Chapter 87: Chapter 89: 100000 Unsolved Mysteries
John continued, “Your father’s algorithm, indeed, is one of humanity’s most outstanding works, but it is still far from powerful enough. Therefore, we can’t make the fusion devices any smaller; each reactor is like a mountain, it’s simply too brute.”
Zhang Yuan looked at these turbulences, some bright, some dim, and others spinning, and he fell into deep thought.
Whether he liked it or not, John’s complaint was indeed correct.
A small ambition began to form in his heart, sprouting like a seed.
“Perhaps… the problems my father once tackled, I too could tackle?!”
The turbulence problem, the last great mountain in classical physics. About 400 years ago, the Navier-Stokes equations had already theoretically described the physics of fluids. These equations generally do not have precise solutions, so scientists usually resort to simplified theoretical models or numerical simulations to predict fluid movements.
But using simplified models to simulate plasma turbulence is far too imprecise. If these plasmas aren’t properly contained, they could cause massive damage to the fusion engines.
The booming development of Information Science had loosened the turbulence problem somewhat, but only just; it allowed for more accurate simulations but did not lead to a deeper understanding of its true nature.
John sighed, “We may never find a precise mathematical solution to the turbulence problem. Perhaps the complete precision lies in the more microscopic probability superposition states, beyond our capabilities as we are completely unaware of them.”
John Wilson was a typical representative of the pessimists.
He believed that the upper limits of human technology might have already been reached, and with human intelligence, we could only go round and round within a tiny circle.
Although there were still some minor issues to be polished, a radical transformation was ultimately unlikely.
Thus, this group of pessimistic scientists wanted to board a spaceship, to see what the world would be like three thousand years later.
This theory wasn’t without reason; a turbulence problem, unresolved for four hundred years.
In cutting-edge physics, other than condensed matter which still retained vigor, other areas had gradually declined. High-energy physics was plagued by the “Energy Level Desert,” and other disciplines, such as chemistry and semiconductors, relied on some approximate theories, which admittedly did resolve some problems.
As for mathematics, it was also gradually declining.
The Riemann Hypothesis, untoppled for 400 years; the Goldbach Conjecture, for 600 years.
The “Great Unification of Mathematics” project was still just a framework, billions of light-years away from completion.
The New Civilization School believed that the current 23rd century, along with the 24th and 25th centuries, might likely be humanity’s final golden age. Beyond that, human intelligence might not continue to develop.
Once technological advancement halts, human civilization might likely undergo the same kind of historical cycles as ancient Xia Country did. In academic terms, this is falling into the “trap of mediocrity,” making significant historical progress difficult.
Zhang Yuan actually agreed with some of the New Civilization School’s views, but regarding this issue, he was neither pessimistic nor optimistic.
He didn’t quite believe that humanity would be foolish enough to fall into foreseeable traps, and it was hard to imagine what the future world would be like; perhaps some technology to enhance intelligence might emerge.
Moreover, his work leaned more towards engineering, more towards technology. There is a significant difference between technology and science, and there is still much room for improvement in human application technology.
“Zhang, you’re too optimistic.”
John shrugged his shoulders and said helplessly, “In history, there have been many phenomena, such as Latin Americanization, middle-income traps, and so on. Even if some countries are aware of them, they still cannot overcome them because many things in a country cannot be achieved just by the leaders realizing them. It depends on the collective strength.”
“But the collective strength of humanity is not as strong as you imagine.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Zhang Yuan said. “But we have to remain optimistic, don’t we? Pessimism won’t solve any problems.”
After bidding farewell to the sullen Senior Brother John, Zhang Yuan returned to his lab seat and continued to review the literature.
By chance, he flipped through a book.
“100,000 Unsolved Mysteries”…
From astronomy to geography, from mathematics to physics, there were too many challenging problems that could not be solved. For example, the “3x+1” conjecture, happy ending problem, Gaussian circle problem, Erdos-Graham ternary problem…casually mentioning any one of them, the difficulty was comparable to the Riemann hypothesis.
For some reason, looking at the numerous challenges, a faint irritation always stirred in Zhang Yuan’s heart.
Perhaps, as a member of the scientific research community, he was innately frustrated by his inability to completely penetrate the essence of nature.
Zhang Yuan secretly clenched his fists.
In that moment, he finally made up his mind to tackle a world-renowned difficult problem.
It didn’t matter what he gained or lost, he was merely following his own heart.
“Turbulence problem!”
“Let’s give it a try!”
It required a lot of courage.
He might spend a lot of time, perhaps not produce any results at all, and face huge sunk costs. Only someone young like him, driven by passion, could march forward boldly.
After making up his mind, Zhang Yuan took a deep breath and slowly focused his thoughts.
From a purely mathematical perspective, there was hardly any possibility.
Zhang Yuan didn’t believe that with his current capabilities, he could write an equation more precise and effective than the N-S equation.
“Perhaps, I can devise some methods from information science to solve this problem.”
The first approach was the famous “spectral method of wavelet transformation” used by his father, which was currently the best algorithm in engineering applications. It successfully solved the problem of multi-scale turbulent simulation of flow inside engines in both time and space.
Fundamentally, it mimicked the process of signal transmission in neurons to describe the bursting mechanism of turbulence in pipes.
The second approach was the direct numerical solution method.
It simulated isotropic turbulence in a three-dimensional periodic cube by solving the incompressible “N-S equation.” However, this method demanded high computational power and was suitable for simulating simple turbulent movements at lower Reynolds numbers, such as in channel or pipe turbulence.
Of course, there were also a third “RNGκ-ε model,” a fourth “Spalart—Allmaras turbulence model,” a fifth “inner and outer iteration method,” and so on.
Human creativity is limitless, but truly meaningful, applicable algorithms were few and far between.
“Are you looking into the turbulence problem? That thing is unusually complex!”
Zhao Qingfeng glanced at his screen and said with interest, “I’ve also researched this area before, the core issue is the problem itself—too difficult, strong non-linearity, infinite-dimensional systems, chaotic systems—currently, there aren’t very suitable mathematical tools for these issues.”
“So if you want to work on it, I don’t really have any good advice for you.”
“I know, just casually looking,” Zhang Yuan hurriedly replied.
Senior Brother Zhao smiled, reflecting on how great it was to be young. If it were him, he would definitely stay far away from such problems.
However, he didn’t pay too much attention. There were many things that, once understood, made one step back from the challenge.