The unparalleled talent of the country started from Harbin Institute of Technology

Chapter 101, Buy a Bicycle? Invited by the Mother of Chinese Computers, Visit the Institute of Computing Technology (Please Order First)

On the first day of the National Day holiday, time passed very quickly during the busy and fulfilling exchanges at the seminar.

In a state-owned restaurant near the Institute of Mathematics, Wang Duoyu and Zhu Ling sat face to face, eating and chatting.

She clearly didn't understand the math problems Wang Duoyu discussed with others, but she just loved listening and insisted that he talk more.

She wasn't the type to just let it go in one ear and out the other. She listened carefully and asked questions from time to time, such as what exactly is the Poincaré conjecture? Why do so many people want to prove it?

"Just think of it as a question from a world-class exam. If you can answer it correctly, you're practically the top scorer in your field, just like the top scorer in a single subject on the Gaokao, except it's much more valuable."

Wang Duoyu's analogy was not completely accurate, but it was explained in a way that Zhu Ling could understand. Otherwise, it would not make sense at all.

Perhaps in Zhu Ling's view, Wang Duoyu is already the top scorer in the college entrance examination, and he got the top score with a score of 496, so getting the top score in any single subject should be a piece of cake, right?

The two had dinner in the restaurant and then took a walk nearby to digest the food. At around eight o'clock in the evening, Wang Duoyu asked Fan Rongqing to help drive her back to the city.

Fortunately, nothing happened on Wangfujing Street last night. It was just a close call. If something had really happened, Fan Rongqing would probably blame himself for a long time.

And Wang Duoyu can forget about going out alone again.

After sending Zhu Ling back to the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, on the way back to Zhongguancun, Wang Duoyu suddenly asked, "Old Fan, do you have any connections in Beijing? Can you help me get a bicycle ticket?"

"You want to buy a bicycle, college student? What kind of bicycle would you buy in Beijing?"

Fan Rongqing was surprised. Wang Duoyu shook his head and said, "I bought it, yes, but I bought it as a gift."

"Who is it for? The lesbian from earlier? Hiss, you want to marry her?"

Although Wang Duoyu and Zhu Ling seem to be a couple, they are probably still dating and have not finalized their relationship yet.

Some people may not be willing to buy a bicycle even for their own wives, let alone for their girlfriends.

"It's still early days for marriage, but she gave me a watch yesterday, so I gave her a bicycle in return. That's reasonable, right?"

After hearing what Wang Duoyu said, Fan Rongqing immediately became withdrawn.

Comparing people to each other makes people angry!
Zhu Ling's temperament, appearance and figure are all top-notch, and even one in a million is not enough to describe her as one in a million. How could such a lesbian actually take the initiative to give Wang Duoyu a gift?
This is really unreasonable.

Despite being autistic, Fan Rongqing still shook his head and said, "I'm not familiar with the capital, so I'm afraid I can't help."

Wang Duoyu nodded and said, "It's okay. I'll ask the professors at the Institute of Mathematics tomorrow. They should be able to help."

The next day, Wang Duoyu arrived at the Institute of Mathematics early in the morning and found Tao Fangqi to ask him about bicycle tickets or industrial coupons.

As a result, the latter heard it and immediately said:
"That's easy. I'll give you a call. By the way, do you want a 28, 26, or 24?"

Men's bicycles are all 28, while women's bicycles are either 24 or 26, which are available for both men and women.

In the 1950s, almost all bicycles with a 26-inch wheelbase were 28-inch bicycles. From the mid-to-late 1960s, 24-inch and 26-inch bicycles gradually became available.

"A 26-inch women's bicycle. I'm giving it as a gift."

"No problem, wait for me for a moment."

Tao Fangqi happily picked up the phone on the desk and made a call immediately.

To be honest, Wang Duoyu was really surprised that the other party got things done so quickly.

After the other party hung up the phone, Wang Duoyu took out two hundred and twenty yuan from his pocket and pushed it in front of Tao Fangqi:

"Professor Tao, this is the money for the bicycle. Please keep it."

"You can take it back." Tao Fangqi refused with a smile. "This is a benefit that the Institute of Mathematics gives to every researcher. If you didn't work in Beijing, I would have arranged it for you in August."

Wang Duoyu didn't quite believe what he said and looked at him suspiciously: "Professor Tao, you are not paying for it yourself, are you? This is definitely not possible. I have money, you don't need to pay, and I'm giving it to someone else."

"I'm not kidding, it's just a quota. Bicycles are everywhere on the streets these days, they're really worthless."

If Wang Duoyu didn’t even have a bicycle yet, he would have almost believed the other party’s lies.

Even in the early 1980s, it was impossible for everyone to have a bicycle, right?

There are indeed a lot of bicycles in Beijing, especially during rush hour, but not as many as in the 1980s.

Because after the reform and opening up was confirmed at the end of this year, there will be more than 1,100 large and medium-sized projects under construction by next year, and more than 1,100 new projects were added in 1980.

Therefore, it was only after the reform and opening up, when the number of factories increased, the number of workers increased, and everyone had money, that bicycles began to flood the market.

Tao Fangqi explained that it was a benefit given to the Institute of Mathematics after the National Science Conference in March.

Seeing that the other party was so sincere, Wang Duoyu accepted it with some doubts.

At the morning seminar, after listening to Xia Peisu’s sharing, Wang Duoyu asked several questions in succession.

Wang Duoyu benefited greatly from his communication with Xia Peisu, but the latter also took a fancy to him and offered him an invitation:
"Researcher Wang, I'm planning a project soon. Would you like to join me?"

Talent is hard to come by, especially in the field of computer science. Xia Peisu is very happy to train young people, especially mathematical geniuses like Wang Duoyu.

Before Wang Duoyu could speak, Tao Fangqi, who had been sitting there, immediately raised an objection:
"Professor Xia, you shouldn't be so aggressive in snatching people away. He's from my lab and he still has a lot of research projects to complete. He won't be participating in your project."

Wang Duoyu was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. He didn't need to participate in the research project of the Institute of Mathematics. Besides, he had already completed a paper on the Poincare conjecture and could just hand it in.

Moreover, he had already said at that time that he preferred the research of applied mathematics and computational mathematics. Now that Xia Peisu, the mother of Chinese computers, had taken the initiative to invite him, how could he not accept it?

"Professor Tao, please stop talking. I've already submitted my research paper on pure theoretical mathematics, but I haven't participated in any research projects related to computational mathematics yet."

Hearing Wang Duoyu say this, Xia Peisu was immediately delighted. After all, a math genius like him had a bright future, and it would be even better if he could participate in her project. Tao Fangqi suddenly felt extremely resentful and asked a question that made Wang Duoyu a little depressed: "Duoyu, don't you want to come to Beijing? If you participate in this project, you must stay in Beijing for a long time."

By the time we had lunch, the 26-inch bicycle had already been delivered to the Institute of Mathematics.

To be honest, Wang Duoyu was surprised that the matter was resolved so quickly.

In order to deliver this gift, after get off work in the afternoon, Wang Duoyu asked Fan Rongqing to drive to Chongwenmen Street and find someone to help prepare a bouquet of flowers.

The matching of the bouquet is very important. Wang Duoyu doesn’t quite understand it, but he just matches it according to his experience of pursuing girls in his previous life.

A bouquet of flowers and a bicycle brought Zhu Ling's smile to the whole night.

The two-day seminar was almost over, but Wang Duoyu did not return to Ice City because he still needed to visit the Computer Research Institute.

The Institute of Computing Technology is also in Zhongguancun. The research building was completed in 1958. It has been 20 years now and it is a bit old.

"This is our Computational Mathematics Theory Research Laboratory. Their team primarily researches advanced numerical calculation methods. Their research and application areas include viscous and inviscid high-speed flows, internal and external flow fields, blast waves, and low-speed flows. Mr. Wang, if you're interested, you might want to stay here for a while."

Xia Peisu personally led Wang Duoyu and took the initiative to introduce everything about the Institute of Computing Technology.

During the introduction, he also did not forget to recommend that he stay in Beijing.

"This one over here is the 109B large-scale general-purpose transistor computer we developed in 111. Next to it is the general-purpose computer we developed in ."

"The next one is the 013 computer we developed two years ago, which has been delivered to the Ninth Institute of the Second Ministry of Machine Building for use."

"And these are the scientific research results of our Institute of Computing Technology over the past 19 years."

Following the direction of Xia Peisu's finger, Wang Duoyu was shocked. The Institute of Computing Technology was indeed very powerful. From its establishment in 1959 to now, it has been a total of 19 years. Under the leadership of Director Yan Peilin, it has come to where it is today step by step.

Displayed in front of Wang Duoyu were various models of memory cores and core memories, floating head drums, different types of disk drives, broadband tape drives, wide-line printers, electrostatic printers, consoles, displays, paper tape photoelectric input machines, various types of DC regulated power supplies, broadband oscilloscopes, and so on.

These are all high-tech products and are one of the scientific research achievements of the Institute of Computing Technology over the past 19 years.

"Professor Xia, your Institute of Computing Technology has quite a lot of people. Did you recruit a lot of graduate students this year?"

After just a quick walk around, Wang Duoyu discovered that there were indeed quite a few people in the office, especially young people around his age. There were really quite a few of them.

"Yes, we resumed enrollment last year. This summer, we admitted a total of 64 master's students. However, we have already finalized the first batch of students going abroad, and 23 of them will be studying for degrees at universities or research institutes abroad."

After hearing what Xia Peisu said, Wang Duoyu nodded, thinking that the current social atmosphere has changed greatly.

Perhaps other parts of the country are still the same as before, but Beijing is the center and education is the vanguard, with first-mover advantage, so many changes have already started in education.

In fact, it can be seen from the National Science Conference in March that things are very different now.

The reason why Wang Duoyu wanted to participate in the high-speed array processor project organized and led by Xia Peisu was not because he had to participate, but because the timing was right.

But at other times, Wang Duoyu would definitely work on his own projects. Why would he need to participate in other professors' projects and slowly accumulate qualifications?
The current atmosphere in the country has indeed changed a lot because of the National Science Conference in March, but complex interpersonal relationships and academic factional struggles are still inevitable.

Take Professor Zhou Peiyuan as an example. He has served as vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since March this year, became the president of Peking University in June, and in October he led a delegation to San Francisco to visit Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley and other universities.

However, in May 1980, he had to "retire at the peak of his career".

It was only because the complicated factional relationships overwhelmed him because he was the president of Peking University.

In his previous life, Wang Duoyu studied for a doctorate at Peking University and later became a professor there. He also experienced times of physical and mental exhaustion, which gave him a better understanding of Peking University's history.

The teacher once said that Peking University is a small temple with many evil spirits and shallow water with many turtles. This has always been true.

Precisely because it is the top-ranked comprehensive university in the country, many people are scrambling to go to this place.

Having experienced this in his previous life, Wang Duoyu didn't want to spend time dealing with those complicated interpersonal relationships in this life instead of settling down to work on his own career.

Before he became strong enough, he could only participate in Professor Xia Peisu's project. After returning to Harbin Institute of Technology, he would also participate in Professor Dai Wenyue's dual-axis gyroscope test bench project.

This is the helplessness of reality.

"Student Wang, if you come to our Institute of Computing Technology, I don't need you to apply for my graduate program. You just need to stay for a full year and work on projects with me. Then I'll give you a master's degree. How about that?"

Xia Peisu brought up this matter with a smile. Who asked Wang Duoyu to ask about it?

"Professor Xia, I'm still an undergraduate student. I haven't even graduated yet. It's too early for me to get a master's degree."

Wang Duoyu used this as an excuse to reject the other party's proposal.

A master's degree was not a problem for him at all. If he had been willing to let go, he would have already boarded the Institute of Mathematics.

Everything is just beginning now. Wang Duoyu knows better what path to take in the future. Instead of fighting tooth and nail now, it is better to hide behind the big guys and "wave flags and cheer". After a year or two, when the atmosphere is completely relaxed, he can slowly fight for it.

By that time, everything will go much smoother.

After visiting the Institute of Computing Technology, Wang Duoyu made a request: Can he apply for a Type 111 general-purpose computer?
"Student Wang, if you come to our Institute of Computing Technology, you can choose any of the 111 general-purpose computers, including the 013 computers, or even the most advanced computers in our entire institute."

Upon hearing this, Xia Peisu shook his head and said:
"But if you don't want to come and you want to take it back to Harbin Institute of Technology, then I can't make the decision for you."

Hearing this, Wang Duoyu suddenly felt a toothache. What a guy! He just came to visit the Institute of Computing Technology, but they were inviting him to the Institute of Computing Technology from the beginning to the end.

This is an open conspiracy.

Unfortunately, the capital is too complicated. The relationships in Ice City are simpler and purer.

Sooner or later, Harbin Institute of Technology will be able to get any computer it wants.

It is better to rely on yourself than on others!
(End of this chapter)