Chapter 367 - Firestone Library Is Full Of Treasures
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The documents released to the public were carefully selected.
Lu Zhou hoped to see the original idea that Lyman Spitzer had for the stellarator.
He also wanted to build a theoretical model from a physicist’s perspective.
historical
“Lyman Spitzer’s manuscript?” Edward Witten rubbed his chin and said, “I haven’t paid attention to his area of research. I think he donated his manuscript to the Institute for Advanced Study. Some things are kept in the Firestone Library. If you are interested, you might be able to find them in the Firestone Library.”
Lu Zhou said, “Firestone Library? Thank you.”
“No worries.” Witten smiled and said, “Actually, if you are interested in the stellarator, why don’t you consult other research institutes? No one in Princeton is researching this thing, but there are plenty of people at MIT, Stanford, and Caltech who are doing this research.”
Lu Zhou said, “I’ll think about it if I have to, but until then, I just want to do my own research.”
The nuclear fusion topic was too large. Just the research project outline would take five pages to write.
In some sense, the reason why Lu Zhou wanted Lyman Spitzer’s manuscript was to get inspiration from it.
Witten sipped his coffee and said, “I hope you find what you need.”
“Thanks.”
Lu Zhou said bye to Witten and walked out of the Institute for Advanced Study.
...
There was a type of people in the academic community who could maintain creativity while being involved in rigorous research work.
When they encountered a problem, instead of saying it was impossible, they would look at it from a scientific point of view.
Lyman Spitzer was this kind of person.
Other than him, Freeman Dyson, who proposed the Dyson sphere, and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who proposed the space elevator, were also this type of people.
Lyman Spitzer wasn’t as famous compared to the other two. However, no one could ignore his influence in astrophysics.
It was him who first proposed to put a telescope in space to eliminate the shadowing effect of the atmosphere on Earth. This led to the birth of the Hubble Space Telescope.
In order to commemorate him, the last space telescope made by the Great Observatories program was named after him— the Spitzer Space Telescope.
After bidding farewell to Witten, Lu Zhou went to the Firestone Library and found a librarian.
A weird-looking old man was responsible for the library books.
Although there were weird people in Princeton, there weren’t that many people like this old man, who was wearing pajamas at work.
Especially those murky eyes, it made people wonder if he had Alzheimer’s.
However, what surprised Lu Zhou was that after this old man heard his request, he quickly climbed the ladder of a two-story-high bookshelf and took a thick notebook from there.
The old man then climbed back down and handed the notebook to Lu Zhou.
“This is what you want.”
“Thank you.”
Lu Zhou reached for the manuscript.
However, the old man instantly retrieved his hand.
Lu Zhou: ? ? ?
The old man said, “This is the wealth of civilization, please take care of it.”
It seemed that he was only giving Lu Zhou a piece of advice.
However, Lu Zhou noticed that the old man’s hand was shaking.
“I know... Can you give me the book now?” Lu Zhou said while looking at the old man. He didn’t reach for the book this time.
He felt like the old man was toying with him.
The old man saw that Lu Zhou didn’t fall for the trick a second time, so he felt disappointed. He coughed and replied, “Of course you can. But you must promise me that you will bring it back exactly the way it was.”
Lu Zhou held up three fingers.
“I swear...”
“Don’t swear at me,” the old man suddenly took out a Bible from nowhere, and he said, “swear at this.”
Lu Zhou was speechless.
Why are you asking an atheist to swear at this thing?
I’d rather swear at Newtons’ “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, or Einstein’s “Unified Field Theory”. That would make more sense.
However, Lu Zhou didn’t want to waste time. He placed his hands on the bible before he said, “I swear that I will return this book exactly the way it was.”
Although the old man wasn’t satisfied with Lu Zhou’s attitude, he still nodded and handed the manuscript to Lu Zhou reluctantly.
“I hope you keep your promise.”
“I will.”
Lu Zhou didn’t waste a second; he immediately walked into the reading room next to him.
...
Lu Zhou couldn’t take the manuscript out of the Firestone Library, he could only read it in the reading room.
If the manuscript was hundreds of years old, he might even have to wear gloves before reading.
However, this manuscript was relatively new; it was only sixty years old.
Lu Zhou opened the book and began reading it carefully.
Understanding the contents wasn’t easy as Lyman Spitzer was extremely imaginative. There were some unrecognizable drawings.
Lu Zhou didn’t know why he left this manuscript at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
Lu Zhou felt like if it was him, he would never let this “unreadable” text exist in the world...
Lu Zhou spent the entire afternoon reading the book from beginning to end.
Although it was difficult to understand, after reading it, Lu Zhou felt like it was helpful.
Especially since Lyman Spitzer had the same conclusion as Lu Zhou for the final vision of the stellarator.
“... I can’t believe this is from sixty years ago.”
Lu Zhou couldn’t help but give his own review of this old manuscript.
Even now, this manuscript on the stellarator would be thesis worthy.
However, it had been sixty years. Someone would have written that thesis already.
Lu Zhou placed the manuscript aside and went into deep thought.
Controllable nuclear fusion was a huge project, but Lu Zhou was interested in both its prospects and mechanics.
The problem was that he needed an entry point.
Superconducting normal temperature material?
Or look at it from a mathematics point of view, and try to figure out the “law of motion of plasma”?
The first one was more applicable, the second one was more theory-based. Both of them are pretty difficult.
Especially the second one. It involves the study of complex plasma turbulence. It might be the most difficult part of the Navier-Stokes equations.
Also so far, the measurements that people can make on plasma are only “estimates”.
However, if this problem is solved, not only will it push nuclear fusion forward, but it might also help the Navier-Stokes equations research...
Lu Zhou spent around ten minutes thinking.
Lu Zhou suddenly smirked and picked up a pen. He circled the words “The Law of Motion of Plasma in a Stellarator”.
He picked up the manuscript and stood up from his chair.
As expected, he was more interested in the harder problem.
Ever since Goldbach’s conjecture, he had been searching for a more challenging problem...