The Science Fiction World of Xueba

On the radio, Venkat's voice continued.

"Guys, I know this news is quite surprising. In fact, you don't need to have any psychological burden. We discovered the abnormality of the Arsidalia Plain camp through satellite photos about a month ago, and after a month of hard work, Finally got in touch with Pang and Watney. During the communication with the earth, they repeatedly emphasized that this incident was just an accident. He and Pang also planted potatoes on Mars, and now they are the first humans to conduct agricultural activities on an alien planet, or they are the pioneers of human colonization of Mars."

"At present, the Ares Project Command has formulated a complete rescue plan. We will rescue Pang and Watney at all costs, so please rest assured that you will be able to see Pon and Watney on Earth in a short time." Turney is gone. In addition, if you have anything to say to Pang and Watney, you can send it to Houston, and I will convey it for you!"

Soon, Friedrich, Baker, and Gross also came to the gravity cabin.

"What about Colonel Lewis?"

Baker asked Haruko Kitagawa.

"I'm here!"

At some point, Colonel Lewis, with reddish eye circles, returned to the gravity cabin. She looked at her team members softly and said, "Guys, let's discuss how to write letters to Pang and Watney!"

...

Mars, Arcidaria Plain, Mars time at 9:30 p.m.

In the habitat cabin, Pang Xuelin was lying on the head of the bed, leisurely listening to a jazz CD that Watney found from the personal belongings left by Colonel Lewis.

Watney sat in front of his computer, chatting with the expert support team a few light minutes away.

Of course, most of the time, what they talked about was bullshit.

Since contacting the Earth, the Ares Project Command has become more desire for control than ever before, from the overall plan of Pang Xuelin and Watney in the next few years, to the nutritional mix of every meal, they will take action intervene.

For example, after Pang Xuelin and Watney found that the water output rate of the water circulation system had dropped to a certain extent, they thought that the water circulation system was blocked. They planned to repair it by themselves, find the blocked pipes, and clean them up.

After ten hours of discussion, the expert committee rejected the proposal of Pang Xuelin and Watney.

They think that this kind of work can only be done by professionals, and the water circulation system can still be used at present, so there is no need to take the risk of damaging the water circulation system to repair it.

Pang Xuelin and Watney happily tossed their advice behind them and spent a day taking the water circulation system apart, finding the clogs, cleaning them out, and putting them back together again without any issues.

Of course, the expert team is not without some effective suggestions.

For example, fine-grained management of crops, increasing the carbon dioxide content of the planting cabin, thereby increasing the synthesis of organic matter.

Another example is to use an oxygenator to fill up all the liquid oxygen storage tanks, just in case of a crisis, the oxygen content is not enough, and so on.

During this period, Pang Xuelin and Watney also relaxed, and now they have done almost everything they can do, and then they just need to wait patiently for the first season of potatoes to be harvested.

Under the advice of the expert team, most of the time, they will stay in the habitat to reduce the number of EVA, thereby reducing the consumption of carbon dioxide absorbers.

Originally, the two were busy every day in order to survive, but now that they are free all of a sudden, Pang Xuelin felt a little uncomfortable.

While listening to the music, he wondered if it was time to find a suitable research topic for himself.

Just as he was thinking, Watney in front of the computer suddenly called out: "Pang, come quickly, Lewis and the others wrote us an email, which was just forwarded by Houston!"

Pang Xuelin quickly got up from the bed,

Come behind Watney.

Watney opened the email and read it.

"Dear Pang, Watney, glad to hear that you are alive. Really, really, everyone of us is very happy. I regret it very much now. I should not have given up on you. I should have given up on you. I take full responsibility for the situation. Now Sergey, Haruko Kitagawa, Baker, Gross, Friedrich are all by my side. They miss you very much. If you need it, the whole crew of Hermes will provide you at any time Help, I hope we can help you somewhere. The Ares Project Command has told us that they have a feasible rescue plan. I believe that you and Pang will be able to survive on Mars with your own wisdom. etc. You return to Earth, and I buy you a drink. -Lewis and the crew of the Hermes."

"Pang, let's return an email to Lewis and the others!"

Pang Xuelin smiled and said, "Of course!"

Soon, Pang Xuelin and Watney drew up a new email and replied back.

"Colonel Lewis and dear teammates, hello everyone, I'm very glad to know your news again. Pang and I had a good time in the Arcidalia Plain. Without you, the space in the habitat is much more comfortable. Back then What happened was just an accident and bad luck brought us to where we are. Colonel Lewis's order was spot on and it was a decision for the safety of others. May you all go home safely and look forward to returning I will have a drink with you after the earth. ——Pang Xuelin, Watney."

...

Day by day, Pang Xuelin and Watney's life on Mars began to become boring and monotonous.

Every morning, Watney will enter the planting cabin, check the air composition in the planting cabin, loosen the soil for the potatoes, test the soil moisture, and then decide whether to increase the moisture content of the soil.

Sometimes, he will also add some newly processed natural fertilizers to the soil.

Pang Xuelin checked the operation of various systems in the habitat, recorded log data, sent it back to Earth, and performed regular maintenance on certain equipment according to the recommendations of the expert committee.

Specifically, it has been more than three months since Pang Xuelin entered the Martian world, and the potatoes in the planting cabin have grown to a height of 20 to 30 centimeters. They are green and will be harvested in half a month.

When they sent photos of the potatoes back to Earth, it caused a huge stir.

For this reason, Watney had to cooperate with the Ares Project Command to give a popular science course on Martian botany to children on Earth.

Relatively speaking, Pang Xuelin did not have so much work. After finishing the records and maintenance every day, there were still five or six hours left to arrange freely, so he set himself a new task - to prove the ABC conjecture.

The ABC conjecture is an important conjecture in the field of number theory. It was proposed by Joseph Oesterlé and David Masser in 1985, so it is also called the Oesterlé–Masser conjecture.

Mathematician Goldfield once said: "The ABC conjecture is the most important unsolved problem of the Diophantine equation!"

French mathematician Lucien Szpiro (mainly in the field of number theory, arithmetic algebraic geometry and commutative algebra) tried to overcome this conjecture in 2007, but it was later proved to be wrong.

In August 2012, Shinichi Mochizuki, a mathematician at Kyoto University in Japan, published a paper of more than 500 pages, introducing his comprehensive and generalized Teich-Miller theory, and claiming that this theory can prove several problems including the abc conjecture. A well-known conjecture, but this obscure theory has not been recognized by the mathematical community.

Pang Xuelin once read Mochizuki Shinichi's thesis during his Ph.D. study, but he didn't understand it.

According to his mentor Terence Tao, Mochizuki Shinichi’s proof-of-concept part is too complicated. The first three hundred pages of the thesis are almost all about establishing a new mathematical system. The key point is that this system can only be used in very few fields such as the ABC conjecture. get applied.

Contrary to Mochizuki, Zhang Yitang and Perelman gave a concise "proof of concept" at the beginning of the paper, and the method they developed can be quickly used in the corresponding field, and some interesting non-trivial new results are obtained , or give new proofs of some existing non-trivial conclusions.

Therefore, this move to complicate a simple problem is usually a mistake.

Naturally, Pang Xuelin did not want to prove the ABC conjecture in one go. In terms of difficulty, this conjecture is not much simpler than the BSD conjecture.

He just wanted to have some fun for himself, after all, life on Mars was too boring and boring.