"I need your help."
When he heard Edward Witten say these words, Li Mu was a little surprised.
Who is this?
The founder of M theory, the master of superstring theory, the physicist most likely to be the successor of Einstein, the best mathematician among physicists, the best physicist among mathematicians, and the winner of the Fields Medal …
There are too many titles gathered on the head of this great god. It can be said that basically only others ask him for help. It is impossible to see him asking others to help him, because no one can help him with his problems.
But now, he found Li Mu.
This means that Edward Witten believes that Li Mu can solve the problems he encountered.
After Li Mu was stunned for a long time, he said: "Professor Witten... First of all, I have to say that I am honored to have your trust, but now there is an obvious problem-if you can't solve it, I probably can't solve it either." Difficult to solve."
"No..." Edward Witten said: "My problem stems from my lack of understanding of Li's expansion."
"And obviously, you are the person who knows Li's expansion best in the world now. I have no one else to turn to but you."
Li Mu pondered for a moment, and finally said: "In any case, Professor Witten, if you can ask me for help, of course I am willing to lend a helping hand. So can you tell me how I can help you?"
"I think it would be better for us to meet in person." Witten said: "Whether I come to you or you come to me, of course, to show sincerity, I think it would be better for me to come to you."
"Before we officially meet, I will send you the problems I encountered, and we will discuss it when we meet. What do you think?"
"If you agree, I will buy a ticket to China in two weeks."
Li Mu smiled and said: "This probably won't be necessary. Tomorrow I will go to Oxford University to become a mathematics graduate student of Professor Wiles, so if you come to China then, you will definitely not be able to meet me."
Witten was stunned for a moment: "Graduate student in mathematics..."
Li Mu's words caught him off guard, and he suddenly recalled that the young man on the other end of the phone had not even graduated yet and was still just a student.
He even publicly expressed his willingness to accept Li Mu as a student...
In the end, he couldn't help but sigh: "I don't know what else Wiles thinks he can teach you? He actually accepted you as his student..."
Oh, I suddenly remembered that I heard Deligne say that the reason why Li Mu was willing to be Wiles's student was largely because Wiles gave him a very commemorative and precious pen. At that time, Li Mu had just completed the proof of the hail conjecture. He was not like now, shaking up the world of mathematics and then turning the world of physics upside down.
That old boy's luck... is really good.
He sighed softly, and then said: "Then, I will book a flight to England in two weeks, and then we will discuss it at Oxford University?"
But Li Mu didn't agree immediately. After pondering for a moment, he said, "How about we set the time in a month."
"A month from now?"
Witten was stunned, "Why?"
"I will go to CERN in one month to hold a report meeting on Li's expansion." Li Mu said: "After the report is over, we can discuss your issues at CERN."
Upon hearing Li Mu's words, Edward Witten was stunned.
Li Mu was preparing to hold an expanded report meeting on Li's family, which immediately attracted his attention.
He asked in surprise: "Li's expanded report meeting?"
God knows how long the physics community has been waiting for this report.
At least to some extent, physicists around the world have been looking forward to Li Mu's paper since it was released.
And they are looking forward to the stars and the moon, are they finally waiting?
"Of course."
Li Mu expressed his affirmation on this matter.
One month was the deadline he gave himself.
He wants to completely solve the problem of the Standard Model under Li's expansion within this month.
Of course, he was not without aim. After thinking about the reverse quantum statistical method, his research made great progress. After so many days, he has gradually found the key point.
We can already look forward to the day when the problem will be truly solved.
"I understand, then as you said, we will discuss it at CERN in one month." Witten said: "Of course, I will not be absent from your report. The entire physics community has been looking forward to this day for a long time. , I believe that day will be a feast for our physics community.”
Li Mu smiled and said, "Maybe."
"Okay, let's stop here. I will send my questions to your email address right away...I very much hope you can help me."
The phone was hung up.
Li Mu sighed slightly. No matter what, the reason why Edward Witten came to him for help probably stemmed from Edward Witten's obsession with proving M theory.
Such obsession made such a top scholar willing to put aside his pride and seek his help.
He can completely understand this.
After a while, he received a notification of new emails.
It was the email from Witten, who had sent his question as an attachment.
After Li Mu downloaded the attachment, he opened it and saw that it was full of photos. The contents in the photos were sheets of draft paper and the theoretical derivation process above.
Apparently Witten took pictures of all his manuscripts, packaged them and sent them over.
Li Mu didn't waste any time and started looking at it.
Although he has not studied M theory in depth, he is very clear about the content of this theory. After all, it is one of the most famous theories in mathematical physics. This physical theory has almost nothing to do with experiments. It's about absolute mathematical rigor.
Very much to his liking.
If the superstring physics explained by the current M theory were not perfect enough, he might have become a string theorist.
The first part is the process of Witten's combination of M theory and Lie's expansion.
By using Lie's expansion to avoid non-perturbative problems, M theory becomes perfect after being combined with Lie's expansion.
Non-perturbative problems exist in all theories related to quantum field theory. Although M theory does not belong to quantum field theory, it has a very close relationship with quantum field theory, so non-perturbative problems also exist in M theory. , and limits M theory from becoming the ultimate theory that truly unifies all physics.
After all, as the ultimate theory, you must be able to describe all phenomena.
Just like some scholars once ridiculed superstring theory. It claimed to be the ultimate theory, but it couldn't even describe the theory related to black holes.
Although not long after these words were spoken, string theorists successfully used string theory to describe the Hawking radiation theory, and even derived the theory of relativity from it.
This is a kind of backward compatibility.
But so far, there are very few "lower-level theories" that superstring theory can describe. It's like a pavilion hanging high in the air, supported only by a slender wooden stick.
"...So if you want to prove M theory, in addition to directly finding the existence of 'strings' and proving its correctness, you can also only prove it through indirect methods such as discovering extra dimensions..."
"Either we can use Lie's expansion to make M theory backward compatible with more low-energy theories, as Witten and I plan to do now, and then realize the proof."
The more low-energy theories that are backward compatible, the more wooden sticks will support M-theory, which was originally like a castle in the air. By then, the academic community will naturally have no choice but to admit its correctness.
Li Mu narrowed his eyes, thinking deeply as he watched.
He has always had respect for M theory.
After formally proposing Li's expansion, he also considered using the historical expansion to improve M theory.
And now it seems that Witten has completely settled this matter.
And it has been pushed far back.
So where does the "almost unsolvable" difficulty he mentioned come from?
Li Mu was very curious about what problem Witten could use to describe it as "almost impossible to solve."
In this way, as he continued to read, the problem Witten mentioned was finally revealed in front of Li Mu.
After reading this question, Li Mu was a little silent.
With a glance, Witten also made an annotation below: [As you can see, no matter how I deal with it here, or how I changed the calculation method earlier, the mass here always becomes positive infinity, like a sudden explosion. Got it! 】
Below, Witten added another line and wrote: [To be honest, I am a little scared now. I have not told anyone about this problem I encountered. I am only telling you now. I believe you should also know this. There are only two possibilities for this situation. First, my calculation process is wrong, and second, the theory is wrong. But for the first situation, I have repeatedly verified it countless times, and I have never found a problem in the calculation process, so now there is only the second possibility.
It's hard for me to accept this fact, so I hope you can help me find the third possibility, please! 】
The last "please", it can be seen that Witten was having a hard time writing it.
But Li Mu understood it very well.
At the same time, he also understood what Witten meant by "almost impossible to solve."
"The theory is wrong" means that M theory is wrong!
This mathematical model, which was established based on pure mathematical derivation and was considered mathematically perfect, now has mathematical flaws.
Once the news gets out, this theory, which has never been refuted due to its mathematical rigor, will be immediately labeled as a "failure" in the physics community.
Of course, there is another possibility, that is, Li's expansion is wrong.
But this possibility does not exist. Li Mu has no doubt about it, not to mention that even Witten did not question Li's expansion.
After Witten discovers such a shocking error, he will definitely not believe that it is a problem with M theory at first. He will definitely conduct more tests on Li's expansion.
Obviously, he determined that there was no problem with Li's expansion.
The most likely mistake could only be M theory, but he couldn't find the problem.
Why can't both of them find the problem, but the one that is wrong can only be M-theory?
Because the former is just a mathematical processing method after all, it is just used in theoretical physics. Mathematical theory is "real" and has no "falsifiability".
M theory is a physical theory, and any physical theory always has "falsifiability" that can lead to its overthrow.
Therefore, Li Mu could imagine Witten's fear.
Moreover, this news is no less than a magnitude 18 earthquake for the entire physics community.
[M theory is wrong], in a sense no less than [Relativity theory is wrong] and [Quantum mechanics is pseudoscience].
Any physicist would probably go crazy after learning this news.
However - Li Mu actually doesn't care much about this.
He moved his gaze to his draft paper.
"It seems that I discovered something extraordinary... something?"
This fatal problem encountered by M theory seemed to be the inspiration for solving the problems he encountered?
With a little excitement and disbelief in his heart, he picked up his pen and began to interpret the already somewhat obvious truth.
"If you use the idea of inverse quantum statistics...yes!"
"Whether it is the change in the mass of the W boson, the concealment of the Zcs (3985) neutral adjoint state particle, or the problems encountered by M theory, there must be another factor that has been hidden."
【λφ^4+1/2σφ^2+c……】
Until finally...
Li Mu looked at the solution he finally got in horror.
"Is it...a new basic power!??"
(End of chapter)
