Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 41: It's Not Physical

　　After lunch, Orion returned to the library.

　　Thinking of what Professor Tang had said, Orion calmly looked at the data and draft paper spread out on the table.

　　Mathematical modelling? ......

　　The tip of his pen tapped lightly on the draft paper as Orion's eyes scanned the sheets of A4 paper spread out.

　　The data Matt had provided him with was comprehensive, but in other words, cluttered.

　　There was only one path to the truth, and useless data didn't broaden a researcher's horizons; instead, it could be a barrier to the truth.

　　"The problem is that the CNTs material has an effect on the hydration reaction at early ages when it is blended into the Portland cement, so what is useful is just the data from sample #2."

　　"Comparing the FTIR images of samples #2 and #4 with sample #27 illustrates that the effect is not related to the surface functionalization modification of the CNTs material, and the experimental data from samples #24 to #28 can be deleted ......"

　　Orion wrote a two-line equation on the paper.

　　[Di={k squared CMe/(2dμ)}-(2Pw/ρw)]

　　[Vi=(2Pw/ρw)^n]

　　Looking at the two lines of formulas, the corner of Orion's mouth curved up in a hint of amusement.

　　This was a good start ......

　　Getting him deeply into the effects of carbon nanotubes on the base material might be outside his expertise, but if he was just asked to mine the data from the FTIR images and use mathematical tools to analyze the patterns, he could still do it.

　　Time passed by, and the sky outside the window gradually dimmed.

　　Throughout the afternoon, Orion completed the preliminary processing of the data and built a simple set of mathematical models along the ideas of mathematical modelling.

　　This set of mathematical models contained the relationship between the CNTs material in multiple samples on the hydration reaction rate of Portland cement, the reaction temperature, the mechanical properties of the samples, the area of the FTIR characteristic peaks, and other parameters, as well as the influence of specific parameters on each other.

　　In setting up these formulas, Orion quoted directly from the paper he had published in 'Theoretical and Applied Mathematics Letters'. It contains several generalizations of the 'Fourier Inverse Transform', and unexpectedly a huge amount of computation can be saved here.

　　With the first mathematical model in place, the difficulty of what had been a complex puzzle dropped a tier.

　　Orion leaned back in his chair and stretched. Staring at the Matlab interface that opened in the screen, his pupils reignited with a strong sense of fighting passion. Next, he would use the code and compile the model into a program! And then use the power of the computer to dig out the "invisible" data buried there!

　　......

　　As if he had regained the state he was in when he was writing his thesis on Zhou's Conjecture, Orion spent the entire three days in the library, except for the meals that he took in the cafeteria on time.

　　However, even so, as of the evening of the third day, Orion had only completed the establishment of the second set of models, and had just used the iterative algorithm to obtain the variable pattern of the effect of CNTs on the hydration reaction temperature at various ages when they were blended into Portland cement.