British writer

After a period of exposing each other’s past, the atmosphere in the club has improved a lot.

Even Williams and Kelvin could sit and drink together.

The two of them are not really enemies.

But there are some differences in academic opinions.

It is indeed rare to be able to sit down and drink.

This is one of the reasons why it is necessary to continue the Nobel Prize——

Give scientists the opportunity to put down their work temporarily, sit together, communicate, and exchange ideas.

The scientists present were all gentlemen (at least on the surface). They asked Lu Shi to create a work that satirized the darkness of the academic world. This was not to rush the market, but mostly to make jokes.

So, no one mentioned it again.

Entertainment activities have returned to the same old style——

Drinking, chatting, board games.

Planck, Bernard Shaw, Einstein, and Lu Shi sat at a table playing Monopoly.

Einstein threw a dice,

"Speaking of which, I now work at the Bern Patent Office, and I feel that academic oppression is indeed increasing."

The Bern Patent Office has the oldest history and the largest scale.

Working there, you can see the world's most cutting-edge technology and scientific research results, and of course, you can also see the most cutting-edge exploitation methods.

Einstein took back the dice and began to move the chess pieces.

Planck coughed slightly,

"Albert, the number rolled just now was 5, and you moved one less square."

"Is that so?"

Without blushing at all, Einstein pushed the chess piece one step further and reached Planck's land.

He counted out the pieces of paper symbolizing $20 and handed them to Planck.

The latter snorted and turned to Lu Shi,

"Professor Lu, what do you think?"

Lu Shi understood what the other party was asking.

He couldn't help but ponder,

After the promotion of "Global University Rankings" and impact factors, academic oppression will become more and more serious. This has long been expected.

In the circle, no one is cleaner than anyone else.

However, it is still a bit surprising that the disease has deteriorated so quickly, comparable to the spread of cancer cells.

Just as he was thinking about this, Einstein suddenly said: "Max, that's not right! You're taking the wrong number of steps~"

Planck said "Huh?"

"I didn't even notice. I was a little distracted while chatting."

Einstein nodded,

"Yes, I did the same just now."

Only a devil would believe this.

Top physicists can't count numbers below 6, and it would be a joke if they said so.

Lu Shi spread his hands,

"Forget it~forget it~I won't play anymore."

He picked up the tea cup and took a sip, and then asked: "Albert, you work in the patent office and have seen many similar things?"

Einstein didn't know what he was talking about, but he still answered truthfully: "I have seen a lot."

Lu Shi stood up,

"Okay, come with me. I may need you to serve as a consultant for my novel and provide me with some examples as prototypes."

Planck:? ? ?

Bernard Shaw:? ? ?

Einstein:? ? ?

“You really want to write?!”×3

The three of them said in unison.

Because the sound was a bit loud, many people around him heard it and subconsciously looked at it.

After a while, the table where Lu Shi was sitting was surrounded by people.

"Lu, do you want to write about academic circles?"

“I can provide the story!”

"Give me a guest role~"

…

Scientists are all talking about it.

The club became noisy.

Lu Shi quickly stood up and said to everyone around him: "Everyone, what I am planning to write is a short story. The plot has already been thought out. Due to space limitations, I cannot arrange too many characters. I'm sorry~"

After saying that, he ran out of the door in a hurry.

He didn't lie, he had indeed thought of the plot.

…

The next day, early morning.

Top floor sea view balcony cabin, Lu Shi's room.

Through the porthole, the sea and sky are the same color,

On the sea surface, microwaves rippled and shone with tiny lights, as if countless little stars were jumping.

The cabin is comfortable and quiet,

The soft seats exude a light scent of leather, making you feel cozy.

On the sectional sofa on one side of the room, Einstein, Bernard Shaw, and Planck were sleeping in their clothes.

Planck's face was still covered with a piece of manuscript paper.

With his breathing, the corner of the manuscript paper was blown up continuously.

On the other side, Lu Shi had just finished the first draft of the novel.

Book title:

"Stealing Fire".

This is an allusion from Western mythology,

Prometheus, the protagonist of the story,

He stole fire from the sun god Apollo and gave it to mankind, bringing light to mankind. However, he was punished by Zeus and was tied to the Caucasus Mountains, enduring the wind and sun and being eaten by eagles every day.

This myth has even been selected into Chinese textbooks, which shows its high recognition.

Lu Shi stretched and opened the door, ready to ask the crew for a cup of coffee.

Unexpectedly, there were actually several scientists outside.

Thomson stepped forward;

"Professor Lu, have you finished writing?"

Lu Shi looked around,

Unexpectedly, even the old man Kelvin was here,

"Are you... getting up early and waiting for me at the door?"

Thomson waved his hands repeatedly,

"How is that possible? We just happened to pass by."

I happened to pass by the first class cabin on the top floor.

That's good enough.

Lu Shi was too lazy to argue and said, "I did write it, but it's just a first draft. If you don't mind, you can make some revisions."

He went back to the house to get the manuscript,

As a result, the three people in the room were already awake because of the noise outside.

Lu Shi simply let everyone in from outside.

A group of scientists and writers all gathered at the desk and read carefully.

"Stealing Fire" has less than 10,000 words in total.

The plot is not that complicated, and is set against the backdrop of an increasingly squeezed academic circle after the implementation of impact factors.

The story takes place at the School of Physics, University of Berlin,

Professors control resources and control the graduation of their master's and doctoral degrees, and use this as a threat to make students work like horses, do experiments, write papers, and work hard to produce,

But the professors just paint the pie:

"As long as this paper is well written, I will give you the first authorship."

"I'll let you graduate next year!"

"After this project is completed, I will allocate funds to you and assign you an experimenter! By then, you won't have to wash the bottles yourself."

…

Of course, it’s just words that sound nice,

But paying lip service does not translate into practice.

That’s it for chapter one.

"Shit!"

Thomson couldn't help but uttered a curse word and muttered: "Real! It's so damn real!"

He looked at Lu Shi,

"Professor Lu, you have been studying in a liberal arts and business university like London Political Science and Economics. How come you are so familiar with this kind of thing?"

Planck and Einstein also asked this last night.

Lu Shi's answer was:

"Different paths lead to the same destination. You don't think that this is true only in the academic circle, right?"

With that said, everyone understands.

Lu Shi is not only a professor, but also a business tycoon and KBE of Great Britain.

As both a business tycoon and a political figure, he must have seen it before.

Kelvin was curious,

"Who is the protagonist of this novel?"

Lu Shi smiled,

"The next chapter will appear."

Everyone took a look at the length of the first chapter.

It just introduces the background, and it uses more than a thousand words. It doesn’t seem too procrastinating if the protagonist doesn’t appear.

They turned back,

Unexpectedly, the protagonist created by Lu Shi has a special identity. He is neither an oppressed student nor a professor who exploits others, but the middle class——

A lecturer who was just mentioned.

The protagonist’s name is Tois,

In a certain aspect, he is also a character who is squeezed by the superiors. He has no resources, no funds, and no way to advance.

So, he opened up a new business, tutoring doctoral students under the boss to write their thesis, and earned a lot of commissions from this.

Tois is a good person in this business.

But at the same time, he must also be careful not to have too much practical information in the paper.

On the one hand, they are worried that the disciples of the church will starve the master to death;

on the other hand,

If the thesis is so well written and the doctoral students can successfully obtain their degrees, then who else will be able to act as a bully for the boss?

Tois was afraid that if he coached too well, the person in charge would be unable to step down.

Therefore, he controls the paper so that it has a certain level, but the level is not high enough to be published in a journal with a high impact factor.

Because many professors have one requirement for graduation:

Doctoral students are required to publish X papers as the first author in journals with an impact factor higher than X.

This is the easiest condition for students to graduate.

Moreover, because it is a real data indicator, students cannot find reasons.

Others can graduate, why can't you?

Carstens muttered:

"Fuck! Compared to the first chapter, the second chapter is even more real!"

This dear friend will graduate this year and will inherit the legacy of his teacher Planck’s black body radiation research.

It is not difficult to tell from his tone that he is doing similar things now.

Planck looked at him and said,

"Hein, could you be..."

Carstens quickly looked away, looked out the window, and said with a smile: "Teacher, the weather is really nice today. Look! Seagulls!"

"Tsk..."

Planck was speechless.

"It looks like some people want to get their degree next year."

Carstens almost cried.

Lu Shi chuckled,

"Heinrich, Marx, how come you two performed the story background of "Stealing Fire" for us on the spot?"

Professors kill students and take away their graduates,

It cannot be said that they are exactly the same,

I can only say that there is no difference.

Plank was embarrassed, glared at his disciple, and said nothing more.

On the other side, Rutherford asked: "Professor Lu, I don't quite understand this. The better and better the output of doctoral students, and the earlier they graduate, wouldn't it be better for the professors?"

Lu Shi raised the corners of his mouth,

"First of all, will a factory owner give more vacation time to a worker who produces high-quality output?"

"this……"

Rutherford was speechless.

Lu Shi continued: "Second point, you also talked about it yesterday. Many professors' job is to socialize, and their scientific research capabilities are no longer as good as their own students. In this case, these professors must ensure the number of students under them."

Rutherford looked at his teacher,

Thomson shrugged.

"Look, I am still the best. There are not many people like me who are at the forefront of scientific research at my age and can lead students to do experiments."

Rutherford's head is full of black lines,

￣□￣｜｜

However, he agreed with the teacher's statement in his heart.

Fortunately, I followed Thomson.

If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have known that my degree would have to wait until the year of the monkey.

However, what he didn't know was that the academic circle at the beginning of the 20th century was pretty clean.

In the 21st century, even "Science" and "Nature" have begun to experience large-scale data falsification, and it will become more common for other top journals' experiments to be completely unrepeatable.

Everyone started reading Chapter 3,

Tois has been doing this for more than ten years and is still a small lecturer.

However, the plot takes a major turn.

A student he tutored hanged himself in the dormitory because he had been unable to graduate for six consecutive years.

The body was found seven days later,

Before committing suicide, he wrote on the wall:

I QUIT!

That is, "I quit!", or "I quit!".

There was a long silence in the cabin,

"..."

"..."

"..."

Because Lu Shi described this section so well.

——

The stench overwhelmed Tois with every breath he took.

It was as if there was a spell controlling his consciousness ordering him to run away, and at the same time ordering his stomach to squeeze himself dry.

The skin of the corpse was green, and rotten blood vessels formed marble-like lines and were covered in corpse spots.

seven days...

Thomas couldn't imagine,

"Why did it take seven days to find out?"

——

Einstein sighed,

"It can be seen that this student's boss really doesn't treat him as a human being. It took seven days to find out that the student was not there and send people to search for him. It is enough."

The other scientists nodded slowly.

Bernard Shaw paid more attention to description,

He asked curiously: "Is this what the corpse should be like?"

No one at the scene could answer.

So, he turned to Lu Shi.

Lu Shi spread his hands and said, "Doctor Doyle gave me some popular science."

Bernard Shaw couldn't help complaining: "It's okay for you two to get together to study the plot, why do you need to study this? The thing about a detective novel writer is really difficult to understand."

Lu Shi laughed,

"Basically, Dr. Doyle said it alone, and I listened. I don't know if what he said is right."

These days it's still relatively conservative, so it's easier for doctors to have access to corpses.

Bernard Shaw didn't think much and turned his attention back to the novel.

In the third chapter, Toys completed the transformation of his thoughts,

However, he is too humble and understated,

A lecturer can't change anything.

Therefore, he could only try his best to help doctoral students conduct experiments, publish papers, and reach the threshold of graduation.

End of Chapter 3.

Bernard Shaw nodded,

"The protagonist has completed his transformation and begun his redemption. I understand why this novel is called "Stealing Fire."

Einstein echoed: "This is indeed a good name."

Prometheus,

His father, Iapetus, a Titan in Greek mythology;

His mother, Clymene, was the goddess of fame in ancient Greek mythology.

In other words, Prometheus is a god;

He betrayed the gods and stood on the side of mankind, very similar to Tois in the novel.

What’s even more interesting is that Zeus’ punishment for Prometheus was not only to tie him to a cliff in the Caucasus Mountains, but also to send an eagle to eat his liver every day.

Because in ancient Greek mythology, the liver was considered the seat of human emotions.

In other words, the god-king Zeus believed that Prometheus already possessed human characteristics.

George Bernard Shaw said: "No wonder the main character is called that."

"how?"

Kelvin asked curiously: "What details are there in the name?"

Bernard Shaw searched around, picked up a pen and paper, and wrote down the English spelling of Prometheus's name——

Prometheus.

He drew a line under the last five letters.

Everyone suddenly realized,

It turns out that the spelling "Theus" of Theus was derived from it.

Lu Shi said: "Keep reading."

Everyone then read Chapter 4,

Unexpectedly, the beginning of Chapter 4 is:

——

half year later.

Academic Review Board.

——

Because the number of Ph.D. students in physics who can obtain degrees has exploded exponentially,

1 piece/2 years→8 pieces/1 year,

This is equivalent to a fourfold increase.

The University of Berlin set up a committee to investigate the matter, and it was natural that Toys was found responsible.

The committee members looked at him;

Someone asked: "Do you know that your behavior is academic fraud? Students who can obtain a degree must have their own scientific research capabilities, and your guidance has made all our evaluation standards a piece of paper!"

But Thomas didn't answer,

He just looked at the committee members and laughed.

The committee member asked again: "Which students have you written papers for? Tell the truth."

Tois laughed even louder.

The plot comes to an abrupt end.

In the cabin, the atmosphere became extremely quiet.

Rutherford suddenly asked: "Professor Lu, why did Tois neither defend nor confess, but just laugh?"

His teacher Thomson looked at him and said,

"Toyes has always kept a secret when tutoring doctoral students, and even earned commissions. How long has this behavior been going on?"

Rutherford replied: "More than ten years."

Thomson asked again: "After more than ten years of messing around, no one investigated him. As a result, when he really gave everything to him, he was investigated in only half a year."

Rutherford was speechless;

"..."

Anyone who stood in Tois's point of view would find it ridiculous, right?

After a while,

"Fxxk!"

Someone muttered,

"It's so real! It's so real!"