blenderwars Chapter 31 Reassurance
Chapter 31 Reassurance
Professor Hu sighed, his expression becoming extremely solemn:
"Actually, I have always been very, very cautious about Su Hao."
After all, we've never truly produced a Fields Medal winner in our country.
His tone carried a hint of sorrow and hope.
"Looking at the world, the United States, France, Russia and other countries have their own mathematical giants that they are proud of, and even some small countries have produced many mathematical masters."
Despite China's numerous gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad, its world-leading number of academic papers, and even the presence of Chinese Fields Medal winners like Shing-Tung Yau and Terence Tao, my country still boasts a remarkable record.
But the void remains in our own soil for a leader who could redefine the landscape of mathematics like Hilbert or Grothendieck.
"I don't think so," Liu Zhiyun shook her head.
"I believe that true geniuses have the ability to break through all barriers and shine on their own, in any circumstance!"
Like Abel, who didn't even have bread to eat every day, he still left behind the great achievements of Abel's theorem and Abel groups when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.
If our so-called "geniuses" failed to develop, it means their original talent was nothing special.
"It's just... I'm just afraid that the higher the expectations for that child, the greater the disappointment will be when they fall down."
"You can rest assured. I guarantee that Su Hao is definitely not the kind of person who will disappoint you!"
Liu Zhiyun paused for a moment, then said, word by word,
"Yesterday, I gave him a problem privately. It was an algebraic geometry problem."
"Pfft—cough cough cough!!"
Professor Hu spat out the mouthful of tea he had just drunk.
"What?! Algebraic geometry?! Are you crazy?!"
That is recognized by the mathematics community as one of the most difficult theoretical fields!
You're using this doctoral-level research topic to torture an elementary school student?!
Liu Zhiyun stared expressionlessly at the distraught Professor Hu:
"But he solved it."
The air condensed.
The entire office fell into a deathly silence. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Professor Hu stood like a statue struck by lightning, his breathing completely stopped.
"What...what did you say?"
"I said, he only looked at it for three minutes. Then, he solved it effortlessly!"
Liu Zhiyun's eyes turned fervent.
"That process is as simple as drinking water!"
He used an extremely obscure perspective of homology algebra to directly reduce the dimensionality of that complex manifold structure!
His almost instinctive mathematical intuition, especially regarding numbers, is truly... miraculous!
Liu Zhiyun took a deep breath, swallowed, and felt her throat was dry.
At that moment, her decades-long academic beliefs, which she had been so proud of, were completely shattered in front of this elementary school student.
"All other computational and logical abilities can be developed to a certain level through diligent training."
Mathematical intuition... that is a realm of pure God-given talent.
To be honest, I see the shadow of God in Su Hao!
Professor Hu remained stunned for a full half minute before muttering to himself:
"I know, I know..."
On my first day of class, he didn't listen at all. He just glanced at the blackboard and immediately pointed out a very well-hidden error in my handwriting...
Actually, we should feel fortunate that he was here this year; he gave us all peace of mind.
"You mean the math olympiad?"
"Yes. Although our country's math Olympiad results have always been very strong, no one has ever been able to do it like him:"
Whenever he takes an exam, he gets a perfect score without a doubt; I've never seen anyone achieve such a dominant, overwhelming first place before.
"Yes, it's hard to say about other things," Liu Zhiyun nodded.
"But this time, the gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad is absolutely a sure thing."
At this moment, standing in this office, the two professors looked out the window at the swirling snowflakes, and the same thought arose in their minds.
They simply couldn't imagine that on this earth, at this stage before university, anyone else's mathematical level could rival Su Hao's.
That would be the profound despair of mortals looking up at the gods!
......
Boiled chicken, prawns, pan-fried sole fillet, shredded pork with garlic sauce, stir-fried mushrooms, braised beef with tomatoes...
On the university cafeteria's plates, the colorful, fragrant, and delicious food is neatly arranged in separate compartments.
For students who have just left home, the dazzling array of dishes can be overwhelming.
At first, Su Hao also found it quite novel and enjoyed eating there every day.
But good days are always short-lived. Only two weeks have passed, and Su Hao's chopsticks have gradually slowed down.
The dishes here are incredibly diverse, but when you chew them, they all lack that one crucial flavor.
That's the taste of home-cooked meals my mother used to serve me from the kitchen, from childhood to adulthood.
With a sigh, Su Hao ultimately failed to finish his meal and threw away the leftovers.
Stepping out of the cafeteria, the night breeze was slightly cool.
He wandered aimlessly around the huge campus, looking at the unfamiliar playground and brick walls, and felt even more homesick.
For some reason, Su Hui's image suddenly popped into my mind.
What is she doing right now?
Once longing overflows, it's hard to hold it back.
Whenever he has a moment of quiet, he misses his sister terribly.
All I can picture is my little sister taking tiny steps, like a little tail, always following me wherever I go.
He usually complained that she cried and made a fuss, but that changed when he stood on the unfamiliar campus...
He suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn't his sister who depended on him, but rather that he couldn't live without her.
"I need to treat her even better when we get home."
He made up his mind and strolled back to his dormitory.
Back at his desk, Su Hao opened the thick notebook.
The pages were covered with formulas and charts, which looked like a vast army in formation.
At the very top, four neatly written Chinese characters are prominently displayed:
The Four Color Theorem.
This is a mathematical conjecture so simple that even elementary school students can understand it, yet it has tormented countless top mathematicians to the point of baldness:
Any map drawn on a flat surface can be distinguished by just four colors.
"The 124th attempt."
Su Hao muttered something and picked up the pencil with a little duck decoration from his pencil case.
To this day, Su Hao remains steadfast in his belief in this proposition, which is considered a solved problem by the mathematics community.
In 1976, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken used a mainframe computer to exhaustively search the data and claimed to have proven the conjecture to be true.
But what kind of proof is that?
For Su Hao, mathematics was never a cold, exhaustive exercise.
It is the most exquisite and beautiful language, born from the interplay and collision of human intuition and rigorous logic.
He firmly believed that within this temple built of truth, there must lie an answer as elegant as a work of art!
And what are these two people's proofs?
That was an exhaustive method that used computers to verify each of the 1936 possible outcomes of the Four Color Theorem one by one in an almost brute-force manner.
The human brain certainly cannot exhaust the countless possible scenarios, but the soulless, inanimate object that is the computer makes it possible.
So in a sense, they sold the soul of mathematics to the computing power of computers!
In Su Hao's eyes, that was simply heresy!
He was 100% certain that if Euler or Newton, those two great thinkers, were to see their successors using such crude methods to solve problems today...
They would be so angry they'd jump out of their coffins and tie the two of them to the stake!
"There must be a better way."
Su Hao held the pen, staring at the paper, lost in thought.