From child prodigy to chief scientist

But hearing Yang Dun say that, Lü Yihang and Ding Mosen cried even harder.

"Sigh... Never mind you guys, I'm going to study now."

Yang Dun also felt somewhat helpless and stopped paying attention to the two little crybabies.

Sitting down next to Xu Xiao, Yang Dun took out a few books from his bag and put them on the table to read.

At this moment, Xu Xiao was studying high school physics.

Xu Xiao had overheard some of their conversation.

To be honest, he felt that Lü Yihang and Ding Mosen's reactions were more normal. It would definitely take some time for such young children to adapt to boarding school for the first time.

Children like myself and Yang Dun who didn't react much are the ones who are not quite normal.

Although curious about Yang Dun, Xu Xiao didn't think too much about it. His priority was to maximize his effective study time.

At that moment, Yang Dun glanced unintentionally in Principal Xu's direction, and then said with some surprise:

"Hey buddy, studying high school physics?"

"Ah, it's not really research, just browsing casually."

Xu Xiao knew that this content was too difficult for them, so he simply gave a brief response.

But Yang Dun's subsequent reaction was something he had never expected.

"What you're looking at is too simple. How about trying something more interesting?"

"High school physics...is it too easy?"

If a college student said this, there wouldn't be any problem.

It is clearly unreasonable for an elementary school student to say that high school physics is too easy.

It's important to know that even among actual high school students, very few would find high school physics easy.

Elementary schools don't offer physics courses at all; at most, students can only gain a basic understanding of some physical phenomena during science classes.

However, after seeing the titles of the books on Yang Dun's desk, Xu Xiao's eyes immediately turned to surprise.

Feynman Lectures on Physics.

Principles of Mathematical Analysis.

Introduction to Astrophysics.

No matter how you look at it, these books are definitely not things an 11-year-old child should be studying.

In comparison, the high school physics that Xu Xiao was studying did indeed seem much inferior.

Seeing that Xu Xiao did not react, Yang Dun blinked a few times, then opened his notebook and quickly drew a simple diagram on it.

"I'll give you a question to see how good you really are at physics."

"Ah... okay."

Xu Xiao took the paper from Yang Dun and examined it carefully.

This image doesn't look too complicated; it only shows a disk and a point mass.

The main condition of the problem is that the disk is initially at rest, then a particle is placed on the disk with a certain initial velocity, and finally they rotate together relative to each other from rest.

The question asks for the mechanical energy lost by the system from the moment it begins to move until it comes to a relative rest.

"A high school physics problem? No... it's not that simple."

This question involves the concept of moment of inertia, which is clearly not knowledge from high school physics.

If Xu Xiao remembers correctly, this is a concept that should only be encountered in university physics.

"It's a university-level physics problem... This kid is really something else."

Being able to come up with a university-level physics problem on the spot is even more difficult than solving problems.

From this perspective, Yang Dun's belief that high school physics is simple is not just empty talk.

After reading through all the conditions of the question, Xu Xiao seemed to be having some trouble.

With his current skill level, he doesn't have complete confidence in solving university-level physics problems.

But to give up like this would be too undignified.

After thinking for a moment, Xu Xiao pointed to the books on Yang Dun's desk.

"Could I borrow these materials for reference?"

Solving this problem requires knowledge of the angular momentum theorem and calculus, but Xu Xiao had long forgotten these concepts.

However, Xu Xiao felt that if he could review this knowledge, he still had a chance to solve the problem.

"No problem, you can read any of these books."

This question is not an example question in the book, and Yang Dun is not worried that Xu Xiao can find the original question in it.

For someone who has never been exposed to this knowledge, being able to solve the problems just by looking at some materials is definitely quite impressive.

After receiving Yang Dun's permission, Xu Xiao immediately picked up the books and began to read them.

As a science and engineering college student in his previous life, Xu Xiao still had some impression of much of the knowledge mentioned above.

After finding the knowledge points she needed, Xu Xiao picked up her pen and began to answer the questions.

Meanwhile, the commotion caused by Xu Xiao and Yang Dun had already attracted the attention of Lü Yihang and Ding Mosen.

After crying for a while, they both lost their will to cry and gathered around to look at the questions Yang Dun had given Xu Xiao.

"This... seems to be a physics problem?"

"This looks really difficult. I've never seen a question like this before."

Lü Yihang and Ding Mosen had already been exposed to junior high school physics knowledge, but the most difficult problems they did were only about buoyancy and pulley systems.

When faced with such extremely advanced questions, they naturally couldn't find any way to solve them.

Meanwhile, Xu Xiao had already begun the work of building the model.

"Let the angular velocity of the disk at time t be ω(t), and the linear velocity of the particle be v(t)..."

The subsequent differential equations posed a considerable challenge to Xu Xiao; the last time he tackled such problems was back in his freshman year of college when he studied advanced mathematics.

However, by referring to the information in Yang Dun's book, Xu Xiao still managed to solve the differential equation, albeit with some difficulty.

Seeing that Xu Xiao had done the problem to this extent, Yang Dun raised his eyebrows, quite surprised.

The ability to solve differential equations simply by referring to the knowledge in the book is indeed very rare.

"Next, by listing the conditions for achieving relative rest, we can calculate the mechanical energy loss..."

It took Xu Xiao half an hour to finally solve the problem.

This speed is certainly not fast, but given that he was learning on the spot, it was barely satisfactory for Xu Xiao.

"It's done. Check if it's correct."

Yang Dun took the draft paper from Xu Xiao and began to examine it from the beginning.

"Hmm... the solution is quite standard, and the result is fine."

Seeing that Yang Dun gave an affirmative response, Xu Xiao breathed a sigh of relief.

In any case, he didn't lose face in front of these children.

Before Xu Xiao could recover, Yang Dun's words poured cold water on him.

"The problem-solving approach was a bit too clumsy. If we used the conservation of angular momentum and the work-energy theorem, we could have solved it much faster."

As he spoke, Yang Dun picked up a pen and began writing directly on the blank space of the draft paper.