Great Country Academician

Hearing Xu Chuan say, "It's not that difficult," Zhang Weiping couldn't help but move the corners of his mouth.

What should I do if he wants to hit someone?

Although the knowledge used to solve IMO competition problems is basically limited to high school, skills and experience cannot be locked.

In this case, it takes him more than an hour to solve a problem with decades of mathematical knowledge and experience. Is this not difficult?

What he said was simply too pretentious.

All right.

For this person, it may not be difficult.

After all, he has solved three of the seven millennium problems by himself. In today's mathematics world, there may be some people in a single field who can compare with him, or even surpass him.

For example, Faltings and Deligne in the field of algebraic geometry; Sarnak in the field of number theory; Perelman in the field of topology, etc.

These top experts can still compare with this one in their respective fields of proficiency, and may even be ahead or surpassed.

But looking at the overall situation, I am afraid that except for Terence Tao who can barely keep up and dabble in so many fields at the same time, it is really difficult to find another mathematician who can be proficient in so many fields of mathematics at the same time.

What's even more perverted is that in addition to the field of mathematics, he has also made considerable achievements in almost completely different fields such as physics, materials, and astronomy.

To be honest, can human talent really be so powerful?

It’s hard not to wonder whether there’s a quantum computer hidden beneath this skin.

Standing opposite the two of them, Xu Chuan didn't think much about it.

He was a little surprised when he heard that Liu Jiaying was the only girl to get perfect scores in the entire IMO.

IMO, the last big question on the exam was asked by him, and it was indeed not too difficult in his opinion.

If he really had to ask a difficult question, he was sure that no student in the entire IMO competition could solve it.

But that doesn't make any sense.

For a mathematics competition, the content of the test is not how much knowledge these students have mastered, but how they use their limited knowledge to solve problems.

Mastering knowledge is only the foundation, and using knowledge to solve problems is creativity.

But this does not mean that the problem is so easy to solve.

The questions he asked did not require the use of university knowledge, what you learned in high school was enough.

But the skill required to solve that problem is not low, it can even be said to be high.

To be able to solve the problems he asked, talent and hard work in mathematics are absolutely indispensable.

Xu Chuan was indeed a little surprised when such a genius appeared among his friends.

But considering Liu Jiaxin's talent in mathematics, it is normal.

It’s not that these things are inherited genetically.

In fact, genes are not necessarily 100% effective. No one can guarantee that if an older brother or older sister has an amazing IQ, then a younger brother or younger sister will also have excellent intelligence.

But if there is a brother or sister who is talented enough in a certain way and can bring experience to the younger siblings, as long as the brother or sister is willing to teach, it is absolutely unimaginable for ordinary people.

Just like him and Xu Xiao.

When he was in middle school and high school, he taught a large part of Xu Xiao's extracurricular tutoring, homework, and problem-solving ideas and techniques every winter and summer vacation.

These things have brought Xu Xiao more experience on the road of learning, allowing her to learn more easily and stand out among middle schools at the same level.

This is also the reason why relatively wealthy families are more likely to produce outstanding geniuses.

Because their parents, or their family conditions, are capable enough to find an excellent teacher to do this job.

As for relatively poor families, most children face parents who have not finished junior high school or high school, and teachers who have to take care of entire or even multiple classes in school.

If you are not talented enough to stand out and receive extra attention and guidance, otherwise it will be very difficult to get an 'extra' and detailed teaching.

And sometimes, middle school and high school teachers may not have this ability.

This ‘theorem’ is not only applicable to learning, but also applies to many other broad fields.

After all, the most precious thing for a person is not wealth, status, but time.

After sizing up Liu Jiaying, Xu Chuan smiled and said, "If you are willing, you can come to my place."

Opposite me, Zhang Weiping raised his eyebrows and interrupted: "I said, isn't it a bit unkind of you to do this? I finally accepted an undergraduate, but you want to poach him."

After a pause, he sighed again, and then said: "Forget it, if you really want it, just take him away. It is definitely better to study with you than with me."

After being interrupted for a while, Xu Chuan also came to his senses, thought for a while and then said:

"Forget it, let her study with you, Academician Zhang, in college. I have a lot of research on hand here. You may not learn anything by following me in college. It's more important to lay a solid foundation."

"If she waits until she gets a master's degree or a doctorate, she can apply to Nanjing University."

"Only if you are willing."

He looked at Liu Jiaying and said the last sentence.

Originally, he wanted to poach this senior's sister directly, but after being interrupted by Academician Zhang Weiping, he gave up the idea after thinking about his time.

He didn't have much time to guide her at the foundation-laying stage of university. Instead of poaching her like this, it would be better for her to study with Academician Zhang Weiping during the undergraduate stage.

When she reaches the master's or doctoral level, if she is willing, he will still be happy to accept this student.

Of course, the premise for these things is that she is willing.

If Liu Jiaying didn't want to, he couldn't force the person to come over. There was no need.

Opposite him, Liu Jiaying blinked, and after meeting Xu Chuan's gaze, he looked at his mentor.

Feeling the encouragement and recognition from those kind eyes, she nodded and said obediently: "Thank you, Academician Xu, I will study hard."

Having the opportunity to study with a leader in mathematics is a rare opportunity for anyone who is interested in taking a step further in mathematics.

And this person seemed to be very special to her sister, which made her very curious.

After a pause and hesitation, she finally said, "Academician Xu Xu, can I give you some credibility?"

Xu Chuan smiled, took out his mobile phone from his jacket pocket, and sent his mobile phone number to him with added authority.

"This is my phone number. If you have any questions or study problems, you can send me a message or call me. You don't have to worry about disturbing me, and you don't have to be so polite."

After a pause, he looked at Zhang Weiping and said with a smile: "Academician Zhang, I won't disturb your meal. Let's go now. We'll talk when we have time."

Zhang Weiping said with a smile: "Go, I will go to Sun Moon (Fudan) University when I have time after returning to China."

Xu Chuan waved his hand, turned and left.

After returning to his room from the restaurant, Xu Chuan took a shower, turned on his computer, and connected to the hotel's wireless network.

He unexpectedly met an 'acquaintance' in St. Petersburg. He really didn't expect that he would have called his senior sister to come with him.

He clicked on the prestige and found senior Liu Jiaxin's prestige. He sent a message: "Guess who I met in St. Petersburg?"

After sending the message, he realized that there is a time difference of about five hours between St. Petersburg and China. It should be early morning in China, and the other side should have gone to bed.

But just when he was thinking about turning off his prestige and going to review the report process of this mathematics conference, the news from the other end came back.

"Jiaying?"

Seeing the reply, Xu Chuan raised his eyebrows, smiled and typed: "Has she told you?"

"Well, she just sent me a message and said she met you."

Xu Chuan smiled and typed: "Speaking of which, you already knew that your sister would attend this mathematics conference, right? Why didn't you tell me?"

"She's an adult and can take care of herself."

Xu Chuan: "You treat me like an outsider, you're too polite. Forget it, let's not talk about it. It's already early morning in China, why haven't you fallen asleep yet?"

"I'm still with the company."

"Why are you still working overtime at this hour? What happened?"

"There are some problems with the algorithm of the artificial intelligence program, and I will solve them as soon as possible."

Looking at the message that came back on the screen, Xu Chuan was stunned for a moment and typed: "It's not too late to do this tomorrow. Go back and rest early. You are an adult too. Don't let me worry."

The other side was silent for a few seconds, and then a message flew over.

"Hmm~."

The next day, early morning.

After Xu Chuan woke up from bed, he opened the heavy blackout curtain.

Before seven o'clock in the morning, it was already bright outside.

In winter in St. Petersburg, the sun rises very late and sets very early, with perhaps less than six hours of sunshine a day.

But for its summer, it's a completely different story.

In midsummer, in this city, the interval between the setting sun and the rising sun is so short that it is almost impossible to distinguish.

Because it is so close to the North Pole, St. Petersburg is one of the few cities in the world that has a "white night". In mid-summer in June and July, it has nearly 20 hours of daylight.

Especially on the summer solstice on June 21 every year, the sun even appears to never set.

It sets from the west, but when it still reveals a faint light, it has already risen from the east.

This "sun never sets" scene attracts a large number of tourists from all over the world every year, but I have to say that this is indeed a very magical and shocking thing.

If you have the chance, you can still go and see it.

After a simple breakfast in the restaurant, Xu Chuan took the vehicle provided by Alpha Team and headed to the suburbs of St. Petersburg with Schultz and Terence Tao to find the man who was a bit 'socially afraid' and didn't like to deal with people. Perelman.

"Speaking of which, have you met Perelman before?"

In the black bulletproof car, Xu Chuan looked at Tao Zhexuan and Schultz curiously. Although he had held several mathematics conferences, including some such as the Millennium Problem, he had never seen anything like that. A weirdo.

For the mathematics community, if we want to choose the most mysterious mathematician, it is definitely Perelman who proved the "three-dimensional Poincaré conjecture".

Since solving the Millennium Problem, news about this mathematician has rarely appeared in the mathematical community.

There are many people who want to visit him, but only a few are lucky enough to meet him, so that people have no idea what he is studying now and what level of mathematical prowess he has reached.

Schultz shrugged and said, "I only met him once a long time ago, but we didn't exchange a few words."

If this were not the case, his previous resentment would not be so great.

On the side, Tao Zhexuan thought for a while and replied: "I have met him a few times and exchanged some mathematical ideas."

Hearing this, Schultz immediately looked over in surprise: "Huh? Have you seen that weirdo many times?"

Terence Tao pushed up his glasses and said with a smile: "It would not be that difficult to meet him before he proved the Poincaré conjecture."

“Although he was equally withdrawn at that time, he welcomed other mathematicians to communicate with him.”

"It's a pity that after proving the Poincaré conjecture, too many people disturbed him, whether it was media reporters or others, which made him very disgusted, which led to him living in seclusion and not seeing outsiders."

"It would not have been so easy to go see him this time if it hadn't been for Xu."

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Maybe it's because I'm more handsome?"

Schultz, Terence Tao: "."

The two looked at each other silently, and Schultz suddenly nodded, then reached for his wallet from his jacket pocket, opened it, and handed the photo of his little daughter inside to Xu Chuan's eyes.

"Do you think my little girl is cute?"

Xu Chuan took a look. The photo showed a five or six-year-old girl with short hair and a bright smile.

"Very cute, what's wrong?"

Seeing the fish taking the bait, Schultz grinned and said, "What I want to say is that handsome people should already be married and have a wife and daughter!"

On the side, Terence Tao said with regret, "It's a pity that I didn't bring any photos, otherwise I could have let you see them."

Xu Chuan: "."

MMP!

After nearly half an hour's drive, the bulletproof vehicle arrived at the suburbs of St. Petersburg.

On a street dominated by blue-white and red-white buildings, there are ancient houses on both sides.

On the cascading stone steps, Perelman secluded himself in an apartment nearby.

Looking at these villas and apartments that looked almost the same, Xu Chuan suddenly remembered something.

He seemed to have no idea where exactly Perelman lived.

Although the two of them had contacted each other through emails and made an agreement in advance, the 'weirdo' did not include in the email the number of villa or apartment he lived in. He just said that he lived here.

More importantly, he didn't have Perelman's phone number, so he couldn't even make a temporary call to ask him for directions.

After scratching his head, Xu Chuan glanced at Schultz and Terence Tao awkwardly, and said, "By the way, do you two know where Perelman lives?"

Hearing this question, both of them were stunned.

Schultz couldn't help but ask: "Didn't you make an appointment with him?"

Xu Chuan: "It was indeed arranged that I would come to visit today, but he didn't seem to send me a specific address in the email. He only said that he lived on this street and what number it was, but he didn't really have it. "

"Call him and ask?" Tao Zhexuan asked.

Xu Chuan shrugged and said, "Do you have his phone number?"

There are probably no more than one Perelman phone number in the mathematics community, or maybe Perelman doesn’t have a phone at all?

At least he didn't have the other party's phone number.

Terence Tao shrugged, but neither did he.

"Then let's ask someone. Since you live here, someone should have seen it, right?"

Xu Chuan thought about it for a while, took out his mobile phone from his pocket, and Google came up with several photos of Perelman.

I have to say that this mathematician’s work is indeed a bit ‘sloppy’, at least judging from the photos found on Google.

Selecting a slightly clearer and less scrawled photo, Xu Chuan stopped a passerby to exchange a few words, and then took a look at the photo on his phone.

But soon the other party shook his head in confusion and said that he had never seen it before.

After thanking him, he let the passerby go. After that, he consulted several different passers-by, but the results were almost the same.

No one knew where Perelman lived and said they had never seen him on the street.

In fact, most people said they did not recognize the person in the photo.

PS: There will be another chapter later