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

Chapter 72: Achieving the wish, a small project on aircraft elastic control calculation

I spent the whole day with Zhu Ling yesterday. Except for an accidental encounter with Chen Qingwan that made Wang Duoyu a little depressed, I was in a very happy mood the rest of the time.

Especially his relationship with Zhu Ling progressed by leaps and bounds. Although he almost scared her, seeing her pretty face blushing, Wang Duoyu was very happy and wanted to tease her.

She had to go to work today, so Wang Duoyu went to the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since there was still no news from Lin Dehong and Lu Yangui, he could only do his own thing first.

In the office, Tao Fangqi warmly welcomed Wang Duoyu's arrival, but unfortunately, Hua Luogeng was not free today as he needed to attend a meeting and would probably not be back until the afternoon.

Of course, Tao Fangqi has also received a reply from his teacher, allowing Wang Duoyu to become the first and currently only part-time intern researcher at the Institute of Mathematics.

"Well, Mr. Wang, my teacher agreed to your proposal for a part-time internship. However, he hopes you can come to Beijing more often to attend our Institute of Mathematics' exchange meetings, which we hold every six months."

"Our mathematics program has three main research areas: basic mathematics, applied mathematics, and computational mathematics. Based on your situation, my professor recommends that you attend more of our basic mathematics seminars. We currently have seminars on linear algebra and group theory, partial differential equations, introduction to number theory and the Goldbach conjecture, functional analysis, topology, Fourier integrals, and multi-complex functions."

"Also, you can attend Professor Wu Xinmou's workshop on partial differential equations. This workshop is specifically geared towards those with a master's degree or higher."

When talking about these, Tao Fangqi's face suddenly lit up, but Wang Duoyu just smiled and didn't look very excited.

Since its establishment in the 1950s, the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been very short of talent. For example, in 1953, there were only 32 people in the entire mathematics department, of which only five were full-time researchers, namely Hua Luogeng, Min Naida, Wu Xinmou, Zhang Sucheng and Wu Wenjun.

At that time, there were five associate researchers, six assistant researchers, eleven trainee researchers, and five jointly appointed researchers, namely Su Buqing, Chen Jiangong, Duan Xuefu, Hu Shihua and Zhang Zongyu.

However, jointly appointed researchers generally do not stay in the Institute of Mathematics because their respective identities are different. For example, Su Buqing is the president and director of the Department of Mathematics at Fudan University, and Duan Xuefu is the director of the Department of Mathematics at Peking University.

Wang Duoyu is now almost following the path of joint employment, but there are obvious differences.

"Professor Tao, I'm more interested in applied mathematics and computational mathematics. I wonder when the seminars in these two areas usually start?"

After Tao Fangqi finished speaking, Wang Duoyu asked curiously.

Research in basic mathematics is actually research at the level of pure mathematical theory. He is not very interested in this because it is equivalent to sitting and talking, which is really boring.

It's okay to participate occasionally, there's no need to participate too much, and Wang Duoyu doesn't think he has plenty of time.

The academic divisions between the three major research areas aren't so clear-cut. Last year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences officially established the Computational Mathematics Center, an independent research institute for computational mathematics. Feng Kang, the thin, elderly man I met at the Institute of Mathematics that day, is its director. In the 1950s, Feng Kang published a lengthy and comprehensive treatise on "Generalized Function Theory," establishing a duality theorem between discrete and continuous functions in generalized functions, with applications to partial differential equations and analytic function theory.

"We will have a related seminar in October this year. If you are free then, you can come to Beijing."

Just as Tao Fangqi finished speaking, a man came into the office. It was Director Guan Zhaozhi, the head of the Control Theory Laboratory. "Old Tao, could you lend me two people? Hey, you have guests over here. Why don't I come over later?"

Guan Zhaozhi walked in hurriedly, his eyes never leaving the documents in his hands. When he noticed the situation in the room, he was stunned for a moment. But as soon as he turned around, Tao Fangqi introduced him enthusiastically.

"Old Guan, you're here just in time. This is the Wang Duoyu I told you about. Mr. Wang, this is..."

Before Tao Fangqi finished his introduction, Guan Zhaozhi had already widened his eyes and looked at Wang Duoyu in amazement. The latter clearly thought that Wang Duoyu was wearing a pair of thick glasses and was very old, so his eyesight should not be very good, but the other party's eyes were extremely sharp and penetrated deep into people's hearts.

After some simple pleasantries, Tao Fangqi asked Guan Zhaozhi about his purpose. The latter said that he had a small project that needed manpower and wanted to borrow two students from Tao Fangqi.

The small project is about the calculation of aircraft elastic control, which is not very difficult. Such a small project is most suitable for guiding master's students. Guan Zhaozhi has already arranged an assistant researcher to lead it, and now he is short of two master's students.

This year, the Institute of Mathematics recruited 24 master's students, three of whom were assigned to Tao Fangqi, so Guan Zhaozhi hoped that the other party could arrange two of them to this small project.

Wang Duoyu next to him suddenly interrupted:
"Professor Guan, Professor Tao, sorry to bother you. I'll be in Beijing for the next two days. I wonder if I could learn more about this small project? I'm very interested in control theory."

This is control theory, which can be used for mathematical applications in control engineering problems such as satellite orbit measurement, aircraft navigation, and missile guidance. This is the role of mathematicians in these major projects.

"Do you also understand functional analysis? How many tools do you know for differential equations? Have you studied theories like harmonic balance?"

Guan Zhaozhi frowned when he heard this. It was not that he did not believe Wang Duoyu, but if he remembered correctly, Tao Fangqi had mentioned this classmate Wang to him, and he also knew that Wang Duoyu was knowledgeable in many different fields.

The word "miscellaneous" already indicates that Wang Duoyu may not have learned very well or deeply. Even though Tao Fangqi strongly recommended him and believed that Wang Duoyu was an extremely talented mathematical genius, Guan Zhaozhi did not want a genius, but an employee who could get the job done.

It is like an assembly line, everyone has his own fixed work to complete. Guan Zhaozhi is responsible for the satellite orbit determination project in the returnable satellite project. One of the small projects is handed over to other people to complete because he is 59 years old this year and is not young anymore.

In the past, Guan Zhaozhi often stayed up all night, and his body was exhausted. He felt that he could die at any time.

(End of this chapter)