Chapter 534: Happiness Came Too Suddenly
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Inst.i.tute of Computational Materials.
Hou Jinli stood in front of the laboratory entrance and took a deep breath. He nervously opened the door and walked into the laboratory.
Ten minutes ago, he was still sorting out samples in the laboratory. However, someone suddenly told him that Lu Zhou wanted to see him.
After he heard this news, without any hesitation, he put down the work he was doing and rushed over here.
When he saw Lu Zhou standing in the laboratory with a white lab coat, he asked nervously, “Sir, did you ask for me?”
Lu Zhou nodded and answered concisely, “Yeah, I did.”
Hou Jinli became even more nervous after hearing Lu Zhou’s reply.
Professor Lu, who hadn’t been to the laboratory for several days suddenly appeared again. Not to mention, the first thing he did after returning to the lab was to ask for Hou Jinli.
What could Professor Lu want me to do?
Maybe there’s a problem with my research project?
Impossible…
He clearly remembered that he repeated the experiment several times, and he also double-checked the experiment report.
Also, surely Professor Lu wouldn’t ask for me over such a small matter.
It wasn’t his fault he was nervous. Normal people would never think that a n.o.bel Prize laureate would be interested in their research. After all, Hou Jinli was a noob researcher for so many years.
While Hou Jinli’s mind was racing, Lu Zhou was carefully observing him.
Lu Zhou noticed his nervous expression and guessed what he was thinking, so he smiled and said, “Relax, don’t feel any pressure. I’m probably younger than you in age. Also, I don’t have any bad news for you.”
When Hou Jinli heard this, his tense shoulders finally relaxed.
Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, “I’ve read your research report.”
When Hou Jinli heard this, he immediately stood up straight and waited for the n.o.bel Prize big name to critique his research.
“The thing you discovered is very interesting. It not only has good resistance to high temperature, but it is also much better at resisting neutron radiation than normal alloy materials.”
Excited, Hou Jinli gasped, “Really?”
His experiment was mainly concerned with high-temperature resistance; he obviously didn’t have the means to conduct a neutron radiation experiment, so he didn’t even think of doing one.
Now he found out that not only did his research material have excellent temperature resistant properties, but it also had excellent anti-neutron radiation properties, so he was immediately shocked by this great news.
Lu Zhou nodded.
“There are some flaws, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
“Also, that’s the end of the good news. The news I am about to say might not be beneficial to you.
“After I discussed with some of the experts at the China National Nuclear Corporation, we believed that this material has future prospect applications on fusion reactors. Therefore, we will approve your conclusion report, but you might not be able to publish the research thesis.”
Hou Jinli sighed in his heart.
Actually, when he heard that his material had neutron radiation-resistant properties, he already guessed what Lu Zhou was about to say.
The research that was done in the research inst.i.tute all belonged to the research inst.i.tute. This was written on the contract and was standard practice, so there was nothing debatable about that. What belonged to the researcher was often the thesis itself or maybe a bonus.
Due to the issue of patents, other research projects, and the overall interests of the research inst.i.tute, researchers couldn’t immediately publish the thesis upon completion. They had to first make a report about the situation. After that, the person in charge would decide on the thesis publication.
In most cases, unless someone was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with you, this process would all go smoothly. After all, theses were the life of a scholar; their job t.i.tles depended on their thesis publications.
However, there were also some special circ.u.mstances where the thesis would be banned from publication.
For example, when a major scientific research project was underway and the research results in a thesis could help the research project. Basically, the research result could be considered an in-progress result.
In order to prevent from helping compet.i.tors, theses like these were often banned, or at least, it would be delayed from publication.
Normally, if this happened, the research inst.i.tute would often compensate the thesis author.
Normally, this compensation was in the form of research funding or more bonuses. Some nutty bosses would even compensate by letting the author co-sign a high-impact-factor thesis; these were all possibilities.
Of course, there were also some unjust bosses, especially arrogant ones on the leaders.h.i.+p team.
In their opinion, letting researchers conduct experiments was a privilege. They often stole the thesis first author spot and wouldn’t give any compensation when a thesis was banned from publication. If the researchers tried to defend themselves, the bosses could even prevent them from publis.h.i.+ng on the academic conference posters.
These were all possibilities.
Obviously, Lu Zhou wasn’t that kind of boss. Hou Jinli also didn’t think that a big name like him would bother stealing a first author spot from his little thesis.
Therefore, he thought for a bit before replying, “That’s fine, I am willing to comply!”
Lu Zhou looked at Hou Jinli and nodded. “I hope you understand. I’m sorry your thesis turned out this way, but I will try to compensate you for your loss. Both in terms of monetary value and honor value, and I will make sure that you’re satisfied with it.”
When Hou Jinli heard this, he looked at Lu Zhou with grat.i.tude.
He didn’t even ask what the exact compensation was.
He believed that since Lu Zhou made a promise, Lu Zhou wouldn’t let him down.
Otherwise, there was no need to make the promise in the first place.
Lu Zhou didn’t plan on talking about the exact compensation, he’d think about that later. He didn’t come here just to talk with Hou Jinli. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have worn the anti-static white lab coat.
Since Hou Jinli understood the circ.u.mstances of his thesis, Lu Zhou ended this conversation topic and started a new one.
“The reason I asked for you to come today was mainly to ask about that ceramic-based graphene composite of yours.”
When Hou Jinli heard Lu Zhou ask about his project, he immediately put on a serious expression.
“Please ask.”
Lu Zhou nodded and said, “With regards to the toughening agent for the ceramic-based graphene composite material, which is the porous graphene aerogel, is there a way to change its pore diameter?”
Hou Jinli thought for a bit and answered, “Theoretically, it is possible. When I tried to synthesize the material, I received samples with different pore diameters… However, this is still in theory, we’ll have to try to find out.”
“Then please try to figure it out.” Lu Zhou picked up a doc.u.ment from the table and handed it to Hou Jinli as he said, “I have some simulation data here. If you can, I hope you can produce the materials that match these data.”
When Hou Jinli looked at the doc.u.ment, his facial expression subtly changed subtly.
What shocked him wasn’t the content of the data. After all, he couldn’t understand the calculations.
What really shocked him was…
Hou Jinli gulped.
Does this mean…
I’m doing an experiment with a n.o.bel Prize winner?
This happiness came too sudden, and he wasn’t prepared for this at all.
Seeing that Hou Jinli went silent for a while, Lu Zhou asked, “Is there a problem?”
“No problem, no problem.” Hou Jinli immediately nodded. When he thought about something, he asked, “Oh yeah, it might be slow if I do it by myself. Can I get an a.s.sistant? One is enough.”
“One isn’t enough, you’ll need at least ten. Start the experiments on all five samples now. This task is important. I need to see results in a week.”
Lu Zhou handed him a name list and said, “The names of all of the researchers working in this inst.i.tute are on this list. They all come from good backgrounds. Find the ones you like and circle their names.”