Top Student: Wasteland Technology Invasion

"Old Tang, your idea is good, but the difficulty level of this exam paper is too wide. Even our doctoral students might not be able to answer it well within a certain time. Is it really appropriate to let these three freshmen answer it?" a professor reminded.

Professor Mao laughed and said, "I think Old Tang's idea is brilliant. Have you never taught those three before? Don't you know how much pressure they're under? We need to find a way to test their potential, especially Xiao Xie and Xiao Lin, who are true mathematical geniuses with amazing mathematical intuition. This set of problems with such a wide range shouldn't be too difficult for them. I agree!"

"I agree!"

"It's funny to think about a few old guys teaming up to give three kids a set of questions."

The professors all agreed, and Tang Beichen nodded. "Since everyone has no objections, let's start compiling the questions now, beginning with the first one."

"I suggest the first question can be concise in form, but it should start at a high level. How about a question related to mathematical analysis, real analysis, and Lebesgue integral theory...?"

Professor Mao was the first to present the design for the first question.

"I think it's a good idea."

"I think it's fine too."

After reviewing the question and discussing it at length, Professor Tang wrote it down in his notebook. "Then let's move on to the second question for now."

Time passed by, and the discussion in the conference room went past lunchtime. Tang Beichen had written down several difficult math problems in his notebook.

A professor chuckled and reminded him, "The questions are fine, but Lao Tang, Xiao Xie is your student. You wouldn't secretly go easy on him, would you?"

Tang Beichen put on a stern face, feigning seriousness, "What kind of talk is that? If I were to leak the questions to him, wouldn't I lose face? Besides, Xiao Xie doesn't need me to leak the questions; he's quite capable himself. As for those two little rascals, Lin Chuan and Ruan Sheng, we mustn't let them down."

The professors all smiled and shook their heads.

This time, the questions were created by several professors from the School of Mathematical Sciences. They were more difficult and complex than the entrance exam for the Qiushi Class. Not to mention undergraduates, even graduate students might not be able to pass.

Midterm exams are coming, this is going to be interesting.

……

It was almost the end of September.

The National Day holiday is just around the corner.

Lin Chuan returned from the wasteland and sat in the library until 10 p.m. before going back to his dormitory.

He studied from early morning to late at night during this period, and the results were excellent.

After those two papers, he wrote one in mathematics and one in computer science.

However, he was in no hurry to publish it because of the publication fee.

In addition, there are his levels in mathematics and computer science.

Mathematics: Level 2 (379/400)

Informatics: Level 1 (168/200)

After traveling through the wasteland world two or three more times, Lin Chuan is confident that he can raise his mathematics to level 3 and his informatics to level 2.

Lin Chuan was quite looking forward to seeing how the system would change after these two disciplines were upgraded.

Unfortunately, he didn't have enough learning coins. He spent 80 coins a day, and even though Lin Chuan uploaded two newly written but unpublished papers to arXiv and exchanged them for 200 learning coins, it still wasn't enough.

Therefore, during this National Day holiday, he plans to spend more time in the real world and grind more learning coins. He will only occasionally visit the wasteland world to see if the woman and her sister have returned.

If the woman and her sister don't return by October 4th, Lin Chuan will take the 180 or so learning coins he's newly acquired in the real world, leave the safe house, and explore to find a suitable place to use as a second anchor point.

After quickly making his future plans, Lin Chuan stepped into the dormitory. Sun Ang sat up from his bed and said cheerfully, "Chuan Chuan is back! Our whole dormitory is ready! Brothers, the National Day holiday is coming soon. Seven days! What are your plans? Lin Lin, you're from Hangzhou, what do you say?"

For freshmen, the National Day holiday is the first vacation after the start of the semester, and it is very important.

Team building and social gatherings—there are so many things we can do.

Moreover, apart from Zhu Lin, who is from Hangzhou, the other three students in dormitory 303 are from other places and haven't yet explored many areas of Hangzhou.

At the beginning of the semester, everyone was busy with military training and joining student council and clubs, so their study time was very tight. Now that they have such a long holiday, they naturally want to eat and shop around in Hangzhou and enjoy themselves.

"Old Sun, I was really planning to take everyone on a nice trip to Hangzhou, but circumstances don't allow it." Zhu Lin put down his copy of "Mathematical Analysis, Volume 1," sighed, and continued, "Midterm exams come right after the National Day holiday. Look at the intensity of our department's studies right now, and how hard everyone's working. If we guys go crazy and have fun for a few days during the holiday, even if we don't fail, our GPAs won't be good. That will hold us back when we're looking for professors for projects or applying for graduate school!"

Hearing this, Sun Ang slapped his forehead. "Damn it, I forgot about the midterm exams. Chuan Chuan, what about you?"

Lin Chuan looked at Sun Ang and quietly shook his head. "I'm running low on living expenses lately. Please allow me some time. I'll stay at the library for the National Day holiday."

He wasn't lying to his roommate.

He's now just waiting for the school scholarship to come through; according to the information he found out before, it should be available around October 1st.

Compared to the paper subsidy that has no idea when it will arrive, and the School of Information Science and Technology project that won't start its first round of testing until mid-next month.

Scholarships are Lin Chuan's most reliable source of income.

"Qiqi, what about you?" Sun Ang peeked at Yuan Qi, who was fiddling with a hand gripper.

"Me? I'm going to train hard for the marathon during the National Day holiday, since the race is in November. Of course, I can't be as good as Lao Lin or Lao Zhu in my studies, but I can't slack off, right? I plan to find some time to read some books."

"What kind of people are you!" Sun Ang exclaimed, covering his face. "You're all so lazy, aren't you? Fine, I'm not going anywhere for the National Day holiday. I'll just stay in my dorm and study."

……

The next morning, Lin Chuan didn't receive the scholarship, but he did receive a call from his advisor, Lu Zhiwei.

"Director Lu."

"Lin Chuan," Professor Lu's voice came through, "Your paper has been published in 'Linear Algebra and Its Applications'!"

Professor Lu's excitement was clearly evident in his voice.

"Linear Algebra and Its Applications" belongs to SCI Q2 and can barely be considered a core mathematics journal, but it is still a long way from being a truly top-tier or prestigious journal.

Lu Zhiwei holds the title of "Leading Talent in Scientific and Technological Innovation" and has won the "Morning Star Mathematics Silver Award." Regardless of his qualifications or academic achievements, it is impossible for him to be surprised by a paper published in a Q2 journal.

But the situation is different now; this is a paper published by a freshman.

Moreover, Lu Zhiwei also knew that Lin Chuan had written the paper in just half a day.

A genius with a pure, sudden flash of inspiration.

Of course, the papers in "Linear Algebra and Its Applications" are also quite valuable.

It should be noted that at the end of 2011, Yueyang University had approximately 8,000 faculty and staff members, including 3,000 professors and associate professors.

This strong teaching and research team supports the status of Yueyang University in the Chinese academic community, but in the entire year of 2011, the team only published 3,900 SCI papers.

Of the 3,900 papers, social sciences and natural sciences accounted for the largest proportion. If all of them were removed, only about 180 papers would be left for mathematics, and many of these are from fringe journals in the third or fourth quartile.

Lin Chuan published an SCI paper right after starting his freshman year, so how could Lu Zhiwei, his advisor, not be excited?