A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 191 A new storm has emerged
Suddenly, the circular screen on the dome of the main control room glowed with a cold, eerie blue light, and all sixteen sub-screens lit up simultaneously, illuminating the interior of the circular vacuum chamber like a deep-sea dragon palace.

Chen Hui instinctively held his breath.

"Magnetic field strength has exceeded the critical value!"

Cao Xu's voice trembled slightly. Even though he had gone through several experiments, he still felt nervous every time he ran one.

Chen Hui's pupils suddenly contracted as he looked through the observation window into the annular vacuum chamber. The liquid helium cooling system shimmered with a mother-of-pearl-like luster, and the superconducting coils were suspended in absolute zero, forming a perfect icosahedral structure.

When the first plasma stream was injected, the entire control room was suddenly dyed an eerie emerald green, and tens of thousands of particle trajectories exploded into a dazzling aurora on the magnetohydrodynamic simulation screen.

"Temperature 1.05 million degrees Celsius!"

Song Yuntao’s deep voice rang out, and the plasma brightness curve on the screen was climbing exponentially, like a silver dragon breaking free from gravity.

Chen Hui's forehead was covered in sweat. This was the first time he had ever seen such a magnificent sight, as vast and splendid as the cosmos, making him feel his own insignificance.

"The plasma current has stabilized at 3.5 megaamperes!"

As Cao Xu counted off, the three-dimensional magnetic field topology diagram on the main screen suddenly emitted a golden halo.

Chen Hui's temples throbbed. He could clearly see that the tungsten-copper divertor on the vacuum chamber wall was being bombarded by tens of millions of tons of particles per square meter, yet it still maintained quantum-level stability.

beep!

The timer beeped.

The plasma inside the annular vacuum chamber began to slowly collapse, transforming into countless fireflies that fell into the divertor, like stardust scattered by the gods upon the human world.

The air conditioning vents in the control room emitted a cold wind carrying the smell of ozone, which dispersed the fine beads of sweat seeping from the back of Chen Hui's neck.

Those few seconds felt like centuries, leaving Chen Hui stunned for a long time.

"how do you feel?"

Song Yuntao came to Chen Hui's side again.

While everyone else in the control room was still busy collecting and organizing the data from the experiment, Song Yuntao, who was in charge, was idle again.

"Amazing!"

"The most important weapon of the country!"

Chen Hui spared no praise, describing it as an aesthetic completely different from cutting-edge mathematics, yet in no way inferior.

Song Yuntao was satisfied with Chen Hui's reaction, but still sighed, "Unfortunately, it was too short-lived!"

"The first wall material in the vacuum chamber is made of tungsten-copper alloy, which can withstand a temperature of 3,000 degrees Celsius, but the lowest temperature of the plasma in the reaction is as high as 100 million degrees Celsius. High temperature and high pressure are necessary conditions for fusion reaction."

"In other words, as long as the plasma hits the first wall, the first wall will melt and dissolve in a short time, and the entire fusion reaction will be terminated."

"Therefore, a magnetic field is needed to confine the plasma and allow it to operate stably in a vacuum chamber."

Chen Hui understood what Song Yuntao meant: "Therefore, we need a more powerful and precise magnetic field system."

"No, plasma is also a fluid. As a fluid, it will inevitably produce turbulence, which will cause the plasma to go out of control and crash into the first wall. Even with a sufficiently strong and precise magnetic field, it is not easy to control the plasma precisely."

Chen Hui stared at the now-darkened vacuum chamber and suddenly understood, “Furthermore, the plasma is electrically neutral as a whole, with almost equal positive and negative charge densities. This characteristic makes it approximately a neutral fluid on a macroscopic level, but charge separation still exists on a microscopic level, and its turbulence is more complex than that of ordinary fluids.”

"So, you asked me to come here because you want me to provide a mathematical model of plasma turbulence to predict plasma motion and thus improve the dynamic response capability of the magnetic field?"

Chen Hui looked troubled. "This is probably not something that can be resolved in a short time."

Besides mathematics, other fields such as physics and chemistry also have their own challenges.

Turbulence is an unavoidable problem in fluid mechanics, and scientists have yet to find an accurate model to describe it.

The Navier-Stokes (NS) equations, one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, are a set of partial differential equations describing fluid motion.

Chen Hui was able to prove the existence of the Yang-Mills equation and even had the confidence to solve the mass gap problem because predecessors had already made many achievements in this area. Chen Hui stood on the shoulders of giants, which enabled him to make unparalleled contributions.

However, the Navier-Stokes equations have been studied by many people, but there are very few results. Solving this problem would almost require starting from scratch, and the difficulty would be on a completely different level.

Of course, solving the plasma turbulence problem is not the same direction as the Millennium Problem.

The Millennium Problem requires proving regularity, finding a smooth solution, or falsifying it, and then constructing a new fluid motion architecture.

Being able to complete the solution and establish a more refined turbulence model will naturally be of great benefit to controlling plasma turbulence problems.

However, engineering applications are different from mathematics. As is often said, scientists still do not understand why airplanes can fly, but that does not prevent airplanes from soaring in the sky.

Chen Hui only needs to construct a model of plasma turbulence in the fusion reaction to facilitate the adjustment of the magnetic field, eliminate turbulence, and allow the fusion reaction to operate continuously and stably. This would be a big step forward towards fusion power generation, and could even turn the idea into reality.

But this is indeed too difficult, and Chen Hui has no confidence at all right now.

Song Yuntao looked at Chen Hui with admiration. He had only said a few simple words, yet the other party had thought of so much. He was quick-witted and truly deserved to be called a young genius.

But he still shook his head, "There's no way to build an accurate turbulence model."

"Because we have no way to observe high-temperature, high-pressure plasma, how can we build a model without data?"

This is the difference between theoretical researchers and front-line engineers. This young man is indeed exceptionally talented, but his understanding of fusion is still somewhat detached from reality.

Chen Hui was taken aback, only then realizing that microscopic particles all exhibit quantum fluctuations, and when you observe them, you will naturally experience quantum effects on the particle.

Simply put, the particle you are observing is no longer the particle state you wanted to observe.

If that's the case, then why did they come to me?

"We are very interested in the paper you published in the Annals of Mathematics."

Song Yuntao clearly guessed Chen Hui's doubts and said, "If we can synthesize high-temperature resistant or room-temperature superconducting materials, it might have a greater impact on the entire system."

"It may not be easy to withstand a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, but if we can synthesize high-temperature superconductivity, or even room-temperature superconductivity, then an artificial sun could truly shine on Earth."

Song Yuntao stared intently at Chen Hui.

In superconductivity, room temperature is a higher temperature than high temperature. High temperature refers to 77K, about -196℃, while room temperature is about 300 K, or 27℃. It can be used without relying on cryogenic cooling technology. If this can be used to synthesize room temperature superconductors at ambient pressure, it will not only enable controlled nuclear fusion, but will also completely change the technological landscape of energy transmission, medical imaging and other fields.

Of course, current technology is still far from achieving this goal, but even raising the temperature of current high-temperature superconductors by 100K would be enough to change the current landscape of controlled nuclear fusion.

Song Yuntao looked at the magnetic field system outside the vacuum chamber and continued, "Right now, just maintaining the superconducting properties of the coil requires a large amount of expensive liquid nitrogen. Once the temperature rises, the superconductivity will be lost, and the reaction will have to be forced to stop."

Meanwhile, because superconductivity requires ultra-low temperatures, the problem of mechanical stress under extreme temperature differences has always been a concern.

Furthermore, the magnetic field system generates a significant amount of heat during operation, and heat dissipation is a key factor limiting the duration of the fusion reaction. Synthesizing new liquid heat-dissipating metallic materials would be of immense help.

"If possible, we hope you can continue studying that paper!"

Song Yuntao looked at Chen Hui and earnestly requested that the tokamak device still has many problems to be solved, but if materials science can make breakthroughs, many problems will be solved.

Chen Hui hadn't expected that Song Yuntao had summoned him because of that paper on condensed matter physics. He couldn't help but think of Schultz.

Perhaps we could try using computer-aided research to synthesize new materials?

"I have some ideas, but they still need to be verified."

Chen Hui pondered this in his heart, but since it was only a direction, he wasn't very confident and naturally dared not make a guarantee.

"If you need any help, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help you."

Song Yuntao was overjoyed. Originally, this was just a risky move, but he didn't expect Chen Hui to actually have an idea, which was beyond his expectations.

"Can math problems be included?"

Song Yuntao looked at Chen Hui, somewhat amused and exasperated, "Sorry, my abilities are limited, so please don't ask me for math problems."

Chen Hui smiled too.

"Cao Xu, come here."

Song Yuntao waved to the busy young man beside him, then looked at Chen Hui, "You can ask him any questions you have. He's been following this project the whole time. If he doesn't understand something, he can ask me."

"No problem, you can go ahead and get busy," Chen Hui said, showing his keen observation.

"Then I'll take my leave."

After saying that, Song Yuntao turned and walked out of the control room. As the director of the Plasma Research Institute, he was naturally very busy.

Next, Chen Hui learned more about the details of the tokamak device from Cao Xu. The turbulence problem and superconductivity of plasma are only the two most prominent problems of the tokamak device. In addition, there are many other problems that urgently need to be solved, such as the problem of high-energy particle escape and the research on plasma self-sustaining current driving schemes, etc.

Chen Hui spent most of the day exploring the Luzhou Plasma Institute before finally leaving.

The Plasma Institute arranged accommodation for Chen Hui and invited him to stay in Luzhou for a few more days. However, Chen Hui bought a plane ticket for the next morning and returned to Beijing.

He also has a lecture to give at Yanbei University.

This trip to Luzhou rekindled Chen Hui's passion for condensed matter physics research, but he has no intention of giving up his current research. He has already seen the light ahead and is naturally unwilling to give up halfway.

But he was already thinking about how to email Schultz. Not only was there a breakthrough in materials science, but Chen Hui was also now very interested in another millennium problem.

The problem is there, it's just a matter of solving it yourself. This kind of life has a lot of hope!

After landing at Beijing Airport, Chen Hui went straight to Tsinghua University.

The Yang-Mills equation is a partial differential equation, as is the Navier-Stokes equation. Chen Hui is already considered a top expert in partial differential equations for being able to prove the existence of the Yang-Mills equation. However, in China, there is another top expert in partial differential equations, and he plans to ask his great-grandfather for his opinion.

This was Chen Hui's first time stepping onto the Tsinghua University campus.

It is completely different in style from Yanbei University. The campus of Yanbei University is mainly composed of classical Chinese architecture, and landscapes such as Weiming Lake and Boya Pagoda carry a profound cultural heritage.

Tsinghua University's overall style blends Western pragmatism with traditional garden elements, with clean and wide main roads and a concentrated distribution of laboratories and engineering teaching buildings.

Standing by an unremarkable little lake, Chen Hui glanced at his phone's navigation, then at the lake before him, and finally decided to close the unreliable Youde Map.

Because the map told him to go into the lake!
Chen Hui wondered which expert had navigated this road using GPS, but he knew he didn't have that ability.

"Excuse me, how do I get to the Qiu Chengwu Mathematics Center?"

I randomly stopped a classmate to ask for directions.

"Here for an interview?"

"Let's go, I'm a graduate student at the Qiu Chengwu Mathematics Center, and I'm just heading to the teaching and research office."

This tall, thin young man was very enthusiastic. The Qiu Chengwu Mathematics Center was recruiting interns a while ago, and judging from Chen Hui's age, he should be an undergraduate, and a freshman who has just entered university.

"Thank you!"

Chen Hui didn't know what kind of interview it was, but since the other party could lead the way, he didn't say much and just followed behind.

What direction are you planning to choose?

The tall, thin boy was also very outgoing and asked curiously.

Chen Hui hesitated for a moment, "Partial differential equations, perhaps?"

Partial differential equations!

The tall, thin boy exclaimed softly, then shook his head. "Professor Qiu is indeed skilled in partial differential equations, but I think it's still too difficult for you at this stage. You can start with simpler research."

"Otherwise, if you can't even pass the interview, then it's all for nothing."

"Come in and learn first. Once you've learned something, you can switch directions. That's what I did back then!"

The tall, thin boy selflessly offered advice and suggestions to Chen Hui.

"Okay, I'll consider it."

Chen Hui nodded, without revealing his identity.

They walked and talked for a while, and soon arrived at the Qiu Chengwu Mathematics Center. The tall, thin boy pointed to a classroom on the first floor and said, "The interview is over there. Go ahead."

Chen Hui didn't go over, but asked again, "Excuse me, which floor is Mr. Qiu's office on?"

"You're looking for Old Qiu?"

The tall, thin man leaned back strategically, looked Chen Hui up and down, and said hesitantly, "Old Qiu doesn't meet just anyone."

“I want to give it a try,” Chen Hui continued.

The tall, thin boy hesitated for a moment, then said, "Okay, I'll take you there."

Instead of giving directions, he started leading the way, because he was now curious about the boy's identity.

They went up to the fifth floor and arrived at Qiu Chengwu's office. The office door was open, and Qiu Chengwu was sitting behind his desk. Clearly, Chen Hui was lucky.

The tall, thin boy instinctively moved to the side, worried that Old Qiu would see him.

While Professor Qiu appeared kind and gentle to Chen Hui, he was seen as very strict by the students at the mathematics center.

Chen Hui knocked on the door.

Qiu Chengwu's raised forehead was already furrowed into a deep frown, exuding an imposing aura without anger, as if he was about to utter a rebuke at any moment.

But upon seeing Chen Hui, a smile immediately appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)