Scholar's Advanced Technological System

Chapter 1346: You Should Think About Young People

Sometimes, coincidences happened.

If Lu Zhou knew what was in the mind of Chairman Swift at this moment, he would probably accept the invitation from the International Union of Materials Research Societies and participate in the selection of the Annual Union Award.

The honor did not matter to him.

If he could make a small contribution to the peace, stability, and joint cooperation of the two countries in the next ten or even twenty years, he would gladly make a trip to North America.

After all, compared to the vast universe, the politics on Earth seemed insignificant.

Also, he hadn’t been back to Princeton in a long time; Lu Zhou missed his old friends.

Unfortunately, the International Union of Materials Research Societies did not imply this in the email.

Therefore, when Assistant Zhao brought the email to Lu Zhou, he just glanced at it and said, “Write a rejection letter for me.”

Zhao Huan was stunned. She looked at Lu Zhou in disbelief.

“Reject?”

Lu Zhou: “Yeah.”

At a loss, Zhao Huan looked at Lu Zhou and said, “B-but this is a nomination letter from the International Union of Materials Research Societies. The Annual Union Award is important, right?”

That’s a hundred thousand dollars in prize money.

Even though she knew that her boss did not care about money, she still felt like it would be a waste.

Lu Zhou replied casually, “Because it is important; I hope they can give it to a young scholar.”

Even though the Annual Union Award was quite an important award, it was still far behind the Nobel Prize. With these titles behind him, it didn’t make much sense to win another Nobel Prize, let alone an annual award issued by an alliance of societies.

Lu Zhou suddenly noticed the embarrassed expression on Zhao Huan’s face. He immediately understood what she was worried about.

“How about this, I’ll write the letter myself, don’t worry about it.”

Even though Zhao Huan still felt like it was a waste, she was relieved.

After all, for such a critical email, she had to express their intentions clearly. If something went wrong and she did not fully express Academician Lu’s words, then the blame would be on her.

Zhao Huan left and went to prepare for her lecture. Lu Zhou turned on the computer and logged into his email. He began to write the reply to the International Union of Materials Research Societies.

Lu Zhou thanked the International Union of Materials Research Societies for the nomination, then politely and euphemistically expressed his intention to withdraw from the award selection…

“The implicit density functional method is a computational material theory that I accidentally made when I was researching carbon materials. I didn’t expect to be able to receive any awards from it…

“Like I said in an interview before, compared to someone like me who has lost my interest in honor and money and only hopes to reveal more about the mysteries of the universe, giving an award to me is pointless.

“I will find someone to do a report on implicit functional density theory, but forget about the medals. I hope you can give more consideration to those young people who have more potential than me and need more recognition.

“They need this honor more than me!”

Lu Zhou checked the email from start to finish. He made sure that there were no errors before pressing the send button.

Then, he thought for a while. He took out his cell phone, opened his contacts, and called his little apprentice.

“Hey.”

“… Hi?”

The other end of the phone was quiet. Han Mengqi’s voice was also very quiet. It seemed like she was in a library.

“What are you doing?”

“Studying in the library… What’s wrong?”

Lu Zhou twisted the ballpoint pen in his hand. He leaned against the office chair and said, “Well, I might have to ask you for something. Are you busy these days?”

“Huh? Busy, no, what’s the matter—”

The voice on the other end of the phone suddenly became a little flustered for some reason. Lu Zhou felt this was strange but didn’t think much of it.

“I need a report on computational materials science. Are you interested in doing it for me?”

“A report on computational materials science?”

Han Mengqi paused for a second. Her restless heart rate finally calmed down. She couldn’t help but frown.

“I can… But I switched to pure mathematics research. I haven’t touched computational materials for a long time…”

“That’s fine. Also, you can review the knowledge you have learned before. It would be a shame to forget all the things I taught you.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “You have more than a month to prepare. If there is anything you don’t understand, you can ask me. This is if you want to. If you don’t, then nevermind.”

Although Lu Zhou was a supervisor to his students, he rarely considered himself a supervisor. Most of the time he communicated like a peer with his students.

If Han Mengqi wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t force her. Although this was a good opportunity for her to step on the international stage, her personal choices still had to be respected.

Han Mengqi sighed after thinking for a while.

“All right… I’ll give it a try.”

Over the past few days, she had been studying the transcendence of Riemann zeta function at odd positive integer points. This was a research project assigned to her by Lu Zhou.

However, this research project was just as difficult as it sounded. Although it was not as difficult as Riemann’s hypothesis, it was by no means an easy task.

Back then, they agreed that as long as she made any progress in this research area, or enough progress to be listed in a regional journal, they would allow her to get her Ph.D.

And if she couldn’t complete this task, she would never graduate. Even though she was Chen Yushan’s cousin, Lu Zhou didn’t show any mercy.

Of course, Lu Zhou also left her a way out, which was to continue her research on computational materials science.

However, Han Mengqi never thought about giving up.

Now that her research had entered a dead end, it was good to go out and relax her mind…

Han Mengqi continued to ask, “Can I ask, where am I doing the report?”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It should be in Boston. This academic report is in April, at the conference of the International Union of Materials Research Societies. I will send the relevant information to your email. Don’t worry about the travel expenses. The first-class tickets and five-star hotels will be fully reimbursed. Remember to have fun. If you see my old friends, say hi to them for me.”

Han Mengqi: “…”

International Union of Materials Research Societies conference…

She didn’t expect it to be such an important conference.

She suddenly started to regret agreeing so easily.