Chapter 301: Purchasing Instruments

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The Jinling Institute of Computational Materials needed talented researchers. Although they could attract them by offering short-term contracts with a high salary, they needed a good research culture for them to stay long-term.

Lu Zhou needed a group of researchers to help him in the long term. He also needed to use this group of researchers and equipment to cultivate new talents.

Although he couldn’t guarantee that all of the interns working here would definitely work here after they graduated, it would be worth it as long as a third of them chose to stay.

Lu Zhou wasn’t particularly concerned about this.

Unlike most companies, Lu Zhou neither did this for money nor for sublime reasons. Even if he did receive money out of it, that would only be a by-product.

His only goal was to conduct research as he pleases. He wanted to reveal the hidden secrets of the high-tech system and look toward the future.

And doing all this on his own was impossible.

Therefore, while talking with Dean Li, Lu Zhou put forward a request for talents. He conveyed that not only did he want to hire PhD students to do research, but he also wanted to hire master’s and undergrad students as interns.

Dean Li told Academician Xu about Lu Zhou’s idea, and Academician Xu instantly agreed.

The academician was a “reformist”, he was determined to improve Jin University’s reputation.

According to the agreement between the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials and Jin Ling University, every year the chemistry department would send 30 undergrad students, 10 master’s students, and 1-3 PhD students to enter the research institute for internships. They would do basic assistant work.

If the method proved to work, then they could expand the number of interns.

These internship positions would not delay the students’ academic studies, and it would also enhance their professional experience.

Especially for undergrad students, the opportunities to gain research experience was limited.

Because of this, the undergrad chemistry major students jumped at this opportunity.

Especially for the third and fourth-year students that planned to go into research, their application rate was very high. They would have to be selected by their grades.

Lu Zhou also allocated some of the internship spots to first and second-year students.

Although they were less knowledgeable, they often had more potential and was more malleable.

Even those who couldn’t do experiments and could only clean up the laboratory, they could still listen to the experts and learn something about chemicals.

“All of the top students in the chemistry department are on this list.” Academician Li had a name list in his hand as he smiled and said, “Remember our agreement; cultivate talent however you want but don’t convert all of our precious students to mathematics.”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Don’t worry about this, I promise you I’ll return all of your students.”

Although computational materials science needed mathematics, it was still mainly based on chemistry. However, in cutting-edge research, the difference between disciplines wasn’t that clear. If a student wanted to transfer to mathematics, they definitely could.

“Okay, I will remember your words.” Dean Li smiled and handed the name list to Lu Zhou before he said, “Then the matter is in your hands now!”

This wasn’t just about the name list, there was also an empty laboratory building.

The new laboratory building was originally intended as a material mechanics laboratory for dynamic mechanical analyzers, electronic tensile testing machines, quartz crystal micro-equal, and other new equipment.

The building was fully built, but the instrument hadn’t arrived yet. Therefore, it was borrowed by Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou asked the people from academic affairs to lend him an office.

Lu Zhou basically stayed at Jin Ling University these days. His office was on campus, he ate at the school cafeteria, and his hotel was near Jin Ling University.

Although he had a house near the university, it was too messy to live in. It was too troublesome to clean up, and the house was full of Xiao Ai’s chassis smell.

Every time he called to ask someone from the computer store to help him with hardware maintenance, the people from the computer store would ask him why the house was so messy.

Lu Zhou asked his student, Vera, to help him apply for a two-week holiday extension from Princeton.

Although Lu Zhou didn’t care about the professor salary anymore, the work still brought him inspiration for his research. Also, it gave him time to learn some of the “obvious” problems and discover if they were really as trivial as he thought.

He and Mr. Fermi were the same in this regard; learning and cultivating students go hand to hand.

Also, watching his students grew into top scholars was a very rewarding feeling.

Fortunately, his number theory classes would begin at the end of February, and his interviews for the fall admissions could be done online, so it was fine for him to take the two-week extension.

…

Once the people were recruited, the next step was to delegate work to these people.

The interns could wait until the project had officially begun. However, formal researchers should be arranged to work as soon as possible.

Inside the laboratory building office, Lu Zhou met with Liu Bo and Brother Qian.

Lu Zhou asked them, “Does Professor Li hate me?”

Liu Bo said helplessly, “No, he just asked us two to screw off.”

Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly.

There was no other option other than to steal talent from Professor Li. His laboratory project at Silicon Valley had only just begun, he couldn’t spare any talents from there. He had to rely on his two friends.

Especially Qian Zhongming. Although he only had a master’s degree, his experience in the field of materials science was undoubtedly at PhD level. Even in the field of research, most PhD graduates hadn’t done as much research as him.

This was why Professor Li valued him so much.

Brother Qian was wearing a white lab coat, and he smiled and said, “Don’t call me brother anymore, I’m here to learn from you, I’ll have to call you master now.”

“I can still learn from you. Let’s learn from each other, there’s no need to call me master,” Lu Zhou smiled and said.

Qian Zhongming shook his head and said with a serious tone, “I can barely teach you anything. But in the field of computational materials science, I can only learn from you.”

Lu Zhou saw how serious Brother Qian was and smiled.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“This time our project belongs to one of the key national scientific energy research projects. Specifically speaking, we have to solve the shuttle effect in lithium-sulfur batteries; I believe you know this already.”

Brother Qian nodded and said, “So, do we have any ideas?”

“Some, but it is still very vague.” Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “But we have another problem to solve— the problem of equipment.”

Qian Zhongming and Liu Bo both nodded.

It would be impossible to do experiments without equipment. Even if one made a mathematical model of an experiment, one would still have to test the theory through real-life experiments.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he said, “I already contacted Umicore and ordered a batch of equipment through their contact. Although I hired some people from Star Sky Technology to go to Europe to look over the purchase, I still need someone reliable to sign the contract. Therefore, you might have to go to Europe for a day.”

“No problem,” Qian Zhongming smiled and said, “I used to help Professor Li do equipment purchases as well. It isn’t just about money, the equipment also has to be reliable.”

Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Yeah, thank you.”

Liu Bo saw that he wasn’t assigned anything, so he raised his hand and asked, “Then what about me?”

“I hope you can go with Brother Qian.” Lu Zhou looked at Liu Bo and smiled as he said, “I’d be worried if he went alone.”

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