I failed a course, and the system became my study supervisor.

Chapter 42 Letter from PRL
On May 5th, Xu Ling got up early and checked his email as usual.

This is a habit Xu Ling developed after receiving a reply from the PRL email last time. After all, if he gets a reply within two natural months, who knows if it will be today or tomorrow?
But this time, things seem to be really different.

There was a bright red dot on the inbox icon.

That's a sign of new email!
Xu Ling rarely uses email for study or socializing. He only occasionally receives some school-wide notifications via email, and this rarely happens.

So, when Xu Ling saw the new email, he immediately became excited. He couldn't imagine that anyone else would send him an email.

Xu Ling's hands were trembling as he dragged the mouse slowly towards the inbox icon.

"Ta-ta"

Double-click the mouse and the inbox opens:

I only saw a string of English words "Reply From Physical Review Letters" at the top of the interface.

"Yes!" Xu Ling shouted excitedly.

I clicked on the translation and the content of the email was displayed:
Dear Mr. Xu Ling, thank you for your contributions to physics and the development of human science and technology. Your submitted paper, "Proof of the Existence, Uniqueness, and Regularity of Global Solutions for the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Small Initial Values," will be published in PRL 2024, Issue 21, in late May. Please stay tuned."

The spring breeze is proud of horseshoe disease, seeing Chang'an flowers in one day.

This was Xu Ling's mental state at the moment. A huge sense of joy and accomplishment hit his brain, making him feel a little dizzy, and even his feet felt a little light-headed when he stepped on the ground.

Xu Ling forgot about whether to translate or not, whether in English or Chinese.

At this time, Yang Chaojie, who was passing by Xu Ling, asked in confusion: "Xu Ling? What happened? Why are you so happy?"

Immersed in his own world, Xu Ling didn't hear what he said at all.

"Hey!" Yang Chaojie shouted, and then said, "What are you doing? Can't you hear me?"

Xu Ling finally came to his senses and said with a smile, "Haha, I submitted a paper and it was accepted!"

Yang Chaojie immediately perked up, looking a little nervous: "What paper? Is it SCI?"

Xu Ling shook his head and said, "No, no, it's just an ordinary publication."

Only then did Yang Chaojie breathe a sigh of relief.

He was afraid that someone would suddenly produce an SCI paper at an age when they should be unrestrained. Moreover, in his opinion, Xu Ling was entirely capable of doing so.

However, what Yang Chaojie didn’t know was that PRL is SCI, a top physics journal with an impact factor of 8.1!

The reason why Xu Ling did not tell the truth was, on the one hand, that he did not want to make his roommates unbalanced, and on the other hand it was also a form of precaution.

After all, wealth should not be flaunted! In college, knowledge is the most valuable asset.

It's not uncommon for college friends to fall out over these things, and Xu Ling doesn't want to see that happen to him.

As for whether Yang Chaojie would accidentally find out about it one day later, that was a later matter and Xu Ling didn't take it to heart.

But one should not forget the person who dug the well when drinking water, and the good news should still be shared.

So Xu Ling left the dormitory and called Zhang Yongjie and Liu Chunlin respectively.

Zhang Yongjie was directly involved in writing Xu Ling's paper, providing advice on the uniqueness proof, but ultimately refused to be credited. Liu Chunlin, however, recognized the excellence of his paper and encouraged him to submit it to a reputable journal.

In fact, Xu Ling also wanted to express special thanks to the person who helped him translate into English, but the person was arranged by Zhang Yongjie, and Xu Ling had no idea who he was.

Finally, Xu Ling hesitated whether to call home to show his achievements, but after thinking about it, he decided not to make the call.

I should wait until the paper is officially published, and then send the newspaper to my parents. They will be so excited!
Xu Ling thought happily.

……

At the same time as the paper passed the review, Xu Ling's team also made great progress on the water drop lens problem.

Xu Ling and Qin Qin have already fully solved the theoretical analysis, including the shape of the liquid surface, the shape under different liquids or contact interfaces, and the effect of shape on magnification and resolution.

The Rayleigh criterion proved last time has also been retained and can still be used.

As for the experiment, Ji Yun has already prepared the experimental plan again, and with her careful preparation, all the experimental equipment is ready.

Some of the equipment is slightly different from the last experiment, but large equipment like the digital microscope is still the same.

More importantly, Ji Yun conducted a preliminary experiment on her own and pointed out issues that needed to be explored in the formal experiment.

For example, it is obvious that there is a big difference in magnification between the middle of the liquid surface and the edge. The edge has a higher magnification, but the resolution does not seem to be as high.

So, the next task is to complete the experiment and verify the results of the theoretical analysis!
……

The equipment used to measure magnification and resolution has been replaced with a density plate and a resolution plate, making the operation more convenient and reducing errors.

"Let's start!" Xu Ling gave an order, and the five people were divided into two groups again and carried out the experiment at the same time.

The first step of the experiment is not to measure the magnification, but to photograph the shape of the droplet.

The photographs taken can be processed by computer image grayscale, contour search and coordinate extraction to obtain a function image of the shape of the droplet surface.

After comparisons by several people, Xu Ling found that the theoretical value and the experimental value of the droplet shape were in the range of 3 microliters to 10 microliters, and the agreement was very good, almost perfect, which verified the correctness of the droplet shape model.

"Very good! Let's proceed to the next step!" Xu Ling's expression relaxed a little.

The equipment was replaced with a dense dot plate, but the experimental operation did not change much.

The only difference is that the measurements involved more variables, and the final magnification was no longer a simple ratio, but had to be calculated using the relationship between similar triangles. This was clearly much more sophisticated than the previous experiment.

Finally, the image was also drawn by computer, and it was found that the magnification changed with the object distance and the liquid volume, and the theoretical value and the experimental value were once again in good agreement.

Another city!
The atmosphere in the entire group became much more relaxed.

The most obvious one is Ji Yun. She arranged all the experimental matters herself and was very nervous throughout the entire experiment. But now, she has visibly relaxed.

In fact, she doesn't need to worry about the experiment. Even if the theory and the experiment are very different in the end, could it be the experiment that is wrong?

As for the final resolution measurement, for 6 μl of liquid at object distances of 6 mm and 5.5 mm, the experiment was in good agreement with the theory. Under other conditions, there were some deviations, but they were also acceptable.

At this point, the experiment finally ended perfectly!
(End of this chapter)