Chapter 321: In-progress Results

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Wang Haifeng grabbed the Science journal magazine from Liu Hong and started to read the tiny words carefully.

Although he didn’t like Lu Zhou at all, he had to admit that this kid was a genius.

There weren’t many scholars that could publish on either Science or Nature and doing both was basically impossible.

The first thesis was a theory-based thesis, and Wang Haifeng couldn’t understand anything other than the conclusion.

The second thesis was about the HCS-1 material, and it was more application based. Wang Haifeng carefully read through the thesis.

When he saw a scanned image, his eyebrows twitched.

His laboratory also had a scanning electron microscope, but it was the bismuth hexaboride type.

This kind of electron microscope was much more advanced than the tungsten filament kind, and the electron image resolution could reach 2nm, and the image was 5 to 10 times brighter than the tungsten filament kind. However, it was no match with the field emission electron gun.

Without a doubt, the image in the thesis was taken with a field emission electron scanning microscope.

This person is disgusting!

He must be bragging about his microscope!

Wang Haifeng had more than 20 years of experience in the chemistry field, and yet, he was being defeated by a kid. He couldn’t take it anymore.

However, he continued to read the thesis and quickly calmed down.

Once Wang Haifeng finished reading, he slammed the journal on the table. He then threw it back to Liu Hong.

“This is only an in-progress result.”

Wang Haifeng sighed in relief.

If this HCS-1 material was as valuable as the modified PDMS material, then Wang Haifeng would admit defeat. Other international chemistry giants would do the same.

However, it was clear that the HCS-1 material wasn’t perfect.

Of course, even though it was only an in-progress result, it still showed the superior performance of the HCS-1 material. If someone could solve the production process, it might be used in industries that required high battery densities.

Like drones…

Liu Hong said, “What if they only published the in-progress result and didn’t release the important results…”

Wang Haifeng said, “Nonsense, why would they do that?”

Liu Hong was stunned, and he smiled and said, “… But can’t they just publish more papers?”

Wang Haifeng was amused by his student, and he laughed as he said, “Then tell me, is he doing a PhD? Or does he need the reputation? Why would he publish so many theses?”

Liu Hong realized that he had just asked a very stupid question and decided to shut his mouth.

He was right; normal researchers needed to accumulate their academic reputation.

Normal professors also needed to publish theses to show off their academic ability. This also allowed the professors to receive more academic grants.

But Lu Zhou obviously didn’t need to prove his academic ability.

Patents were the most important thing in research; it was the key to earning money from large companies.

No matter how much research someone did, if they couldn’t obtain the patent in the end, their work would only pave the way of success for others. If someone had a 90% chance that their research would succeed, they still wouldn’t publish their in-progress result.

Unless they really needed the money and needed to publish results to make their investors happy… Or it was to bait new investors and to make them feel like they could produce more results.

Obviously, Lu Zhou didn’t need investors.

Most people didn’t know how valuable the PDMS material was, but Wang Haifeng was in the field of materials science, and he knew that Umicore paid US$400 million for the patent rights.

Then there was only one possibility…

Wang Haifeng’s eyes lit up and said, “This kid is smart, I’m afraid he has been researching this topic before his PDMS thesis publication. Everyone during the meeting was talking nonsense, but he was the only one who was able to put out a coherent idea. I’m guessing he already has some research results.”

Most people began writing theses after receiving the patent number. Almost everyone would wait for the patent authorizations to go through first and the patent authorization could take up to twelve months.

That was to say, if a thesis was published in 2016, the real research results were probably made in 2015.

Wang Haifeng suspected that a year ago, Lu Zhou had already begun researching hollow carbon spheres.

Liu Hong thought of a possibility but he wasn’t sure, so he asked, “You’re saying?”

“His research has probably reached a bottleneck.” Wang Haifeng smiled and said, “This young man is too impatient.”

When research stagnated, releasing in-progress research to prevent others from releasing the same research first was a common tactic. Although it exposed one’s own research progress, it gave the researcher fame and reputation.

After all, the longer the research results stayed hidden, the larger the risk. Especially in a popular research area, someone else could come up with the same results within two months.

Since many research institutes were researching hollow carbon spheres, this was possible. If someone else posted your result first, it would hinder your research results useless.

Wang Haifeng though that Lu Zhou couldn’t handle the pressure.

“We will continue the research project.” Wang Haifeng looked at Liu Hong and said, “Just in case, help me find out what Jinling Institute of Computational Materials is doing, and how their research progress is going…”

Liu Hong said, “But I don’t know anyone from Jin Ling University, do you think they will tell me?”

Wang Haifeng said, “Are you dumb? Come up with an idea yourself!”

Liu Hong shut his mouth and stopped talking.

After a while, Wang Haifeng calmed down and said, “Also, we have to change our project goal.”

When he came up with the project goal, he described hollow carbon spheres and the carbon-sulfur composite materials in a general way. Now that Lu Zhou released an in-progress result, he had to use a more specific description.

However, changing the project goal was easy.

It wasn’t a big deal.

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