I was a top student in America.

Chapter 102 Can a High School Student Do It? (Fifth Update, Please Subscribe)

Professor Jensen walked to his desk, bent down, and flipped through a few bound pages of printed manuscript.

"David's foundation is actually pretty good," he said, speaking up for his student. "He's just a bit rough around the edges when it comes to research, but he can be trained in two more years."

He walked back with the manuscript and sat down on the sofa again.

Professor Rudy had no time to worry about other students' futures; his mind was solely focused on filling vacancies: "Alright, forget about that kid for now. Who are you actually planning to recommend?"

"At your age, don't be so quick-tempered, or you might suffer a stroke."

Instead of announcing his name, Jason handed him the printed copy, saying, "Take a look at this newsletter first."

"Still keeping me in suspense—" Professor Rudy muttered, but his hands didn't stop moving as he took the few pages of paper directly.

These are just a few pages of a document printed from the Journal of Applied Mathematics Letters; they are very short.

Rudy glanced down at the headline.

"Estimation Method of Discrete Average of Two-Dimensional Weighted Convex Functions"

He silently repeated it to himself, his brows furrowing slightly.

He must have caught some relevant keywords in the abstract, because he quickly quieted down and fixed his gaze on the paper.

Jason, sitting nearby, spoke up at the opportune moment: "This short paper mentions a new discrete average estimation method. I'm thinking that you might be able to draw on this for your two-dimensional lattice model's energy lower bound problem; it should be helpful for your current project."

When Li Ao's paper was accepted recently, Jason immediately downloaded it online and read it.

Since he had already included this kid in his list of students, even if it was a project supervised by Professor Philip, he still had to personally oversee it.

Professors in academia compete on the number of publications and research achievements when they are young. But as they get older and their mental and physical strength can no longer keep up, their students become the bargaining chips in their private competition.

Li Ao is still a high school student, yet he has achieved such a high level of results. How could he not find an opportunity to show off?

"This is interesting. Which PhD student in your group came up with it?"

Professor Rudy skimmed through the abstract, and finally his eyes lit up with interest.

The University of Chicago's condensed matter physics has consistently ranked among the top in the United States, with a particular emphasis on fundamental theory.

Estimating low-energy states in two-dimensional lattice materials has become one of the hottest topics in condensed matter theory in the past two years.

Professor Ludi's group is currently attempting to use finite difference models and convex potential energy estimation to find a stability lower bound for a certain type of lattice vibration model.

Determining this lower bound will help prove the stability of the numerical scheme, thereby controlling energy drift and boundary errors.

Although this project is not large, it is registered with both the DOE (Department of Energy) and Argonne National Laboratory.

Although the project has made progress, unfortunately, the discrete average error in their model has not been properly handled, and they are still far from a final breakthrough.

Unfortunately, a team at Caltech was also working on a similar project, so the two sides were openly competing.

In academia, it's always a winner-takes-all world; whoever produces results first gets to publish and claim their spot.

Rudy has been so worried lately that he's lost a lot of hair. His project is stuck, and he doesn't have enough mathematical tools, so he has to come to the math department to "borrow brains" from all over the place.

"He's not a doctoral student, he's a high school student I'm planning to recruit recently," Jason shook his head and told the truth.

"High school student?!"

Professor Rudy's hand holding the paper trembled, and his voice rose eight octaves.

Unconvinced, he quickly scanned the core derivation section of the paper again.

Although theoretical physicists do not conduct pure mathematical research, their mathematical foundation is absolutely solid.

This report is packed with valuable information; it's not the kind of filler article that relies on the supervisor's name to pad the content. In fact, some of the conclusions can indeed be applied to their projects.

He originally thought that the person who could produce this item must be one of Jason's elite doctors, and that it would be immediately useful once he asked to borrow it.

Who knew it was a high school student who hadn't even gone to college yet?

This is a bit awkward.

"Looks like you actually unearthed a gem while you were on your way to become the IMO national team coach."

Professor Rudy put the printed manuscript back on the coffee table, looked up at Jason, and asked, "What, are you planning to recruit him into your research group ahead of schedule?"

Rudy has been incredibly busy lately, juggling summer semester classes and keeping track of his doctoral students' progress, so he naturally doesn't have time to pay attention to high school math competitions.

So even though Li Ao was quite popular in the news recently, he had never actually heard of the name.

However, as a pragmatic physicist, he did not view the author with prejudice because of his age.

An expert's work speaks for itself; the quality of this paper speaks for itself, and he highly approves of it.

"I do have that thought," Jason nodded frankly, "but I'm not the only one eyeing this kid right now; the guys from Princeton and UIUC are keeping an eye on him too."

"So, how about we let him try working for you?"

"Being able to independently solve the discrete average problem of convex functions at the high school level shows an unparalleled mathematical talent."

Professor Rudy tapped his fingers lightly on the sofa armrest, pondered for a moment, and said, "But this condensed matter physics model involves a lot of numerical calculations and code writing, all of which require systematic training."

"A high school student, I reckon he's never even been exposed to this before."

He sighed and still gave a rational assessment: "Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. Even if we bring him over, I'm afraid he won't be able to solve our current urgent problem."

After all, this is a hardcore interdisciplinary project that spans several fields, including mathematics, physics, and computer science.

Li Ao is indeed very talented in mathematics, but he has not yet received systematic training in university education.

Logically speaking, a high school student could not possibly understand condensed matter physics, let alone be able to use those complex computational simulation tools.

If you were to force someone into the group, just getting them to work with the other PhD students on the data would be extremely difficult.

After listening to his old friend's concerns, Jason thought about it carefully and had to admit that his friend's words made sense.

He had only mentioned it casually because he thought the research topic was relevant and he wanted to give newcomers some experience. It was only after Rudy reminded him that he realized a very basic fact.

Ultimately, Li Ao was just a high school student who had not received systematic scientific research training.

It's just that this kid's mathematical talent is so dazzling that people around him unconsciously overlook his real age.

Having figured this out, Jason stopped insisting.

He leaned back in his chair, considered for a moment, and then offered a new candidate: "Never mind, the child is too young and inexperienced, so it's not suitable. Let Amber go and help you then."

Amber is another senior doctoral student under Professor Jensen, whose main research area is numerical computation and algorithm optimization.

Professor Rudy was clearly no stranger to Amber.

Upon hearing the name, his slightly furrowed brows immediately relaxed.

"Amber can spare some time to help? That would be perfect."

Having achieved his goal, Professor Rudy stood up decisively, shook hands with his old friend, and without saying a word, turned around and went back to continue working on the project.