Top academic

Qiao Yu had feelings for the old man, Lotte Dugan.

The professor primarily conducted research on N-body problems in mathematics during his lifetime.

To be honest, Lott Duggan's contributions to the field of mathematical research were not actually that significant.

However, their abilities in the field of mathematics education are undeniable.

Not every mathematician can educate three Fields Medal winners.

All three laureates were Lott Dugan's students during their graduate studies.

Of course, Lott Duggan had more than three students. Although many of his students did not win this most important award in mathematics, they are mostly the backbone of the mathematics community.

However, Qiao Yu didn't care about any of this.

After all, when Qiao Yu had his dealings with Lotte Dugan, the old professor was already the dean of the Princeton School of Mathematics.

He also serves as the editor-in-chief of the Yearbook of Mathematics.

In a sense, the old professor had shown him great kindness and recognition.

Back then, Lotte Dugan was only in his sixties. More than ten years have passed in the blink of an eye, and the old man is almost eighty years old now, so his passing was not so sudden.

In fact, news circulated in the mathematics community last year that the elderly man's health was not good.

However, hearing this news still made Qiao Yu feel a sense of loss.

These are the growing pains.

My loved ones are getting older every day. Especially Mr. Yuan, who is almost ninety years old.

Although he is still relatively healthy for his age, he can no longer think for long periods of time, and his voice is not as strong as before.

This made Qiao Yu feel somewhat emotional.

After a moment of silence, he finally asked, "Speaking of which, my mother is almost fifty. By the way, Uncle Zheng, you're almost fifty too, right?"

"It's still early, I'm not even forty-four yet," Zheng Xiwen replied irritably.

"Oh, he's quite an old man now." Qiao Yu nodded.

Zheng Xiwen was too lazy to argue with Qiao Yu.

At forty-four years old, one could say that this is the prime of life.

Well, to be honest, Zheng Xiwen has indeed felt that his physical strength and energy have been declining over the years.

However, his long-term, scientific exercise has kept him in good physical condition. At least he can handle high-intensity tasks without frequently experiencing headaches or fevers.

However, Qiao Yu did not continue the topic, but instead reminisced, "Professor Dugen was actually a pretty good person."

I remember that at that time he was the dean of the Princeton School of Mathematics. He first wanted to invite me to study there, and later he wanted to invite me to become a tenured professor.

Before I retired, they even insisted on giving me an honorary professorship. But as you know, given the circumstances at the time, how could I dare to go to Princeton?

Once you go, you might never come back. That's just how people are. Some people's biggest dream in life is to get a tenured professorship at a university like Princeton.

But what was the result? They ended up destitute and miserable in middle age. Some people would have been willing to go simply by nodding, but they just didn't want to.

This remark left Zheng Xiwen in an even more difficult position to respond to.

After all, the relationship between the other man involved and Qiao Yu is even more complicated. He's currently living a life of homelessness on the streets of Xida.

Logically speaking, given Frank's survival skills, he shouldn't have been able to survive on the streets for so long; he probably wouldn't even have lived to the average lifespan of a homeless person.

But who can blame him for having such a complicated relationship with Qiao Yu?

Although Qiao Yu repeatedly emphasized that they didn't need to worry about him, Zheng Xiwen and his colleagues on this line felt that they couldn't really ignore him completely.

What if Qiao Yu regrets it someday?
Of course, it's impossible to let him live a very comfortable life.

However, in the places where he was homeless, it was still possible for more people to come and offer him warmth.

Volunteers delivered food, and the volunteer medical team would go to the area to provide checkups and medicine whenever they felt like it...

When it gets cold, we can get some old clothes and old cotton wadding and distribute them for free in the neighborhood. If we give him a little preferential treatment in the process, we can at least help him survive.

Doing this kind of thing used to be quite troublesome a few years ago. But it's become much easier these days.

Since the University of the West opened up infrastructure projects in three states to China, this assistance has been so seamless that it leaves almost no trace.

The reason is actually very simple.

The White House's stance has already softened. The morale of the state leaders is even more volatile.

The superiority of the federal system was fully demonstrated during this period.

According to Zheng Xiwen, many state governments in the western regions have already secretly colluded with China.

According to some of the signed agreements, Zheng Xiwen even suspected that what was said in the capital of China in these states was more effective than what was said in the white house in Washington.

The saying "A wise man submits to circumstances" holds immense value in any era and in any place.

"...Never mind, let's not talk about what happened before. In short, Lott Dugan is a good man and a very good mathematician; at the very least, he has a good eye for people."

Therefore, I feel his passing deserves some commemoration. Coincidentally, Tao Xuanzhi just asked me what I've been doing these past few years, so how about this…

Let's arrange a lecture. Hold it in the Centennial Auditorium, and title it "In Memory of Lott Duggan and Value Dynamics from Modal Axiomatic Systems to Metamathematical Levels."

“Meta-mathematics?” Zheng Xiwen asked.

"Well, actually it's a new term that just popped into my head. There was a lot of hype about the metaverse before, you know, the one based on virtual technology, so my metamathematics is roughly the same thing."

The most significant characteristic is that the non-exchangeable layers on both sides of the equation or inequality will inevitably undergo topological kinking. This can trigger the differential phase transition protocol.

Don't doubt yourself. You definitely won't understand. But don't belittle yourself either. Even if Tao Xuanzhi were sitting here in your place, he still wouldn't understand just by listening to these few terms.

You can think of this as a mathematical framework that explains how value itself learns value. I think this is probably the first systematic conquest of dynamic meaning by mathematics, following calculus, probability theory, and the axiomatic system of generalized modalities.

Although Qiao Yu's words were difficult for Zheng Xiwen to comment on, the fact that Tao Xuanzhi, sitting here, couldn't understand them still warmed his heart.

What makes him so special that he's now being compared to Fields Medal winners?

Of course, he didn't show any of this, and simply asked methodically, "When is the time set?"

"Let's set it for Professor Dugan's seventh day memorial. Yeah, just have them prepare the venue, and I'll have July handle the specific invitations. This is a proper math conference, no need for any big publicity. And no need for a live stream. Nobody will understand it anyway. It's pointless."

Qiao Yu added another sentence.

As for the July he mentioned, Zheng Xiwen knew, of course, that it was a virtual intelligent entity with experimental characteristics, constructed based on the mathematical theory that Qiao Yu had mentioned.

In fact, this wasn't the first time Qiao Yu had asked July to help with various matters.

Including Qiao Yu's email and many social media accounts, these were all managed in July.

This is probably why Tao Xuanzhi believes that Qiao Yu often either doesn't reply to letters, or when she does, the content of her replies is completely irrelevant.

In fact, even Zheng Xiwen felt that July was a very abstract concept. In many ways, it even seemed less useful than current artificial intelligence.

For example, when Zheng Xiwen was first asked to help test July, he simply asked July a few questions.

Because Qiao Yu suddenly asked Zheng Xiwen to ask the question, he didn't know what to ask for a moment, so he simply asked a question meant to amuse a child: "What is 1+1?"

July's answer was that 1+1 can equal any number, because mathematics is a discipline based on human-defined concepts.

So theoretically, what 1+1 equals depends on how ambitious and daring Comrade Zheng is.

This statement shocked Zheng Xiwen at the time.

He didn't know what logic July used to arrive at such an absurd answer. But from that moment on, he felt that July was too abstract.

He couldn't even imagine letting such a thing manage the lunar base.

Of course, July's abstract behavior goes far beyond this.

There were many more tests afterward. Sometimes July's answers were quite reliable, and sometimes they really left Zheng Xiwen speechless.

For example, on the most recent occasion, he genuinely treated July as a mature artificial intelligence, directly asking July: "Based on the existing security system, how can we improve the efficiency and security of security measures around Qiao Yu by optimizing technical means, personnel allocation, or management processes?"

Then in July, I explained a whole bunch of new concepts to him, like modal aftershock alarms, topological inequivalence value orientation, etc.

The final conclusion was that as long as any intelligent entity is prevented from harboring hostility towards Qiao Yu, and routine hazard checks are conducted in a standardized manner, the risk level can be reduced to less than one percent.

See? What a sensible piece of nonsense.

The point is that as long as no one is hostile to Qiao Yu, many potential dangers can indeed be prevented.

However, July did not provide an in-depth analysis of how to achieve this, and instead gave a serious explanation, as if it risked being blacklisted for rashly analyzing the issue...

Seriously, if Zheng Xiwen were to ask any AI product about this issue, they could easily provide him with a whole host of suggestions.

Many of them could be published directly as academic papers, but the answer given in July was the most unreliable.

Therefore, Zheng Xiwen was always deeply worried about Qiao Yu entrusting important matters to Qiyue for management.

But Qiao Yu's explanation was also very compelling.

"You can think of July as a person; it's still in its infancy, so we should allow it to make mistakes."

Moreover, its learning method is very different from other artificial intelligence. For example, it does not have parameter tuning settings, and it has the ability to understand and self-correct.

Its database can't be manually populated now, so it's normal for it to sometimes act or say things that are a bit outrageous. But don't worry, it's growing very fast.

It might take a few years to achieve what a person learns and accumulates over several lifetimes, so it matures very quickly. Once it matures in July, you'll see just how useful this thing can be.

Another point is that, theoretically speaking, the learning and accumulation in July does not increase linearly, but rather increases exponentially over time.

Well, Zheng Xiwen didn't quite trust July, but he trusted Qiao Yu.

Since Qiao Yu said that July would mature very quickly, Zheng Xiwen did not raise any objections.

To be honest, it's been almost ten months since July, and in Zheng Xiwen's view, this so-called general artificial intelligence is still not very reliable and remains quite abstract.

However, his way of handling things has become much more "slick" now.

He even learned to flatter people. For example, when he suddenly felt like it and asked July to help him organize a report, this guy would start to fawn over him.

They say he's dedicated and professional in the security industry, a true role model. It's just that it's not appropriate to publicize his achievements too much yet; otherwise, they'd all be awarded a model worker medal...

You should know that this thing can't be adjusted; it was all learned on its own through methods that Zheng Xiwen couldn't understand. He didn't even know how July started learning how to flatter.

Although Qiao Yu repeatedly emphasized that July could not possibly develop self-awareness, Zheng Xiwen often felt that July had become a spirit when they talked.

This thing has no sincerity, it's all just a routine...

Therefore, it's theoretically fine for Qiao Yu to have July handle the invitation work for this report meeting.

But it will definitely require a lot of people to fill in the gaps.

To be honest, from a cost perspective, it would be better to do things the usual way and let professionals do what they do best.

This will definitely ensure that Qiao Yu's report is completed smoothly.

But Zheng Xiwen could understand Qiao Yu's arrangement.

For an artificial intelligence that cannot be tuned and can only learn and explore through continuous learning and doing, this method can accelerate its growth...

Zheng Xiwen was still thinking about these random things when a childish voice suddenly rang out in the office.

"Uncle Zheng, why haven't you responded for so long? Is it because you don't trust Qiyue's abilities? Is Qiyue really that untrustworthy?"

Zheng Xiwen thought another reason why July became a spirit was that this thing also knew how to change its tone.

For example, right now, his tone was so aggrieved. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was an old man bullying a child.

Someone else would probably be startled by that sudden sound.

But Zheng Xiwen was clearly used to it. Still, she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

Hesitating for a moment before agreeing is a sign of doubting this guy's abilities. Why doesn't he reflect on how many unreliable things he's done before?
In short, if we really consider July as a child, Zheng Xiwen feels that Qiao Yu's parenting style is somewhat problematic.

However, Qiao Yu was very satisfied with July's learning and development path, so Zheng Xiwen naturally couldn't say anything.

After all, it's someone else's child...

Anyway, July isn't undertaking any important tasks right now, so these minor incidents are harmless.

So, although it wasn't a human speaking, Zheng Xiwen still politely replied, "No, July, I personally have full confidence in your abilities." (End of Chapter)