I was a top student in America.

Chapter 113 Let Me Take a Look (Please Subscribe)

As we entered late August, Chicago still retained the humidity and heat of late summer.

After days of hard work, the project team at the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago finally completed the main parameter scan of the verification branch using the candidate local boundary weights derived by Li Ao.

Subsequently, they ran multiple sets of grid scales and strong boundary coupling parameters on the computing cluster of the James Frank Institute and obtained the final data.

at this time.

In the meeting room, Arjun reported the verification results to Professor Rudy with an excited tone: "Professor, according to the verification branch we built, the batch scan results show that the Rboundary/Ebulk average of the strongly bounded coupling group has stabilized at around 0.62. The worst parameter group, which was originally 1.37, has been reduced to between 0.88 and 0.89 after rerun, and the worst value at all grid scales has not exceeded 0.94."

He paused, then summarized with slight excitement: "In other words, the candidate local boundary weights derived by Leo have basically solved the problem of abnormal boundary layer outputs dragging down the lower bound estimation in this batch of tests!"

As she reported, Ah-Qiong's admiration for Li Ao deepened even further.

If his initial enthusiasm for Li Ao was partly due to Professor Ludi's prior instructions, it was now entirely from the heart.

In the scientific research community, ability and talent are always the best passports.

The problem of lower bound relaxation, which had been troubling everyone for many days, was not completely solved even by Amber, a senior student from the Department of Mathematics who came to help. However, when it came to Li Ao, he came up with a new weight in just a few days. This progress was truly amazing.

"This figure is about 0.2 lower than the 1.15 safety line we set for the interim report. Now we are much more confident." Carter, who is usually taciturn, couldn't help but chime in.

After hearing this, Rudy secretly rejoiced that he had met Li Ao at the numerical analysis seminar and personally went to the mathematics department to ask for his services; otherwise, the project would never have progressed so smoothly.

He praised you lavishly: "Well done! No wonder Professor Jason keeps saying he wants to bring you to the University of Chicago."

"You were able to get the boundary weights to a reportable state in just a few days; I'm even thinking of recruiting you into my research group."

"If Professor Jason heard you say that, he'd probably come knocking on your door himself to demand your return," Amber joked with a laugh.

Faced with the praise, Li Ao simply smiled modestly, not taking all the credit: "Thank you, Professor Rudy, but I only completed the last step. Without Amber's preliminary derivation and organization, Arjun's clear explanation of the code parameters, and Carter and Nicole's compilation of the abnormal outputs, I alone, even with several times more time, would not have been able to find this candidate weight."

"In the end, I just benefited from everyone's early data structure."

"You can't say that, Leo, your contribution is definitely the greatest." Ah-Qiong smiled and patted Li Ao on the shoulder.

Isabella looked at Li Ao and sincerely agreed, "Leo, you are indeed very capable."

These past few days, while we've been working hard to rerun and verify the new weights, everyone has been a little apprehensive.

After all, talent is one thing, but scientific research ultimately relies on data.

All assumptions are just theoretical until the experimental results are available.

The project team had worked so hard for so long, and they were about to give a progress report to the U.S. Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory. No one wanted to lose in the team competition and thus lose subsequent funding and support.

This project is far more significant to them than any ordinary research topic.

Fortunately, today's run-through went very well, successfully supporting the stability assessment required for the report.

This would greatly increase the likelihood that the project would continue to receive funding from the Department of Energy.

Li Ao politely thanked Isabella.

Once everyone had calmed down a bit, Rudy continued, "Based on what I understand so far, the Caltech team is using a continuous approximation with a global boundary penalty term. Their computational cost is indeed lower, and parameter scanning is easier. However, with strong boundary coupling and mesh refinement, the stability of their lower bound constant is currently not as good as our local weighting approach. So we have a very good chance of winning this time."

"If this report goes smoothly, the Department of Energy will definitely allocate additional computing resources and special funding."

He paused, then announced the next steps: "Also, once all the relevant data verification is complete, we plan to submit a paper to Physical Review Letters. As for the part on local boundary weights, Leo, you and Amber can discuss how to write it."

After hearing Professor Rudy's arrangements, everyone was greatly encouraged and couldn't wait to take their own solutions to Argonne National Laboratory for a formal exchange with the researchers.

Li Ao was also quite happy, as it meant he had another opportunity to participate in an interdisciplinary paper.

Physical Review Letters, as the flagship journal of the American Physical Society and a globally recognized top journal in the physics community, far surpasses the authority and reputation of the previous Journal of Applied Mathematics Letters in the world.

Before the start of 12th grade, I already had two papers in my hands.

If the project goes smoothly, I might be able to add another paper, making me as prolific as David, who is in his third year of doctoral studies.

Moreover, these outputs were somewhat of a natural outcome, not something he deliberately forced.

It just goes to show that when someone is truly outstanding, all sorts of honors come knocking on their door even when they're just sitting at home.

However, Li Ao only kept this somewhat Versailles-esque idea to himself.

To avoid upsetting others, he maintained a calm demeanor.

While everyone was packing up their materials, Rudy remembered something and turned to Li Ao, saying, "Leo, the boundary weights part is basically a phase-one project. You don't need to come here every day anymore, to avoid the hassle. You can come with us next week when the report at Argonne National Laboratory starts."

"Okay, Professor Rudy," Li Ao nodded in agreement.

Argonne National Laboratory is located in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, not far away.

But being able to participate in the interim report of an official project as a high school student alongside a professor's team was indeed a rare experience for him.

After temporarily concluding the physics project, there are still a few days left before Wyndham High School officially starts.

Li Ao's schedule remained regular. Apart from going to the training hall to practice with the school team, he spent most of his time in the University of Chicago's Department of Mathematics office or library, looking up literature and catching up on the learning progress he had missed in the past few days.

Because Benjamin was also staying in a short-term rental near Hyde Park recently, Li Ao would almost always run into Professor Jensen in his office whenever he went there.

Most of the time, Benjamin would bring over a thick stack of textbooks, and the two of them would bury themselves in their studies.

In some ways, the learning atmosphere was no different from that at the math competition summer camp, except that the content they studied was no longer elementary mathematics for high school competitions.

That morning, Li Ao brought his laptop to the office in the Eckhart Building.

After plugging in the power, he opened the first draft of the paper sent by Arjun, preparing to write the part on local boundary weights that he was responsible for first—

Complete this so that it can be submitted to Professor Rudy for revision and sent to Physical Review Letters as soon as possible.

Benjamin, who was next to him, was engrossed in doing his exercises, occasionally frowning in deep thought.

Suddenly, Benjamin leaned back in his chair, threw his pen on the table, stared at the ceiling for a while with a look of utter despair, and finally couldn't help but complain: "This ordinary differential equation problem is ridiculously difficult. It's probably a variation of a problem that the professor modified from a graduate course."

"The conditions involve three things at the same time: the fundamental matrix, non-homogeneous terms, and initial value perturbation. I really don't have a clear idea yet."

Benjamin complained helplessly, "Advanced mathematics and elementary mathematics have completely different ways of thinking. I've been studying ordinary differential equations for over a week, and I've only gotten this much. I could do all the example problems before, but when I encounter these kinds of comprehensive problems, I'm still completely clueless."

"It seems my foundation is still not solid enough."

Hearing this, Li Ao removed his hands from the keyboard, hesitated slightly, and tentatively asked, "Um—would you like me to take a look?"