The academic world was eerily quiet for the next week.
Ever since Dr. Clara posted that comment under Li Dong’s warning letter, not a single person in the entire field of space weather had said a word.
This was because Professor Richter’s personality wasn’t common knowledge.
Peers who had never interacted with him saw that someone dared to "offend" a President of an IAU Division and their first reaction was to wait for Professor Richter’s rebuttal.
Almost everyone thought Clara was finished.
A week later, the counterattack everyone was waiting for arrived.
[Dr. Clara, what you said is correct.]
Everyone who saw this line was stunned for a moment.
[I have carefully read every sentence of your comment.]
[Especially your mention of my 1987 work on the spectral reconstruction of solar proton events.]
[You remember correctly.]
[I was thirty-two that year, and my work was based on a sample of six solar proton events from the previous eleven years.]
[However, please allow me to be clear.]
[Nothing you’ve said can change my current judgment of Dr. Li Dong’s letter.]
[You could say that I’m seventy years old now and lack the drive I had at thirty-two.]
[You could also say that I’ve become dogmatic.]
[I won’t refute either of those assessments.]
[But this is the experience I’ve gained from decades in this field.]
[Experience isn’t always right, but I have my reasons for trusting it.]
[In my view, a 2.8σ sample and a decay equation patched together from interdisciplinary fields cannot support a claim of Carrington Level precision. Not today, and not six months from now.]
[Unless Dr. Li Dong can produce something more definitive to convince me.]
[If he can convince me.]
[I will dedicate the rest of my years to wholeheartedly advancing the cause of precursor prediction.]
That was the end of his reply.
No one had expected that the "counterattack" they had waited a week for would be a message like this.
It didn’t feel like a counterattack.
It was more like words of encouragement for a junior colleague.
Professor Richter himself hadn’t turned the matter into a personal feud with a twenty-three-year-old woman.
Unfortunately, not everyone was able to see it that way.
A few hours after Richter’s reply was posted, another batch of less-than-polite comments flooded the arXiv page.
This was a different group from the ones on Twitter who had been retweeting about Clara "being at it again."
This group was more "tactful."
[Dr. Clara, just look at Professor Richter’s reply. How dignified.]
[Professor Richter’s sternness is a sign of his concern for you.]
[You should really apologize to Professor Richter.]
But they didn’t retract a single word about Li Dong’s letter.
[Dr. Li’s letter has an elegant methodology, but the conclusion is still ’a pointless truth.’]
[History is not without its examples of predictions with ’elegant methods, clean data, and shocking conclusions’ that ultimately came to nothing.]
[In the 1980s, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) made a forecast for the Parkfield earthquake. Its methodology was rigorous and its statistics were elegant. It predicted that a magnitude 6 earthquake would occur on the Parkfield segment between 1988 and 1993.]
[And the result?]
[That earthquake was sixteen years late, only occurring in 2004.]
[The methodology itself wasn’t wrong.]
[But what it cost was the investment in emergency response plans for millions of people in that region over sixteen years.]
[What Dr. Li is doing now is so similar to what those people were doing back then.]
After this comment was posted, it actually received a wave of upvotes.
...
Yan University, in a seminar room.
Li Dong had been back at Yan University for several days. He had just finished a group meeting with Professor Wang Zhigang and was about to head back to his dorm.
As he walked into the hallway, he saw a person standing at the far end.
It was Chang Jin.
Surprised, Li Dong walked over.
"Director Chang."
Chang Jin nodded and pointed to an empty seminar room nearby.
"Li Dong, come in. Let’s talk for a bit."
The seminar room wasn’t large. It had a long table, a few chairs, and a whiteboard hanging on the wall.
Li Dong poured Director Chang a cup of hot water and sat down across from him.
Chang Jin didn’t beat around the bush.
"We are taking your warning letter very seriously."
"The higher-ups have also made their position clear."
"This matter has already been designated as a special project."
Li Dong was actually very surprised to hear this. He had thought that even if the higher-ups were to react, it would be much later. After all, just as Richter had said, there was no precedent.
Sure enough, Chang Jin brought this up immediately.
"Li Dong, there are plenty of people in the field here in our country who doubt you, just like Richter."
"But Dean Hou and I support you."
At that moment, Li Dong had no idea who this Dean Hou was.
"So, Li Dong..."
"I want to ask you, do you have any other ideas?"
Chang Jin looked at Li Dong very seriously.
At this, Li Dong voiced some of the confusion he’d been feeling.
"Director Chang, I don’t quite understand. Logically, if the higher-ups are taking this seriously, shouldn’t there be people more specialized than me handling it? Why is it still me?"
Chang Jin explained.
"The inverse Gikhmanov criterion, the interdisciplinary decay equation, using an attention mechanism to reverse-engineer the decay constant... Before you proposed these methods in your warning letter, no one in the entire industry dared to do such things."
"Those of us who have been doing this for decades couldn’t have imagined it."
"You just stepped into the field and you thought of it."
"So, I think our way of thinking might have become a bit rigid. That’s why I came to ask you."
"Of course, don’t feel too much pressure."
Chang Jin was also worried that too much pressure would overwhelm Li Dong.
"We are also proceeding through conventional channels on our end."
"Cross-verification with Chen Heng’s team, Gao Jiawei’s team, the IceCube collaboration, and LHAASO is being scheduled."
"So don’t be afraid. You’re not alone in this."
Chang Jin paused for a moment before continuing.
"But of course, if you do have any new ideas, please let me know immediately."
"Even if you can just push the significance of this letter from 2.8σ up to 3.5σ, or even 4σ, we can silence the skeptics."
"If you’re lacking anything, just tell us."
"If you need people, we’ll assign people. If you need equipment, we’ll provide equipment."
"If you need data, any data in the entire country related to space weather, you just have to ask and we’ll deliver it."
Chang Jin added one more thing.
"Li Dong, looking a little further ahead."
"If your warning is ultimately confirmed, and that Carrington Level flare really does arrive seventeen months from now..."
"Then, using the methodology in your letter as a starting point, we can launch a major special project focused on precursor prediction."
"One dedicated specifically to warning of extreme-level disasters."
Hearing this, Li Dong’s expression became troubled.
It wasn’t that he was unwilling.
Whether it was to help Huaxia or the entire world, he was willing.
He was interested in the subject himself.
But the problem was...
Right now, he truly had no ideas.
Everything he could think of, everything he could do, was already in that warning letter.
He didn’t know how to take the next step forward himself.
He looked at Chang Jin’s expectant eyes.
After a long pause, he could only nod.
"Director Chang... I need to think about it."
"I really don’t have any ideas right now."
"Can you give me some time?"
After listening, Chang Jin nodded and said no more.
After Chang Jin left, Li Dong sat alone in the seminar room for a long while.
Outside the window, the sky had already grown dark.
「The dormitory.」
His three other roommates weren’t there today. It seemed they had gone to Zhejiang University with Professor Zhou. Li Dong hadn’t asked what for.
He tossed his backpack onto his desk and climbed directly onto the top bunk.
He laced his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
’How can I get this to 100% certainty?’
’How can I narrow that error bar even further?’
...
He thought for an hour.
His mind was a blank. He couldn’t come up with anything.
"Argh..."
He rubbed his head and let out a strange cry.
"I can’t think of anything."
Just then, his phone, which he’d left by his head, vibrated.
A new message appeared in the [Cyan Dragon Study Group].
[Galileo Galilei]: Gentlemen, today on the solar equator, I actually saw a set of horizontally flowing striations.
Li Dong: ???
’What in the world does he mean?’
’I already think you’re cheating by spotting sunspots with that telescope you made from hand-ground reading glasses.’
’And now you’re telling me you saw a set of horizontally flowing striations on the solar equator?’
’You’re not holding the Hubble over there, are you?’

Comments

Loading...