I was a top student in America.

Chapter 96 What Special Award? (Fourth Update, Please Subscribe!)

Benjamin opened the PDF and his gaze fell on the paper's title.

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

He then began to read the summary on the screen.

After glancing at the abstract, his first reaction was that it wasn't anything special, and he even felt that the title looked somewhat familiar.

Convex functions and Jensen's inequality are common tools in competitive mathematics, and he had already solved similar problems countless times.

We're all just high school students. If Li Ao can write it, he doesn't believe he can't even understand it.

My initial frustration subsided a little.

He picked up his pen, grabbed a piece of scrap paper, and began to derive the lemma by referring to the one on the screen.

After all, I had worked in Professor Jensen's research group before, and based on my experience, a short paper of this length could be read in ten minutes at most.

But when he actually started writing, he realized that ten minutes was far too optimistic.

The pen tip kept moving across the paper, and the equations on the draft paper grew longer and longer, and became more and more messy.

Benjamin's brow furrowed as he repeatedly hit a wall in his derivation, his train of thought frequently getting stuck.

"wrong."

"How did you skip this step?"

He couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

After finally managing to push a long formula to the end, he looked up and compared it with the proof on the screen, and he froze in his chair.

"I pushed the wrong way? How can this be handled like this?"

Initially, he used the convexity method he was familiar with, trying to separate the two-dimensional weights.

I only realized halfway through that the real key to this paper was not the ordinary Chinson inequality at all.

Instead, Li Ao cleverly combined finite support measurement with grid rounding error.

Benjamin originally thought that as long as he understood the logic, he could follow the proof by recalculating it himself.

As a result, they couldn't keep up at all.

The formula he derived was completely different from the structure in the paper. What's worse, he couldn't even control the error of the boundary terms.

This result is quite hurtful.

But no matter how frustrated he was, he wasn't arrogant enough to question an article that had already been officially accepted by an SCI journal.

"How could there be such a big difference?!"

He lowered his head, checked his derivation again, and then completely lost his temper.

I felt a lot of conflicting emotions, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Like him, Li Ao spent a month and a half at the summer camp.

Not only did he get a perfect score at the IMO, but he also wrote a short paper that was accepted by the Journal of Applied Mathematics.

The feeling of being completely crushed left Benjamin feeling utterly defeated, and he couldn't even find words of self-comfort.

For a fleeting moment, he suddenly understood how those competitors had felt when facing him.

However, now, his position has been switched with someone else's.

But even in his low mood, he still managed to find a way to save face.

"There are two more sections. Maybe I'm just stuck on this one lemma."

He gripped the mouse and dragged it down, then focused on the screen again to continue the deduction.

The second lemma.

The third inference.

All the way up to the final application section.

When the calculation got stuck again on the boundary estimation of the two-dimensional weights, Benjamin simply put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and completely gave up the idea of ​​forcing himself to work through the paper.

After getting lost in the formulas several times, he finally understood why Professor Philip and Professor Carlson valued Li Ao so much.

If you only read the abstract, you might think this article is just a small patch for the discrete average of convex functions.

But once you actually read it, you'll find that it has a complex structure with layers upon layers.

If you don't understand any step in the process, the subsequent proofs will become incomprehensible.

More importantly, this ability to unravel complex models layer by layer is something that ordinary students cannot acquire simply by doing practice problems or reading books.

Thinking about this, Benjamin was completely convinced and understood why Li Ao was able to publish two SC articles in just a month and a half.

I. Thesis.

In terms of applying knowledge to new situations and breaking down complex problems, I am indeed inferior to others.

He sat there stunned for a while, muttering to himself, "So his level is already so much higher than mine. No wonder he dared to spend so much time working on his research during the training camp."

He had previously thought that the two of them were only six points apart in the total score of IM0, which was at most the difference of one big question.

In hindsight, that assessment was far too naive.

Benjamin found it amusing to recall how he had previously worried about Li Ao, thinking that Li Ao's daily skipping of special classes to do research would affect his performance in the competition.

They were clearly handling it with ease.

If you really think about it, he should be glad that Li Ao only participated in the IMO for the first time this year.

If this guy had come to the summer camp for training last year, he might not have even made it into the national team.

The room was quiet when the door was suddenly pushed open.

"Benjamin! Did you see the official announcement?"

Michael, Daniel, and Kevin rushed into the room. Before they could even get their bearings, Michael couldn't wait to shout, "Leo's really famous now! Everyone in the hotel lobby downstairs is talking about him, and even players from various national teams are discussing him online!"

Michael was beaming with excitement.

Benjamin, his thoughts interrupted, turned his head and calmly replied, "I just saw it. A perfect score, first place, even Peter Schulz from the German team is behind him."

To achieve the only perfect score in his first IMO appearance, surpassing even four-time veteran Schultz, is truly a remarkable achievement on the international stage.

Benjamin now feels that it's normal for the discussions outside to be so heated.

Besides, now he himself truly admires Li Ao.

"Then why didn't you react?"

Daniel pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. "The special prize for the third question, the organizers will give out extra bonuses, how come you're so calm? I almost shouted when I heard it downstairs."

Benjamin was stunned: "What special award?"

Benjamin had always thought that Michael and the others were talking about the perfect gold medal and SCI papers.

Michael was also stunned: "Didn't you say you watched it? It was that most insane third problem. Leo not only proved it, but also used the extremum method of discrete mathematics to give a stronger general conclusion. I heard the solution was particularly ingenious and elegant, and the judging panel gave it a special prize at the IMO. Even the organizers and our national team's sponsors wanted to give extra bonuses."

"A stronger conclusion?" Benjamin's expression changed.

He took the exam himself, so he knows all too well how difficult the third question is.

After the exam, he locked himself in his room for a whole day and finally managed to solve the problem. He was planning to ask Professor Jensen if his solution was correct.

Now Michael tells him that Leo not only got the question right on the test, but also took the opportunity to expand on the question itself.

Compared to academic papers published in journals and still somewhat out of reach for high school students, the head-to-head competition was a direct challenge to Benjamin.

This left him momentarily stunned.