HCB Chapter 19 Why are top mathematicians all a little abnormal?
Chapter 19 Why are top mathematicians all a little abnormal?
boom!
boom! boom! boom!
The door to the mathematics department office at Xia Hua University was ajar, and a dull thud could be heard coming from inside.
Liu Zhiyun sat in her office chair, pounding her fist on the desk in front of her without any regard for her image!
She is only thirty-five or thirty-six years old this year, which is so young that she is almost an anomaly in the academic world where middle-aged and elderly people are generally bald.
But in the field of "combinatorial mathematics and design theory", this great-aunt is a true unparalleled master.
After earning her doctorate in combinatorial design theory, she gained international renown for her research on combinatorial structures over finite fields.
In the fields of cryptography and statistics, her papers have been cited far more than anyone else.
Rumors suggest she is one of the top contenders for the next Fields Medal.
This academic giant has surprisingly lowered his status this year to serve as a question setter for the CMO preliminary round.
This is definitely not just about doing some charity work or acting on a whim!
For her, the opportunity to gather the nation's top mathematical geniuses in one go was extremely rare.
She had secretly included an additional test in that exam paper, which would assess intuition, numerical sensitivity, and absolute logical ability.
The hope is that the preliminary exam will help select top talents who can demonstrate a terrifying sense of smell in their professional field.
If only someone could complete that questionnaire and, under extreme pressure, see through the hidden information in the answer choices...
But now...it's all destroyed!
"Aaaaaaah! Who?! Who ruined my masterpiece?!"
Liu Zhiyun suddenly raised her head, her eyes bloodshot, her hair disheveled like that of a madwoman.
The teaching assistant, huddled in the corner of the office, was terrified. She curled up like a quail and shuddered violently.
Just ten minutes earlier, he had received that call informing him to "change the answer".
"Professor! I already said it wasn't my fault! It was that group from the Mathematics Society who made the decision!"
The teaching assistant's voice was cracking, and he was waving his hands frantically with a sob in his voice.
"Those old fogies with their heads full of outdated ideas! They shouldn't have begged me to take charge in the first place!"
Liu Zhiyun's chest heaved violently; due to extreme anger, her breathing rhythm was completely disordered.
She grabbed the phone from the table, raised it high, and then slammed it down with a loud bang, shattering it into pieces.
"Why should you kneel down and beg me to set the questions, and then arbitrarily change my work?!"
The teaching assistant glanced at the shattered phone, cold sweat trickling down his temples, and said aggrievedly:
"The committee also explained that they had no other choice."
If each option is the correct answer an equal number of times, there will definitely be students who try to guess by counting the number of options.
Therefore, to prevent cheating, they must change at least one answer choice.
At this point, the teaching assistant took a deep breath and voiced his own doubts:
"Besides, to be honest... Professor, who could tell?"
During those 120 minutes of hellish difficulty, everyone was busy solving those insane questions in the exam room, their brain cells practically burning out.
Whose brain is strong enough to detect a specific Latin square arrangement hidden in the sequence of options while filling in the answer sheet?
From the very beginning, it was impossible for anyone to connect your realm beyond the atmosphere simply by looking at a few option numbers!
At that moment, the teaching assistant's mind couldn't help but begin to ponder a profound sociological question:
Why are top mathematicians often not quite normal?
What is the correlation between these two?
Is it because I am an extremely normal ordinary person that my research has been slow to gain recognition?
It's said that there's only a fine line between genius and madness. Does that mean you have to drive yourself crazy to make a name for yourself in this industry?
"What if there is?" Liu Zhiyun stared at him intently.
"Huh?" The teaching assistant was stunned.
Liu Zhiyun stopped what she was doing.
She slowly raised her head, and beneath her disheveled hair, her eyes shone with an almost morbid fervor and pain.
"What if... there really is a student who can tell? How devastated would he be?"
Her voice trembled, as if she were personally experiencing the pain of faith being torn apart.
"The logical deduction is so logical and flawless that the answer to this question is definitely 1. But on that forcibly altered answer sheet, in order to cater to the ridiculous 'anti-cheating mechanism,' the option has become 5!"
Can you understand the pain of watching perfect mathematical symmetry get crushed by a reality as utterly ridiculous as shit?
Can you understand the agony I feel when I have to destroy a beautiful work of art with my own hands?!
"I don't understand!
I don't understand that kind of nonsense!
Who in their right mind would be devastated just because the answer to a multiple-choice question isn't a symmetrical figure?
The teaching assistant was internally screaming and shaking his head like a rattle drum.
"It's impossible, absolutely not. I'd bet my entire academic career on it."
The teaching assistant's tone was extremely confident.
"Students nowadays are locked in their rooms every day, frantically doing practice problems. They have long been trained to be ruthless problem-solving machines."
With only grades on their minds, how could they possibly have such idle and leisurely thoughts...?
The teaching assistant wasn't just making things up. He himself came from a CMO background and was even a top problem solver who made it all the way to the semi-finals.
At Xia Hua University alone, there were countless prodigies who passed the preliminary rounds back then.
Although the professor holds such an unrealistically high opinion of today's high school students, he dares to assert with common sense:
In that kind of exam environment, the probability of such a thing happening is zero!
"is that so?"
Faced with the teaching assistant's firm denial, Liu Zhiyun's stubbornness seemed to waver, and she took a step back, looking somewhat dejected.
"But if someone truly has a talent for design theory, they should be able to spot it at a glance, right?"
The fluctuations in those numbers were as clear as musical notes on a staff…
This is her putting her own perspective into her mind.
If she were sitting in the exam room, she could smell the fascinating pattern emanating from that set of exam papers even with her eyes closed!
"Yes, absolutely impossible. What if such a deity really existed!"
The teaching assistant wiped the cold sweat from his brow and added confidently,
"Professor, you can recruit him directly into our department."
"You don't even need to ask, I'll wipe the table clean immediately, serve him tea and water every day, and treat him like royalty!"
"Hmm..." Liu Zhiyun stroked her chin, "But then again..."
"Please speak."
"If anyone manages to fill in the entire sequence correctly, please let me know immediately."
"All correct?! How is that possible?!"
The moment the answer to question 25 was forcibly changed to option 5 by the Mathematics Society, the probability of the perfect "Latin square" originally conceived by the professor had already approached zero in a mathematical sense!
Even if there really were such a freakish genius who could answer the most difficult questions 23 and 4 correctly, how could he possibly stumble on the relatively simple last question?
Now, the professor is actually hoping someone can fill in that square correctly?
"Doesn't that mean... after seeing through the correct answer, you have to deliberately choose the wrong answer without hesitation in order to obtain that hidden array?!"
What the hell!
That must be a ghost story!
What idiot would risk their future in a national competition to play this kind of perverted artistic crossword puzzle?!
"It will happen." Liu Zhiyun's eyes deepened, her tone revealing a haughty arrogance.
"There exist realms in this world that ordinary people like you can never comprehend."
This seemingly casual remark may not be very hurtful, but it is extremely insulting!
The teaching assistant immediately panicked, his face turning red:
"Professor, you're insulting me again!"
Back in the day, I was a well-known academic genius in Haidian District, okay?
My mom is so proud of me...
If she knew I was subjected to this kind of intellectual bullying every day in the lab, she'd definitely burst into tears!
"So why did you have to be so desperate as to pursue a PhD?"
"Switch to a programming job or go into finance to work in quantitative finance; that would be so much better for an ordinary person like you."
The teaching assistant pursed his lips and muttered a complaint under his breath.
I worked so hard to get into this school because I was obsessed with the thrill of finding miracles in garbled code, but all I get told is that I have no talent...
But what can be done?
Looking up at the professor's long list of academic achievements, he could only swallow his grievances and kneel down in complete submission.
In fact, the teaching assistant knew perfectly well that the only reason he could still shamelessly eke out a living in this lab was because, in the past few years, not a single normal student had been able to catch this old lady's eye!
Could this be the real reason why she insisted on making an exception this year and personally setting the CMO exam questions?!
Slurp.
Having finally vented her emotions, Liu Zhiyun picked up the slightly cold black coffee on the table and took a big, hearty sip.
The bitter liquid flowed down her throat, but it couldn't extinguish the glimmer of hope in her eyes.
"Sigh, I really wish someone like that would appear in this boring world."
At first, she was indeed furious with the math society for ruining her perfect arrangement design, and wished she could blow up their office.
But upon calming down and reflecting, in chaotic mathematical models, variables often mean the birth of miracles.
If, even when such a topic has been forcibly corrupted, someone can still keenly perceive that sliver of remaining order...
And in pursuit of that ultimate mathematical beauty, I almost sacrificed myself by forcibly drawing a complete Latin square on the answer sheet...
That person is definitely not only a genius, but also a madman like her who can ignore all worldly rules for the sake of the beauty of mathematics!
......
Outside the examination hall.
As the crisp sound of the closing bell rang, Su Hao walked out from the crowd with a relaxed expression.
All around were students who were collapsing from exhaustion, screaming and tearing their hair out as they checked their answers.
Su Hao, on the other hand, stood with his hands in his pockets, strolling leisurely like an old man who had just finished walking his bird in the park.
"Anyway, passing the preliminary round is more than enough."
For Su Hao, inner peace and aesthetic pleasure are far more important than that vulgar "perfect score" title.
The answer sheet he finally submitted presented an elegant form that was flawless and perfectly symmetrical.
In order to maintain this perfect sequence, Su Hao deliberately filled in an incorrect option on the last question...
To him, it was nothing more than brushing off a speck of dust from a work of art, utterly insignificant.
"Su Hao!"
A voice from across the street interrupted his thoughts.
Shen Yuxuan leaned against a sleek luxury sports car, its eye-catching design standing out from the surrounding streets crowded with electric bikes and old-man vehicles, attracting frequent glances from passersby.
He was smiling and waving at Su Hao.
"Teacher! What are you doing here?"
A hint of surprise flashed in Su Hao's eyes, and he quickly ran over.
"Today is a big day for the preliminary rounds, so I came to see you specially. I told your dad I'd come pick you up on his behalf."
Shen Yuxuan opened the futuristic-looking car door for him.
"Get in the car."
Seemingly riding in a luxury car of this caliber for the first time, Su Hao sat in the passenger seat and curiously looked around at the luxurious interior.
boom--!
The deep roar of the engine was like the growl of a wild beast.
Considering that the passenger in the front seat was a national treasure-level genius, Shen Yuxuan restrained himself and pressed the accelerator as smoothly as possible.
"How did the test go? That kind of test should be as easy for you as doing addition and subtraction, right?"
Shen Yuxuan looked straight ahead and asked casually.
Actually, he was incredibly curious about the exam results!
This is the fundamental reason why he traveled a long distance today to take on this pick-up and drop-off task.
Su Hao's mathematical talent is undoubtedly genius-level!
But this kid usually lacks the utilitarianism of ordinary people and never does things the way they expect.
It's like a brat holding a nuclear bomb but using it to blow up fish—it's driving me crazy!