’s a problem that I can’t find a good solution to.”
Han ngqi was suddenly curious about what problem Lu Zhou was talking about.
Han ngqi took a deep breath and encouraged herself to ask.
“Can I ask what problem it is?”
“It’s a personal problem...” Lu Zhou coughed and said, “Anyway, you are talented at scientific research. If you continue on the academic path, I’d recomnd you to choose the computational materials science field. Especially fields such as the Berry phase and topological effects in phonons, the developnt of 3D topological materials, and hydrogen storage. These are all popular fields, and you will be able to produce good research.”
The goal of computational materials science was mainly to build predictable or descriptive models to help study the chanism of materials and reduce the ti and cost of new material developnt.
Ten years ago, this was still a new discipline, but now, it had beco mature. Especially after the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, many research institutes opened a computational materials science research departnt. Most of the ti, a strong materials science research departnt would hire a talented PhD student, so it had relatively good job prospects.
As for easy to produce good research...
Honestly, that was just relative to Lu Zhou’s other laboratories.
The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was a world-leading experintal institution in fields such as aerospace materials, carbon materials, and new energy. Many materials science academic journals had even “retained” the theses produced by this institute. Therefore, it was easy for the Institute for Advanced Study to produce good research in this field.
Han ngqi went silent for a while, and Lu Zhou stared at her while playing with a pen. Lu Zhou suddenly asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I think...”
Han ngqi bit her lip and contemplated it for a long ti.
Finally, she looked up with determination and said, “I want to... study mathematics with you!”
Lu Zhou: “...?”
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