Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 170: Nothing?

　　Perhaps because of his age, Orion always felt a small distance between himself and his students, especially Franklin and Hardy, who were a year older than he was, and there was no age gap at all.

　　Maybe it's the same with his students, who see him as a respectable, but not intimidating, "boss".

　　In order to convince Orion, Hardy even came up with the ridiculous "it's a Princeton tradition", which was the first time Orion had ever heard of a Princeton tradition of having a party to celebrate an award.

　　Obviously, Hardy had made it up.

　　But since he was so enthusiastic and the other students were interested, Orion let him have it.

　　The party was to be held at Orion's cabin, naturally, and the number of people attending was tentatively set at six.

　　In the end, however, the size of the party was beyond Orion's expectations.

　　Originally, he had only planned to celebrate with his students, but whoever had spread the news of his award had more than just a few people come to celebrate.

　　First it was Wynston and his girlfriend, and then Wynston's tutor, Edward Witten, heard the news and followed.

　　Then there was Deligne, who came to the party with a bottle of whisky even though the old Belgian man doesn't really like to head for crowded places.

　　Then there were Orion's friends from the Ivy League clubs, as well as professors and researchers at the institute with whom he had a good relationship. ......

　　It was a good thing that Orion had prepared a lot of champagne and food beforehand, otherwise he might not have been able to cope with it.

　　On the day of the party, the lawn in front of the hut was filled with the fragrance of roasted meat and beer.

　　Standing at a long table, Orion and his former mentor were chatting about computational materials.

　　Contrary to Orion's opinion, Deligne didn't see it as a very rewarding endeavour and thought he was wasting his time.

　　"...... Maths is pure, it's more of an art than a tool. All a mathematician should think about is how to build the edifice, and how to apply it to other fields, that's for physicists or chemists."

　　Taking a sip of his whisky, the old man with the shiny brain, his gaze as sharp as ever.

　　"My dear Professor Deligne, I can't agree with you," said the quarter-bald Witten, suddenly inserting himself into the conversation, rousing himself, "Maths is a great tool, but the mere study of the field of maths doesn't show its greatness at all, only when it is applied to more realistic fields, in order to play its greatest value ...... such as physics."

　　"I don't see that your M-theory has even the slightest bit of practical significance." Deligne shut him up with a shot, then looked to Orion, silent for a moment, and raised his goblet.

　　" Anyway, it's an honour that will match you, congratulations."

　　Orion clinked it with his mentor and said readily, "Thank you."

　　" And me, congratulations to you as well." Witten grinned, clinked his glass with Orion as well, and said in a light-hearted tone, "Perhaps the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton should start a course in computational materials-"

　　Deligne scowled, "No way."

　　Witten shrugged, "Well, I was just kidding, forget I said it."

　　The original purpose of the Institute was to create a platonic academy of purely theoretical research. The seven full-time researchers of the Institute of Natural Sciences were all studying theoretical physics and astrophysics, except for one professor of biophysics.

　　As for the Institute of Mathematics, there are many research directions, but without exception they are all pure mathematics.

　　After all, there were already enough people studying applied sciences, and there had to be a group of noble people who continued to explore in the field of theory.

　　As for what is the use of this?

　　Before the birth of semiconductor technology, no one could figure out what relativity and quantum mechanics were really good for.

　　......

　　Everyone at the party had a good time, and Orion was quite entertained.

　　For him, the Adams Award for Chemistry was certainly a pleasant surprise.

　　He originally thought that his first cross-field medal would be in theoretical physics, but he didn't realise that it was chemistry that brought him this surprise.

　　The prize money of 10,000 US dollars is not expensive, in fact, almost all of the winners are not concerned about this tiny prize money.

　　As is customary, in addition to receiving the award, Orion will deliver a lecture at the Organic Chemistry Symposium in San Francisco in April.

　　The talk can be academic or non-academic, depending on one's choice.

　　But even though he doesn't have to submit a paper in advance, Orion intends to prepare for it.

　　As it happened, on the third day of his return to Princeton, Professor Sarote had a video call with him to report on the progress of his research during this period.

　　"...... As per your request, we have done 200 sets of experiments, and the relevant experimental data has been sent to your email. However, I must tell you an unfortunate news, we were not observed the kind of cage-like structure molecules you predicted in the reaction chamber. With all due respect, modifying fullerene materials with carbon nanotubes, while this sounds interesting, is not a good idea for research."

　　As he said this, Sarote had a tired look on his face.

　　He had been busy with this matter for the past month, controlling the reaction temperature and reaction time, and doing a large number of experiments. Unfortunately, other than getting a pile of carbon ash with a complex and useless composition, there was no surprising discovery at all.

　　Orion, who was sitting in his office chair and twirling his biros, had a thoughtful look on his face.

　　"Nothing?"

　　"That's not true," Sarote shrugged, "Although we didn't get what you wanted, according to the experiment you designed, we still harvested many samples that we've never seen before in the byproducts of the experiment ...... Though I won't go so far as to determine which ones are of any use."

　　Orion, with a slight twitch in his heart, said, "You send some of those by-products over."

　　"Okay, send them directly to your office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton?"

　　Orion thought about it and said, "Send it to the Frick Chemistry Lab, just put my name on it. I'm not sure if the mailroom at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton accepts packages labelled with chemical information."

　　After hanging up the phone, Orion turned on his computer and flipped through the email that Sarote had sent to him.

　　The product information, quality analysis test results, and other data were listed in the email.

　　After carefully reading the lab report to the end, Orion let out a long breath, leaned back in his office chair, and fell into thought.

　　Judging from the data, the carbon nanotubes and fullerene materials that had opened the π-bonds did not reorganise under thermal reaction conditions as he had expected.

　　Although this was theoretically feasible, realistically speaking, the countless side reactions made this operation simply difficult to realise.

　　He just still hadn't expected to collect even a microgram of sample.

　　"Looks like the experiment will have to be redesigned!"

　　Orion thought to himself as he tapped his biros on his desk.