Chapter 336: Computational Chemistry Weapon!

Any scholar would be ecstatic after hearing their request being accepted.

After all, supercomputers were very expensive, even renting one wasn’t cheap. David’s favor was similar to millions or even tens of millions of dollars being saved. In contrast, the only thing David wanted was to put the name of his research institute on the thesis.

When Lu Zhou heard David’s insignificant request, he was pleasantly surprised.

Compared with profitable applicable research, theoretical research was definitely a money burning machine.

Lu Zhou obviously didn’t refuse David’s offer.

He nodded and said, “Done.”

…

In some sense, Lu Zhou choosing Anton to carry out this experiment was inevitable.

A normal supercomputer couldn’t perform molecular dynamics simulations efficiently.

However, Anton was different, each chip was dedicated to computational chemistry.

It had a total of 512 compute nodes, which could achieve 17,000 simulations per day of protein-water systems, consisting of 23,558 atoms.

In contrast, a general-purpose supercomputer with the same number of processors could only reach hundreds of simulations per day.

Because of this, Anton was named “the weapon of computational chemistry”.

David was an absolute genius.

He was knowledgeable in finance, parallel computing, and in polymer chemistry.

Unfortunately, Anton was too expensive; most research institutions simply couldn’t afford to rent it. Otherwise, the Nobel Prize committee might even consider nominating him for a prize.

It would be similar to the biologist, Jacques Duboche, who was nominated for the 2017 Chemistry Prize for cryo-electron microscopy…

After Jerick drove Lu Zhou back to Princeton, Lu Zhou sent an application to Princeton to request for a month-long scholar visit at Columbia University.

Columbia obviously welcomed Lu Zhou’s visit with arms wide open. They even arranged a temporary dormitory for him in the vicinity of the institute.

Theoretical research that did not involve patents was always easier to reach cooperation agreements than the research in the application field.

This was especially so for people like Lu Zhou and David who didn’t need any money.

After signing a cooperative research agreement which outlined the duties of both parties, the experiment would soon begin.

David showed great interest in the collaborative research project.

Not only did he adjust his original plans for his experiment to accommodate for Lu Zhou, but the entire workforce of the D.E Shaw Research Institute was put into Lu Zhou’s project.

Lu Zhou soon witnessed Anton’s combat power.

On the day of the experiment, Anton Super Center.

A massive parallel computing project was about to begin.

Lu Zhou and David stood behind as they watched the experiment.

“Experiment Group 1 is in place!”

“Experiment Group 2 is in place!”

“…”

“Begin the experiment!”

The blue signal lights were constantly flashing.

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In the digital world, Anton used its powerful computing power to simulate the mathematical model provided by Lu Zhou.

The first experiment lasted for nine hours!

Unfortunately, the results of the experiment were not ideal.

David looked at the experiment report given by the engineer of the supercomputing center, and he frowned while saying, “Your mathematical model is too complicated… Is there a way to simplify it?”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “I tried to simplify it, but it was very difficult.”

He would’ve simplified it if it was possible; he wouldn’t have waited until now to simplify it.

David rubbed his chin and began to think. After a while, he said, “Then I guess we have to come up with another solution.”

David was not an expert in the field of mathematics. He could not simplify complicated mathematical equations. However, attacking this problem from a parallel computing perspective, it was theoretically possible to improve Anton’s calculations by adjusting the software.

Lu Zhou said, “Thank you.”

“No worries,” David waved his hand and said in a joking tone, “at least your mathematical model is in the scope of Anton’s abilities. If it were any more complicated, I’m afraid we would need a quantum computer.”

…

Lu Zhou’s visit to Columbia University was not something that needed to be kept secret. Because he frequently visited the D.E Shaw Institute, the news quickly spread across the campus of Columbia University.

Many people were curious about this Crafoord Prize and Adams Chemistry Prize winner who was only in his twenties. Very few people could make such outstanding achievements at such a young age, especially in two fields— mathematics and chemistry.

Of course, Columbia students weren’t the most interested in Lu Zhou. The one that would be most interested in him was his opponent in the field of lithium-sulfur batteries: Mobil Chemical.

They heard the news about Lu Zhou and was nervous as hell.

Not to mention, it was such a big piece of news…

Binghamton University, Institute of Materials Science.

Woods, who just finished a meeting in New York, immediately came over to Binghamton.

“Bad news! Lu Zhou found David Shaw to borrow a supercomputer!”

Stanley wasn’t surprised about the news that Woods had provided, and he asked, “Is it fine for you to come to the laboratory every two days?”

Stanley was obviously saying that there was no reason for Woods to come all the way here; Woods could have just called Stanley.

“I’ll do anything as long as we win the race,” Woods said.

He sat on the sofa in the laboratory and sighed before he said, “F*ck sake! How did Lu Zhou suddenly find David Shaw, how?”

If Lu Zhou collaborated with other laboratories, Exxon Mobil could use its own influence to put pressure on the laboratories’ funding partners, thus delaying their progress.

But David Shaw was an exception; this guy was a famous Wall Street freak who was completely disinterested in money.

“This is normal. One of them is doing computational materials, the other is doing computational chemistry. It’s not surprising for them to get in bed together.” Professor Stanley stood in front of the scanning electron microscope while he waited for results of the experiment. He said relaxingly, “In fact, there is no need to be so nervous. Whether it is a perfect mathematical formula or a theoretical model, if it cannot be implemented in the experiment, it is useless.”

Who cares if your mathematics is nutty?

Who cares if you borrowed a supercomputer?

Computer simulation experiments are indeed a promising method, but in the end, it has to be implemented in experiments.

From trial and error, adding up the experience is the only way for materials science experiments.

Fortunately, Stanley already knew the answer, so he only had to figure out the working steps.

Woods asked, “I want to know how far are we from the finish line?”

Stanley stared at the molecular model on the screen and smiled.

“We are close!”