Wilson Ohanian is a professor of physics at Stanford University, specializing in high-energy physics. As a former Oliver Buckley Prize winner, he is one of the best young physicists that has emerged in recent years.

Although bathed in the envious gaze of his peers, only Ohanian himself knew how difficult the path he had chosen in the first place.

Constrained by backward technology, they are still verifying the correctness of the speculations of the last century, while the exploration of the future has barely begun.

Fortunately, in recent years, the Chinese people, who have suddenly become rich, have generously donated money to build an IMCRC larger than CERN on the crater of the moon, so that the development of high-energy physics has returned to the fast lane.

For example, the scaphoid (Z) particle.

Since the end of last year, this particle has fallen from the high-dimensional world into people's sight, and the research of high-energy physics has been directly expanded to the invisible world by an entire n dimensions.

And Lu Zhou, who discovered this particle, won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics in one fell swoop because of this groundbreaking discovery, becoming a candidate for the most outstanding physicist of this century.

Seeing the broad prospects behind this direction at a glance, Ohanian immediately changed the direction of his research and entered the study of Z particles, and made quite good progress in the study of "Interpretation of Dimensional Changes of Z Particles".

If nothing else, the next Dirac Prize is already in his pocket.

However......

Now the accident has apparently happened.

"It's a fart ......"

"Hyperspace Passage? Space-time curvature change? ”

"Isn't that all I have to do is make a hole in the same place and get to the other side of the galaxy?"

Cursing, he crumpled the paper in his hand and threw it into the paper basket, and Ohanian did not hesitate to disdain the disdain in his mouth, criticizing the theories of "hyperspace passages" and "changing the curvature of space-time" as worthless.

In fact, his disdain is not unfounded.

In general relativity, if the topology of space changes within a bounded region, then there is a closed-class time-like curve in the space-time range in which this change occurs.

The so-called time-like curve is the trajectory of a mass object in space-time that can be realized physically.

A popular explanation for this sentence is that changing the topology of space is forbidden by the general theory of relativity!

This is not a conjecture, but a theorem proved by Stephen Hawking.

In fact, Ohanian had a similar brain hole long ago when he saw the disturbance of the gravitational field when Z-particles fell from a higher dimension to a lower dimension.

However, this vague brain hole was quickly denied by himself.

Whether to prove or reject this idea requires a huge amount of computation, even some mathematicians who specialize in topology and algebraic geometry find it tricky.

And he also confirmed this with a mathematics professor at Stanford University.

In contrast, he prefers another interpretation.

That is, the mass loss of Z particles as they move from higher dimensions to lower dimensions, and this loss of mass in this dimension ultimately leads to a smaller gravitational force observed in classical space-time.

And where does this part of gravity go?

He thinks it could be an extra dimension.

However, this paper undoubtedly overturned his research entirely, and also made the Dirac Prize in Physics, which seemed to him almost within reach, go away......

Looking at the angry Professor Ohanian, the assistant in the office stood tremblingly beside him, not daring to speak.

After his anger seemed to subside, the assistant swallowed and whispered.

"But the author of this paper is Professor Lu......"

The air in the office froze for a moment.

Even Professor Ohanian's fingers were frozen in the grip of the cup.

“…… What did you say? ”

"The paper was written by Professor Lu...... He posted it on Arxiv, and I did what you asked me to print out all the papers worth looking at in the direction you were tracing in the direction. ”

The corners of his mouth twitched violently, and his face remained stiff, and Professor Ohanian still asked unrelentingly.

"Is it to hang up his corresponding author."

This kind of thing happens from time to time, and not all tutors have the time to correct every paper of their students word by word. Especially an academic leader like Lu Zhou, maybe he can't remember how many students he has.

It is very helpful to put the name of the corresponding author on it, at least so that the review editor will not throw the paper in the trash in the first place, and the attitude of the scholar who corrects the paper during peer review will be relatively gentle.

In the same way, just hanging the corresponding author's words does not mean that Professor Lu participated in this paper, and it is possible that he has not even read this paper.

After all, the papers that hang out on Arxiv are not just publications, but only preprints -

"The only author...... "The words that came out of the mouth of his trembling assistant were completely shattered just as Ohani was reassuring to read the telegram, "He was the only one on the paper. ”

There was a long silence in the office.

After at least ten minutes, Ohanian suddenly sighed, stood up with his hands on the armrests, and walked to the side of the wastebasket.

Picking up the crumpled pages of the paper from the paper basket and returning it to the desk to spread out, Ohanian patiently sat down again and read the entire twenty-page paper from beginning to end.

About half an hour passed, and he muttered something in a whisper, who was half-understanding.

"Okay...... I can't say it too rigidly, as it sounds ridiculous, but it's not necessarily entirely wrong. ”

Stunned to see his grumpy boss, it only took half an hour to change his attitude in a 180-degree manner, and the assistant standing in the office almost wondered if it was really Professor Ohhanian sitting here, the bull who had argued with the dean over an academic point of view, and even pointed at the other person's nose and scolded him.

Swallowing his saliva, the assistant said in a trembling voice.

"Professor."

Snorting through his nose, Professor Ohanian replied without looking up.

"What's wrong?"

Assistant: "If he's right...... What does this mean? ”

What does that mean? Hehe, what does it mean......"

As if insane, Professor Ohanian grinned dryly, staring at the paper as if he were glued to it.

It means that the view of space-time in general relativity will be subverted, and our understanding of classical space-time will be refreshed...... Actually, it's nothing, anyway, there are more patches on the edifice of physics. ”

"But the most important thing is ......"

Seeing that Professor Ohanian was halfway through his sentence and didn't continue to speak for a long time, the young assistant who couldn't hold his breath finally couldn't help but continue to ask.

"What's the most important thing?"

In an almost certainly tone, Professor Ohanian said without hesitation.

"Crucially, it means that traveling in light years will no longer be an unreliable dream."

"All the sci-fi movies you've seen in the past, whether it's Hollywood or whatever."

"At least half of them may have a chance to come true."