Chapter 92: The Importance Of Metaphysics in Scientific Research

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

“… This is where we mainly do experiments, but a lot of equipment is on the old campus. Sometimes I have to take the subway there when I want to do a particular experiment. But nowadays it’s gotten better, the whole lab from there will move here.”

“Do we need to travel often?” asked Lu Zhou.

“Nope,” said Liu Bo. He smiled and continued, “The Fourier infrared spectroscopy is done here, and you don’t need to participate in other specific experiments. You just need to help us analyze the experimental data. Someone will give you a desk later. From today, you are a team member of our research project!”

Liu Bo pushed open the office door.

At the left side of the room, a man in a T-shirt and a shaved head was facing against the lab door. He was playing with a piece of equipment that looked like a printer, and he did not notice anyone coming.

Liu Bo brought Lu Zhou over and tapped the shoulder of this man. When the man turned over, Liu Bo smiled and said, “Let me introduce you to Qian Zhongming, you can call him Brother Qian.”

“Brother Qian, nice to meet you!”

Qian Zhongming looked a little stiff as he was not as extroverted as Liu Bo.

He looked at Lu Zhou and said, “You’re Lu Zhou from the mathematical department?”

“Yes,” answered Lu Zhou with a smile.

Qian Zhongming nodded and said, “Do you know how to use Matlab?”

“A bit.”

“A bit is enough,” said Qian Zhongming as he nodded. He took a USB from the table before handing it to Lu Zhou and said, “Some introductory tutorial and literature are in here, including the application for our research grant. Once you have finished reading them, you’ll have a general idea of our research… Oh yeah, don’t upload it online.”

Although domestic universities were mostly cooperative in the field of scientific research, they were still competitive against each other. Similar research projects were also being done in other universities. After all, the first person who discovered the scientific finding would get all the credit.

The competition between the laboratories was also fierce as whoever discovered it first would get all of the credit.

Due to this, many project leader’s daily rituals were to research similar projects, to find any copycats.

“That’s it?” asked Lu Zhou while he held the USB.

“That’s it for now. The new samples had just arrived, and no data collection has been done. It’s pretty late, so we’ll pick it up tomorrow,” said Qian Zhongming while touching his nose.

“Where is the Fourier infrared spectral data collected? In the old campus?”

Brother Qian pointed to his feet and said, “Right here.”

“Right here?”

Lu Zhou looked around and did not see any powerful experimental equipment.

At least, it was a lot less impressive than the labs next door.

“That’s right,” said Qian Zhongming as he nodded. He then pointed to the old-fashioned printer looking thing and said, “It’s this thing.”

“This?!” gasped Lu Zhou as he looked at the instrument in disbelief. He could not believe that this was the cutting-edge instrument.

“That’s right,” said Qian Zhongming as he nodded. It was almost like he had guessed what Lu Zhou was thinking when he said, “TENSOR-II research-grade Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, which was made by German company Bruker. The built-in gold mirror has a reflectivity that is 6.5% higher than that of an aluminum mirror. It has strong anti-oxidation and stable optical performance. Dual-channel digital acquisition, four external output optical path expansion…”

Lu Zhou listened to him with a confused expression.

Although he had read some related textbooks during his summer vacation, he did not touch on such specific things.

“Fine, fine. Stop scaring the kid,” said Liu Bo as he patted the guy’s shoulder and laughed at Lu Zhou. He said, “This guy talked a little too much sometimes. Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow we’re going to do the collection of Fourier infrared spectroscopy data for the new sample. If you’re interested, come, but get up early. We’ll start at exactly eight o’clock.”

“Why is it so early? Any reason why?” asked Lu Zhou curiously.

Liu Bo said, “We claim that the temperature in the morning is perfect, but then we adjusted the air condition and found that it doesn’t make a difference… Well, we don’t know either. In short, we believe that having the experiment at eight o’clock will give us a higher success rate.”

What is this metaphysics?

Lu Zhou was stunned.

Why is metaphysics important in a scientific experiment?

What?…

…

Lu Zhou already finished the bug check, plus with Yuan Liwei and Rong Hai overlooking the tasks in Campus Assistant, he did not have much to do.

When Lu Zhou returned to the dorm with the USB that Brother Qian gave him, he copied the documents onto his computer and began to read it carefully.

Three months ago, during the summer vacation, because of the mission, Lu Zhou read some textbooks related to the research project. However, those books mainly contained basic knowledge, it did not go in depth.

Carbon nanotubes was a relatively advanced field. This field was always updating. If one wanted to understand this field in depth, one had to read a lot of theses.

Professor Li Rongen’s research project was about discovering a wide range of carbon nanotube applications.

The tailored single-walled carbon nanotubes were easily dispersed in polar solvents such as water, alcohol, and DMF to form colloids. Due to these properties, carbon nanotubes were being studied by many researchers as the next generation of electronic materials. Its application in composite materials was also becoming more and more extensive.

Particularly, nanotube applications in the cement and steelmaking industry were also trending…

At least, domestically.

After reading the funding application, Lu Zhou opened the folder where the papers were stored.

Since Brother Qian already prepared the essential thesis for him to read, it saved him a lot of time.

As he scanned the theses, he found out that around 30% of them were from the University of Jin Ling.

Lu Zhou thought that the University of Jin Ling was still pretty powerful.

The only universities better than the University of Jin Ling in the field of the carbon cluster material research was the University of Yan and maybe the University of Shuimu.

Of course, although the research of the predecessors had been prepared, there were still many technical problems to be solved. The most specific one was that carbon nanotubes, as nano-scale fillers, could not be uniformly dispersed in the interior of the matrix or agglomerated inside the matrix. Then, after doping, the strength of the matrix material could not be enhanced. Instead, the inherent properties of the matrix material were damaged.

The bottleneck encountered by the research team led by Professor Li Rongen seemed to be this.

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