"This section was added to the paper at the very end, wasn’t it?"
This question was also about the process.
This robustness analysis was placed in the very last section of the paper.
If it had been planned from the beginning, it wouldn’t have appeared as the final section.
It would have been integrated into the earlier sections.
Wang Hao took the question and thought back for a moment.
He then recounted the story of how, in the dead of night on the day before the submission deadline, Gu Ming had pulled a line from a pile of drafts—"What should the client do if we encounter extreme weather this year that exceeds the engineering limits?"—and pushed for this section to be added.
Wang Hao finished speaking.
The reviewers all nodded at nearly the same time.
This part was fine.
The defense had reached the point where, according to procedure, Zhang Wenping should have announced its conclusion.
But just as Zhang Wenping was about to speak,
the reviewer on the far right raised his hand.
"Teacher Zhang."
"I’d like to ask a question."
"It’s not part of the defense."
"Consider it a personal question."
The other reviewers in the room all turned to look at him.
Zhang Wenping was taken aback for a moment.
He didn’t know what Li Dong was up to.
But the statement "it’s not part of the defense" left him with no way to stop it.
He nodded at Li Dong.
"Go ahead."
Li Dong looked at Wang Hao and said,
"Student Wang Hao."
When Wang Hao heard this form of address, goosebumps broke out all over him again.
’What the hell is "Student Wang Hao"?’
Of all the names Li Dong had ever called him, the phrase "Student Wang Hao" had never been one of them.
He instinctively tensed up.
"Dong... Teacher Li?"
Li Dong paid no mind to the slip of the tongue and continued,
"Student Wang Hao."
"The core of your paper is to turn those several thousand Sun-Fixing Mirrors into a mirror array that can adjust its orientation to follow the light source above, precisely reflecting the light onto the receiver at the top of the tower."
"Correct?"
Wang Hao nodded.
"Yes."
Li Dong set down the paper cup in his hand.
"I was actually thinking about something."
"The core of this problem, its very essence, is..."
"How to make a mirror array of several thousand mirrors, one that can constantly adjust its orientation to follow the light source above, and precisely focus that light onto a single point."
"Right?"
"Right."
"In that case, this approach..."
"Could we take it from the solar energy side of things and apply it to astronomical observation?"
As soon as he said this, the other reviewers in the conference room all glanced at Li Dong.
Li Dong continued speaking.
"Let me give you an example."
"The upper atmosphere is constantly being struck by cosmic rays, one by one."
"After a high-energy cosmic ray smashes into the atmosphere, it creates a very, very brief shower of secondary particles."
"This particle shower travels so fast through the atmosphere that it squeezes out a faint blue light, invisible to the naked eye."
"Physicists call this blue light Cherenkov radiation."
"The footprint it leaves on the ground is a faint ring with a diameter of about two hundred meters."
"What we’re trying to capture is this very ring."
He paused for a moment.
"And what do we rely on to capture this ring?"
"We rely on dozens, or even hundreds, of reflecting mirrors on the ground."
"Each mirror can turn, bit by bit, to follow the direction of that invisible source."
"It gathers the Cherenkov radiation falling from the sky, spread out at a certain angle, and focuses it onto the photosensor behind the mirror."
"This mirror array is called an Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope array."
He raised his eyes to look at Wang Hao.
"Internationally, there’s the CTA, currently under construction in the Canary Islands, Spain, and in Northern Chile."
"There’s H.E.S.S. in South Africa, MAGIC in Italy, and VERITAS in the United States."
Wang Hao froze for a second.
While working on this problem, his mind had been completely confined to the Fixed Sun Mirror Field of that solar thermal power plant.
He had never imagined that the optimization method for the Fixed Sun Mirror Field he was holding could be applied to a mirror array designed to catch Cherenkov radiation falling from the sky.
Li Dong continued.
"Student Wang Hao."
"My question is..."
"If we were to take this optimization pathway for the Fixed Sun Mirror Field and apply it to an Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope array, would it work?"
"If it would, to what extent?"
"If it wouldn’t, which parts are applicable?"
"And which parts aren’t?"
Wang Hao opened his mouth but said nothing.
He knew Li Dong’s question would be tricky, but he hadn’t expected it to be *this* tricky.
He had never even considered that direction from the start.
Seeing him stunned, Li Dong was the first to laugh.
He waved his hand at Wang Hao.
"Student Wang Hao."
"This question is outside the scope of today’s defense."
"It’s a personal question from me."
"Go home and give it some serious thought."
"Once you have an answer, you can come find me anytime."
According to the rules, Li Dong really shouldn’t have asked this question.
But anyone in the room who had truly spent time on the front lines of scientific research understood what he was really asking.
He wasn’t asking about the CTA.
He was asking if, after solving this problem, you could take another step beyond it.
Being able to solidly see the current problem through to its conclusion is what makes a student.
Being able to reach out from the current problem to touch the one next to it—that is what makes a researcher.
With a single personal question, Li Dong had just laid down the line that separated the two right at Wang Hao’s feet.
With that, Gu Ming and Wang Hao’s group defense came to a close.
Zhang Wenping nodded to the three of them.
"Thank you for your work."
"Could the three of you please wait in the lounge outside for a moment?"
Gu Ming and Wang Hao followed the senior from the ACM team out the door.
Only after they had left did Zhang Wenping speak.
"Li Dong."
"Was it really appropriate to test your roommate with a question like that?"

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