My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 438 That Name

What they've been arguing about all this time isn't actually what those few trajectories mean.

That's too early.

The Large Hadron Collider has not yet officially started collisions, and what they have is not a signal of new particles, much less an experimental result that can be presented to the public.

This batch of materials comes from pre-operation testing before the detector officially begins operation.

Cosmic rays pass through the detector from above, leaving tiny signal points in layers of detectors. The system connects these points to reconstruct a trajectory, and then uses different processes to calibrate, correct, and align it.

Most of the tracks can be connected.

The problem is that for a small category of events, after standard processing, the main trajectory becomes cleaner and the graph looks better, but at a certain point between layers, there is always a spot where it almost doesn't match.

Not much difference.

But it's always there.

The experimental group could say that this is a problem with detector alignment.

The theoretical group could say that this is a correction to the edge of the model.

The data processing team could say that the process was fine, and the cleaned-up results were even better.

None of these claims are absurd.

The real problem is that no one has made that disagreement clear.

If the problem isn't with the trajectory itself, but rather something created by the processing flow, then we shouldn't continue looking at it.

But if it wasn't created through a process, then simply making the image look nice isn't enough.

This matter has been going on for a long time within Geneva.

It's not like you send an email and get a conclusion the next day.

Large-scale projects won't just stop and wait for anyone.

The detectors are still being adjusted, the night shift schedules are still being arranged, reports are still being printed out one after another, the printers in the corridors are still spitting out paper, the projectors in the conference rooms are still lit up, the calibration team has new parameters to check every day, and the data processing team has new versions to run every day.

In addition to these routine tasks, Rosen had an extra line of work to do.

Pre-run trajectory processing chain verification.

Initially, it was just a private email from Allen.

It was later reduced to a few pages of anonymized structural abstracts.

Later, it was included in the internal review process.

One round, two rounds, control group, abnormal group, before treatment, after treatment.

Every step was slow.

So slow that sometimes when Allen came out of the office at night, with only the automatic lights on in the corridor, he could still remember the time difference in Princeton.

Although it was slow, the line was not broken.

By early June, it was finally included in the project phase meeting's document package.

That morning, the conference room was filled with people.

It wasn't the small meeting room that Allen and Helen usually went to.

It's bigger here, the windows are higher, and the tables are longer. The experimental group, calibration group, data processing group, and the person in charge of the pre-run report are all here. Some of them have just come from another meeting, and their coffee cups haven't even been put down yet, but their laptops are already open.

In front of each person's seat was a bound document.

There were no scary words on the cover.

It's just a very ordinary line:

Description of the pre-run trajectory processing chain verification stage.

Allen sat in the back.

He saw people pick up the materials, first flipping through the table of contents, then the abstracts. Some read quickly, some slowly, and some even drew a small circle on the margin of the page.

They may not know how this line originally came about.

In their eyes, this was just an extra piece of explanatory material that came with the project progressing to this stage.

Rosen stood at the front and waited for the noise in the conference room to subside before speaking.

"Let's get to the result first."

This sentence made many people look up.

Rosen glanced at the screen.

The screen doesn't show a trajectory graph, nor the curves that have been viewed repeatedly.

The screen displays the schedule for the next phase.

"The Joint Cosmic Ray Project will not be delayed."

Several people in the conference room visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Rosen didn't stop.

"However, the original pre-run report cannot proceed to the next stage as is."

Those who had just relaxed turned the paper back over in their hands.

Rosen's tone remained flat.

"Over the past month, we have opened a separate verification line for a type of pre-operation trajectory. The major projects have not stopped, and neither has this line."

He reached out and turned to the first page of the document.

Some people also turned to the first page.

"The difficulty lies here."

The screen changed to a new page.

There is no lengthy explanation above, only three paragraphs.

The first paragraph states very clearly: In the pre-running cosmic ray trajectory, there is a type of event that ultimately results in a normal outcome, but there are stable discrepancies in the intermediate processing.

The second paragraph states: This phenomenon is not considered a physical discovery, nor an experimental result, and will not be released to the public.

The third paragraph states: This issue affects the credibility of the pre-run data processing chain, and corresponding checks need to be retained in the next stage.

After reading it, someone looked up and asked:

"In other words, is it better not to write down its physical significance?"

Rosen nodded.

"I won't write it."

Someone from the theory group chimed in:

"That's not a conclusion."

"Yes," Rosen said, "not a conclusion."

He turned the page in his hand to the front.

"But it's a process issue."

After those words were spoken, the meeting room quieted down a bit.

In large projects, the most feared thing is often not "discovering something big".

That kind of thing will attract everyone's attention.

The real trouble lies in the seemingly minor issues within the process that can be explained away.

Each group can provide a reason.

Each reason is valid on its own.

However, projects cannot progress by a single team alone.

"This wasn't a matter of any one group making a mistake."

Someone in the experimental group who was about to speak swallowed their words upon hearing this.

"The experimental group sees the detector status, the calibration group sees the parameters, and the data processing group sees the final results. Each segment, viewed individually, is plausible."

Rosen looked up at the conference room.

"The problem is that in the original process, there was no step specifically to check whether it had been processed in the middle."

He did not say who was negligent.

There is no responsibility to pursue anyone.

Helen sat on the left and turned to the second page of the meeting minutes.

The second page describes the cost of review.

Once this page came out, many people knew that today's meeting was not simply about shifting the blame to a particular group.

"To achieve this review threshold, we reviewed three batches of pre-processing materials, re-run two versions of the processing results, pushed the report back once, and shortened the review window."

He glanced at the data processing team.

"The data processing team processed an extra batch of materials."

Then he looked at the calibration group.

"The calibration team supplemented the intermediate records."

Finally, he looked at Helen.

"Permissions and outbound scope have been reviewed twice."

Helen didn't look up, but simply made a note in her notebook.

Rosen continued:

"This is not about proving who was right and who was wrong from the beginning."

He paused for a moment after saying this.

"It's just to confirm whether this matter is worth proceeding to the next stage of the process."

Several people in the meeting room flipped through the documents.

There is a summary table there.

There was no original number, no physical label, and nothing that couldn't be discussed outside this meeting room.

But the result is clear enough.

Following the old procedure, the final diagram can be approved.

According to the new review line, a section in the middle must be retained.

The comparison materials did not show the same situation.

In similar materials, this type of problem is not an isolated incident.

These few lines are more useful than any argument.

The head of the data processing team flipped through two pages and asked:

"What should we do next?"

This is where today's meeting should truly focus.

Rosen looked at Helen.

Helen projected another page onto the screen.

The title has only five characters.

Intermediate items are reserved.

Rosen said, "Starting with the Joint Cosmic Ray operation, similar data continues to generate the final processed results as usual."

He spoke slowly, making sure everyone could hear him clearly.

"But after the final result, an intermediate retention item must be entered simultaneously."

Someone asked, "What about the scope?"

Helen continued:

"Limited to the pre-trajectory of similar cosmic rays, not extended to all data."

What are the intermediate reservations?

"The status before cleanup, the status after cleanup, the description of the section that was removed by the standard procedure, and whether further review is required."

This time, Rosen didn't let the discussion drift away.

"This is not additional research."

He looked at the people in the conference room.

"This is the gateway to the next phase."

After he finished speaking, the people sitting in the back stopped flipping through the papers.

The entry point and additional research are different.

Further research can be put aside for now.

If you can't get through the entrance, you can't pretend you've already passed through the rest.

The person in charge of the pre-operation report frowned and asked:

"Does the report need to be rewritten?"

"Don't rewrite everything," Rosen said. "Just add this one."

"The joint operation time remains unchanged?"

"Don't move."

"What about the censorship side?"

"I'll go explain."

As soon as he said that, many people in the conference room glanced at Rosen.

Many decisions in a project sound like just adding one more item.

But when it comes to actual implementation, it means that someone has to take the responsibility of explaining, taking the time, and bearing the pressure of being questioned about why the old process is not good enough.

Rosen did not push this pressure down further.

He said he would go and explain.

This is enough.

People in the meeting room started lowering their heads and revising their arrangements.

As the project moves forward, not everyone agrees.

Instead, everyone's forms, shifts, interfaces, and reports need to be updated accordingly.

In the latter half of the meeting, Rosen asked everyone to turn to the end of the document.

The paper rustled.

Many people initially just followed the steps, but slowed down when they saw the bottom line.

That page contains the source information.

The document lists several sources for the internal core line.

The bottom row lists them separately:

External mathematical structure opinion: Zhuo Chen, Princeton University.

No one in the meeting room spoke loudly immediately.

But a low murmur still arose.

"Chen Zhuo?"

"The one at Princeton?"

"Is it that Hodge?"

Someone glanced in Allen's direction.

Allen did not explain.

Rosen did not avoid the name.

He stood in front and said:

"This external opinion did not draw any conclusions for us."

The hushed conversation quickly stopped.

"We will not write it as a physical judgment, nor as an experimental result."

Rosen turned the page of information in his hand.

"But the internal review supports the direction of the investigation it proposed."

He paused.

"Therefore, the name is retained."

These words are very flat.

But many people in the conference room understood its significance.

This is not an acknowledgment.

It's not just randomly putting down the name of someone I've helped.

It's in the source description.

This means that the review line did not appear out of thin air, nor was it an opinion casually added by someone after a meeting.

It has a source.

Now, this source has been officially acknowledged by the project.

Helen looked down at the document in her hand.

She added that line of names at the very end.

Yesterday evening, she asked Rosen:

Should external opinion sources be included in the master data?

Rosen was looking at the revised report at the time and did not answer immediately.

The office was quiet; the light from outside the window had dimmed, and several documents were piled on the desk.

Allen was there too.

At that time, Helen had actually prepared two versions.

One version places Chen Zhuo in an internal memo.

Another version puts the name on the source page.

Rosen finished reading the report and then said:

"put."

Helen asked, "Should it be placed in the thank-you note?"

Rosen looked up at her.

"No."

He said.

"Place it on the source page."

Allen stood to the side without saying a word.

But when he saw Helen type that line, he suddenly felt a little relieved.

This isn't about helping a friend get a line of names.

Instead, it was the work Chen Zhuo had done over the past few months that finally found its place in the project documents in Geneva.

Back in the meeting room, Rosen had already begun explaining the final arrangements.

"The Joint Cosmic Ray Operation will continue as scheduled."

He said.

"In the next phase, all similar data will be synchronously used to generate intermediate retention items."

He closed the document.

"Discover, but don't write."

"Conclusion: Not to be written."

"The processes that should be preserved, should be preserved."

There was no applause in the meeting room.

There's no applause for this kind of meeting anyway.

Some people started packing up their computers, some picked up their phones and walked out, while others sat in place and read the last page of source information again.

Chen Zhuo.

Princeton University.

These two words together are enough to make people take a second look.

Moreover, news about the preprint of the Hodge conjecture has spread further and further afield.

After the meeting, someone caught up with Allen in the corridor.

He is a young researcher in the data processing team.

He was still holding the document in his hand, flipped to the last page, and pointed at it with his finger.

"Is this Chen the same Chen from recently?"

Allen glanced at him.

"Um."

"Was he involved in this?"

"Opinions on external mathematical structures," Allen said. "Whatever is written in the documents is what it is."

The young researcher nodded, then couldn't help but ask:

"How much material did he read?"

Allen thought about it.

"Less than you think."

The other person was taken aback for a moment.

Allen didn't explain further, and simply took his folder and walked towards his office.

He knew that was enough.

The less material you've read, the more significant the name appears on the source page.

In the afternoon, the new phase description was sent into the internal system.

What most people see is that the project has an extra requirement.

Some people complained that there was another set of materials to submit.

Some people are relieved that the joint operation was not delayed.

Someone opened the source page, saw that name, and then went to check the latest math news.

The project continues as usual.

People pushed carts through the corridor, people lined up in front of the coffee machine, and the printer spit out new timetables one by one.

Geneva did not stop because of a name.

But that name has already been recorded in an official document.

That evening, Allen sat in his office and sent an email to Princeton.

The email was short.

陈：

The phase description has been approved.

Your name is on the source page.

The Joint Cosmic Ray Operation continues as normal.

The newly added intermediate retention items will be entered into the system along with the data from the next stage.

In addition, I saw your Hodge preprint.

Congratulations.

Allen.

After sending the email, Allen did not immediately close his laptop.

The last page of the phase description was spread out next to the screen.

External mathematical structure opinion: Zhuo Chen, Princeton University.

Next is the timetable for the next phase.

The joint cosmic ray operation will begin at midnight next Monday.

The earliest images have been archived.

They didn't become news.

It did not become a conclusion.

It didn't turn into a discovery.

But they included one name in the project materials for Geneva.

This also allows the project to move forward with a new element.