Especially Yang Xuanqing, he was utterly flabbergasted upon seeing the first batch of pictures transmitted from within the country.
The more awkward part was that just yesterday he had told Edward Witten that Qiao Ze wasn't very interested in their research, only for Qiao Ze to publish such a revolutionary thing on Weibo the very next day.
It was truly a slap in the face.
Of course, that was a minor issue. The key point was, if this deduction was also correct and they really could find evidence of the graviton using this equation, then the upcoming discussions on the standard model's revision would indeed be very thrilling.
The most important fundamental mechanism of basic physics was poised to make history with the name of someone from The East.
A grand unifying theory that the West had coveted for a century was about to be completed by the hands of a young Huaxia mathematician who had never even been educated in the West, let alone visited the Nuclear Research Center.
Truth be told, after closely examining these pictures, Yang Xuanqing felt a mix of emotions. Experience tales with My Virtual Library Empire
What he least expected was that while he was still dumbstruck by these original images, Edward Witten called him again.
"Professor Yang, I assume you've seen Qiao Ze's latest publication on the fundamental particle model, right?"
"Yes, Professor Witten, you know about it too?"
"It's hard not to, considering he proposed these ideas on an app similar to, um, Twitter. You wouldn't believe it, but before I laid eyes on it, the model had already made a full round across the globe.
If you open up Facebook or Twitter right now, you'll see lots of the same images. Clearly, Professor Qiao is a capricious person, or maybe he wants to tell everyone in this way that he doesn't want to be just a pure mathematician?"
Obviously, Edward Witten was joking.
But this joke was quite in line with his experience.
It was outrageous for a physicist to have received the Fields Medal.
"Actually, if Professor Qiao had published on arXiv.org, the effect might have been similar, but it probably wouldn't have been shared on Facebook and Twitter." After hearing Edward Witten's words, Yang Xuanqing felt completely bewildered.
He definitely thought that Professor Qiao was being a bit capricious.
Certain things just couldn't be discussed properly on Weibo, where even popularizing science is a struggle, let alone Discover more novels on NovelHub - your gateway to endless stories. As for Twitter and Facebook...
It was even more absurd. The ideas Qiao Ze proposed simply didn't fit in with the main crowd there; they were still promoting "modern flat Earth" theories.
Which serious professor would look for papers on Weibo, let alone publish them there? Professor Qiao was indeed blazing a trail. Was he comparing himself with amateur scientists?
Local universities were unreliable too.
"Haha, maybe this is Professor Qiao wanting to showcase his individuality. Don't forget his age, when I was as old as him, I was quite rebellious too. Anyhow, Professor Yang, let's not talk about that. Do you remember what I was discussing with you yesterday? It seems today Professor Qiao has given us a very good direction.
So the reason I'm calling is actually to invite you to collaborate with my team to find evidence of the graviton's existence in the lab, following Professor Qiao's lead. Are you interested?"
After some small talk, Edward Witten got down to business.
And that was something that made Yang Xuanqing incredibly excited.
That's no small matter; Edward Witten was one of the luminary giants in the field of physics, authoring dozens of monographs. Working with Edward Witten would naturally be more beneficial than harmful for him, especially since it was the other party extending an invitation.
His students would probably be quite proud, wouldn't they?
"I certainly have no problem, but I must comment, Professor Witten, that my contact with Professor Qiao is probably not as frequent as you imagine. In fact, I'm not all that close to him." Yang Xuanqing said.
"No worries, Professor Yang. I'm inviting you to collaborate, not because of Professor Qiao. In truth, your team's ability to verify the Yang-Mills mass gap formula in such a short period of time is what I appreciate. It must be said that you're very efficient, and your work is solid.
The work ahead will be more complicated, and even though Professor Qiao has provided the verification formula, proving it requires much more effort. I believe your intuition for data could greatly improve our efficiency. Besides, I have visited Huaqing University twice and was deeply impressed by it."
Naturally, Yang Xuanqing knew all of this.
Edward Witten first visited Huaqing as a guest in 2014, which was also the first time Yang Xuanqing saw this big shot in person. Edward was invited to a symposium themed "After the Discovery of the Higgs Particle: Where to for Basic Physics?" hosted by Huaqing.
The second visit was two years later, at the 2016 International String Theory Conference held at Tsinghua University. As a founder of String Theory, Edward Witten was invited to give a keynote speech. That was when Yang Xuanqing, who had just received his professorship, obtained Witten's contact information.
But what left Yang Xuanqing feeling somewhat bewildered was Edward Witten's final remark.
"More importantly, haven't you realized? Professor Yang, being proficient in Chinese is now an incredible advantage. Working with you at least assures me that I won't misunderstand some textual descriptions from Professor Qiao. So I should be thanking you instead."
Truly, upon hearing that, Yang Xuanqing suddenly felt that there should be an immediate monument erected for Qiao Ze back home.