From child prodigy to chief scientist

Chapter 96 Do you want to do something interesting?

Seeing that her strategy had worked, Pan Hong said with a mischievous grin, "It's a 6-6 tie!"

Pan Hong suddenly realized that although Xu Xiao had good technique and was very agile, he had obvious disadvantages in height and wingspan.

In this situation, receiving a short ball would be quite difficult.

Sure enough, after trying it out, Pan Hong successfully proved her strategy.

"Okay—so this is how we play?"

Xu Xiao never expected that Pan Hong, who usually seemed like a nice person, would be so "cunning" when playing ball.

I was completely unprepared for that ball. If I had been prepared beforehand and leaned forward a little more, I probably would have been able to catch it.

In the following balls, Pan Hong continued to execute a similar tactic, using her height advantage to play as many short balls as possible.

Although Xu Xiao had made preparations afterward, his "static talent" was simply too poor. Even if he could receive the ball, the quality of his return shot would be much worse.

Moreover, Pan Hong's shots were spin-filled. She was already hitting short balls, and with the added spin, the ball not only didn't go forward after crossing the net, but it even went backward.

This made Xu Xiao feel like he had no way to use his strength, which was even more uncomfortable than when he played ball with his boss back then.

Even though Pan Hong's tactics might not always be successful, he still managed to quickly bring the score to 10-8.

On the point of the game, Pan Hong served another short ball.

This time, Xu Xiao changed his previous strategy and ran directly to the side of the table, taking advantage of the narrowness of the table to finally hit a high-quality return.

This time, Pan Hong was a bit unprepared and failed to catch the ball.

"It's 10 to 9 now."

Having narrowed the gap to just one point, Xu Xiao finally saw a glimmer of hope for victory.

More importantly, he finally found a way to break the short ball problem. As long as he can get to the side to receive the ball, he can make up for the problem of short arms.

On the next ball, Pan Hong served another short ball, and Xu Xiao once again used the same trick, returning the ball from the side of the table.

This time, however, Pan Hong was clearly better prepared. She not only received the ball but also hit a cross-court shot.

At this moment, Xu Xiao had not yet returned to his original position and was unable to receive the ball, so he could only helplessly watch the ball go by.

"I'm giving up, I'm done playing."

Thinking that if Pan Hong played like this in the next two games, he would definitely have no chance of winning, Xu Xiao felt there was no need to continue playing.

Pan Hong also realized that she seemed to have gone a bit too far, and that such behavior of bullying children was inappropriate.

"I'm not playing short balls anymore, play with me a little longer."

Hearing Pan Hong say this, Xu Xiao finally felt pity and picked up his racket to play with Pan Hong again.

It has to be said that exercising feels really good, making people feel very happy both physically and mentally.

Xu Xiao thought that even if she was very busy with her studies and research in the future, she would still need to take time to exercise regularly, since she was still growing.

In two years, when I've grown taller, if Pan Hong dares to serve a short ball again, I'll definitely smash it back and let her taste my power.

"Come on, I'll treat you to lunch in the cafeteria."

Thinking that Xu Xiao was willing to play ball with her and that she had even bullied him with short balls, Pan Hong felt that she should make it up to Xu Xiao.

Xu Xiao didn't stand on ceremony with Pan Hong and went to the cafeteria with her.

After they finished getting their food, Pan Hong even bought Xu Xiao a carton of milk.

Xu Xiao was speechless. Was Pan Hong implying that she was short?

However, his body betrayed him; he finished his milk while eating, because he wanted to grow taller as quickly as possible, as having such a small body made many things inconvenient.

After finishing their meal, Pan Hong didn't leave immediately. Instead, she said to Xu Xiao somewhat mysteriously, "Xu Xiao, do you want to do something interesting?"

Hearing Pan Hong say this, Xu Xiao seemed a little confused.

I'm only 11 years old now, and my voice hasn't even changed yet.

However, he knew things weren't quite as he thought, so he immediately asked, "What exactly are you referring to?"

"Well, it's quite complicated to explain. Let me show you first."

Then, Pan Hong took out a notebook from her schoolbag, opened it, and handed it to Xu Xiao.

Upon seeing the contents of the notebook, Xu Xiao realized that Pan Hong wanted to study mathematical problems with him.

The content here is related to Ramsey numbers, and Xu Xiao already had some understanding of this theory.

Simply put, the core of Ramsey's theory is that in a sufficiently large structure, no matter how much one tries to avoid a certain order, that order will inevitably emerge.

The Ramsey number is the quantified critical value that is "large enough".

For example, the minimum number of people required to guarantee that at least K people know each other, or at least one person does not know each other, can be represented by the Ramsey number.

For a specific example, the value of R(3,3) is 6, which means that among 6 people, 3 must know each other or 3 must not know each other. When the number is small, this result is relatively easy to calculate, but as the number increases, the complexity of the problem will also change exponentially.

Pan Hong is currently contemplating the Ramseyi number asymptotic bound problem concerning wheel graphs and complete graphs.

This question remains unanswered in academia, which is why it sparked Pan Hong's research interest.

"Hmm, I think I understand now. You're studying the asymmetric Ramsey numbers of the wheel graph Wm=K1+Cm and the complete graph Kn, right?"

"That's right, just like you said. I suddenly thought of this problem while I was listening to the lecture. Although we now know the asymptotic bounds of the cycle Cm, no one has studied the explicit tight bounds of the wheel graph yet—"

So far, Pan Hong has only just thought of this problem and has not yet actually started research.

She knew this problem wouldn't be easy to solve, and if possible, it would be best to find a research partner to work with.

Xu Xiao was the perfect research partner; they both scored full marks in CM0, so their mathematical abilities are beyond question.

Having learned about Pan Hong's thoughts, Xu Xiao was naturally also very interested in this issue.

Recently, Xu Xiao has been trying to find a suitable research topic.

Having gone through the process of researching this problem, the task progress of the thought vocabulary entry should be basically full.

"No wonder Pan Hong said it was an interesting thing; it really is very interesting."

Thinking of this, Xu Xiao immediately agreed.

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