From child prodigy to chief scientist

"We assume that in the quaternary generalized Schur inequality, two of the variables are close to being equal, and the other two variables are close to being 0."

"When certain specific constraints are met, the properties at the boundary may change..."

After listening to Xu Xiao's question, the lecture hall fell into a brief silence.

No one really understood what Xu Xiao was saying, let alone judged whether the question was right or wrong.

Even Yuan Jiyang didn't respond immediately. Instead, he paused for a moment, then rested his hand on his chin, as if he was pondering something.

Seeing this scene, the students present all muttered to themselves.

They weren't quite sure whether Xu Xiao's question was so brilliant that Yuan Jiyang couldn't give an immediate answer.

The question was so stupid that Yuan Jiyang was speechless and didn't want to answer.

After a full half minute, Yuan Jiyang finally spoke in response:

"Xu Xiao, that's a very good question."

"I think your guess is correct, but the specific situation still needs further verification."

"We have limited time for the report today. How about this, I'll find some time to revisit it when I get back, and I'll let you know once I have a definite result."

Based on his extensive mathematical experience, Yuan Jiyang knew that this problem could not be solved in a short time, so he gave such an honest reply.

Upon hearing Yuan Jiyang's words, almost everyone wore an expression of disbelief.

A question posed by a high school student actually stumped a professor from Yenching University?

No.

Xu Xiao is not a high school student in the conventional sense. Judging from his actual age, he shouldn't even have graduated from elementary school yet.

It is truly unimaginable that even China's top mathematicians could not immediately provide an answer to a primary school student's math problem.

No one doubts Yuan Jiyang's abilities, so this can only mean that Xu Xiao's thinking is indeed too unbelievable.

Seeing this, Ge Xijie was also somewhat disappointed, never expecting that his limelight would be stolen by a child.

Pan Hong, on the other side, originally wanted to raise her hand to ask a question, but after hearing Xu Xiao's question, she did not choose to raise her hand again.

After the academic presentation ended, the attendees gradually prepared to leave.

As they walked out, Ma Junfeng came to Xu Xiao's side and looked at him with admiration.

"Xu Xiao, you've stumped Professor Yuan; your question is quite insightful."

In the team members' memory, Ma Junfeng rarely praised anyone.

This time, however, Xu Xiao had made an appearance in front of several mathematics experts and hundreds of contestants, which made Ma Junfeng unable to hold back his praise.

Ma Junfeng was also pondering the question raised by Xu Xiao, but he couldn't give a basic judgment on the spot like Yuan Jiyang could.

But he also knew that this was definitely not a problem that could be solved in a short time.

Regardless of whether Xu Xiao's hypothesis is actually correct, the fact that he could immediately raise such a question after listening to the report is enough to demonstrate just how strong his mathematical thinking is.

Even a professor like Ma Junfeng couldn't have reacted so quickly.

"Perhaps my question was too tricky; I didn't expect Professor Yuan to take it so seriously."

Xu Xiao didn't think that one of her random ideas would make Yuan Jiyang go back and spend time thinking about it.

He didn't yet realize that he had reached the point where he could discuss problems with a math professor.

What Xu Xiao didn't know was that, thanks to the effects of the mathematical intuition term, his mathematical thinking ability actually surpassed that of many professional mathematics researchers.

However, his mathematical knowledge is still relatively limited, much like a cultivator who has just entered the world of cultivation but has extremely strong spiritual roots, and has not yet been able to fully utilize his abilities.

After finishing his report, Yuan Jiyang returned to his lounge.

"I never imagined that kids these days are so amazing."

Having been engaged in mathematics education and research for nearly 30 years, this is the first time Yuan Jiyang has encountered a child with such strong mathematical talent.

In his mind, only a very few mathematical geniuses in history have possessed such terrifying mathematical abilities.

What Yuan Jiyang found somewhat regrettable was that, based on Xu Xiao's scores in the league, there was still a considerable distance to go before he could enter the national team and secure a place at Yenching University.

Otherwise, he would have had a good talk with Xu Xiao and tried his best to persuade her to study at Yenching University.

Even if Xu Xiao cannot immediately gain admission to Peking University, Yuan Jiyang will definitely recommend Xu Xiao, this mathematical genius, to Peking University after returning, to see if Peking University can offer some special admission policies.

After thinking about all this, Yuan Jiyang prepared to reconsider the questions Xu Xiao had raised in his report.

He first wrote down the critical configuration that Xu Xiao had hypothesized on a draft paper from memory.

This configuration is beautiful to look at and has a strong mathematical aesthetic. Based on his mathematical intuition, Yuan Jiyang felt that it was highly likely to be true.

However, mathematics is not a subject that relies solely on intuition; rigorous proof is still required to determine whether something is correct.

After thinking carefully for a while, Yuan Jiyang finalized his proof approach.

"This isn't an easy problem to prove... but we should have enough time to prove it before we go back."

Yuan Jiyang has several matters to attend to in Xingcheng and will return to Yanjing in three days.

He will also attend the CMO awards ceremony as a presenter, at which point he should be able to give Xu Xiao a definite answer.

…………

At this moment, in room 303 of the administration building at Xingcheng No. 1 Middle School, several mathematics experts from across the country were engaged in the intensive work of grading papers.

This room was originally a meeting room used by Xingcheng No. 1 Middle School for holding meetings, but because of this CMO, it has been temporarily used as a place to correct exam papers.

They had already finished grading all the papers from the first day of the exam.

On the first day, everyone generally did well, and quite a few people got full marks. Even those who did poorly usually managed to answer at least one or two questions correctly.

However, the overall score rate on the second day's exam plummeted.

Not many students can answer a single question correctly; many can only pick out a few points to score, and some even get no points at all.

The three consecutive challenging questions at the end of the test certainly posed a very serious test for the students.

After grading many test papers, one teacher couldn't help but sigh to himself.

"This student is really good. He only lost three points on the second day's test, and he only missed one point that deserves marks."