Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

The second question is about memorizing binary numbers.

Contestants need to memorize 2000 binary numbers generated by a computer within 30 minutes. The numbers are spread across 4 pages, with 20 lines per page and 25 numbers per line.

Then, contestants have 60 minutes to convert the numbers they remember into decimal places and write them in the answer area.

"What's binary?" a middle-aged woman asked, putting down her sunflower seeds. "I don't understand this question."

As soon as she voiced her doubts, some people couldn't help but look at Principal Han.

Principal Han smiled slightly and stood up again to explain: "Everyone knows about the decimal system, right? It carries over when you reach ten. For example, five plus five equals ten, and ten plus ten equals twenty. The first two digits, one and two, are the ones that carry over when you reach ten."

"Principal Han, of course we understand. We've all been to school, don't underestimate us."

The middle-aged woman responded loudly with a look of disgust, which made the people around her burst into laughter. Someone impatiently shouted, "Principal Han, tell us quickly! I've filmed it all. I'll try it later too!"

"Yeah, tell me quickly, how do you solve this problem? They've given us an hour to solve it, why don't we all give it a try?"

Seeing this, Principal Han stopped arguing, stood up, walked to the large screen, and pointed to two numbers, saying:

"A binary number consists of two digits, 0 and 1. Its counting rule is to carry over when it reaches two, similar to the decimal system we use daily. For example, 01 represents 1, 10 represents 2, and so on. Actually, there's a method: when you see a string of binary numbers, you can arrange them from right to left in multiples of 1, 2, 4, and 8, and then add up all the numbers corresponding to 1 to get the decimal number..."

"This is so hard!"

When Wei Xiaoshuai saw Principal Han transform into a teacher and start giving a lesson to everyone on the spot, he couldn't help but feel dizzy.

This combination of numbers and shapes, requiring logical reasoning, is something one cannot participate in on their own; it sounds like listening to gibberish.

He looked up and glanced around, finding that most people were doing the same thing. They were listening, but it would have been better if they hadn't. After listening, they looked at the dense numbers on the left screen and were dumbfounded.

Each line contains 25 numbers. According to Principal Han's explanation, these 25 numbers need to be converted into decimal places. This decimal place is likely to be a string of numbers as long as a phone number.

Each page has 20 lines, which means you'll likely need to memorize 20 phone numbers.

Multiplying 20 phone numbers by 4 pages results in 80 phone numbers.

"OMG!"

Wei Xiaoshuai mentally calculated it and immediately chose to give up, without even having the will to try.

On the other hand, Chang Niankong perked up when he saw the question.

He thought to himself, "That's more like it! The first two questions weren't difficult at all."

This binary number memorization method may seem like it involves a lot of numbers, but it's all just for show. Once you learn how to convert them, even an elementary school student can solve it.

The difficulty lies not in solving it, but in memorizing it.

For example, the binary representation of 1 to 8 is 0001 to 1000.

When you see 0010, know that it represents 2, remember it, and fill it in when answering the question.

Similarly, a binary number consisting of 25 random 0s and 1s is also calculated in the same way. The only difference is that this also tests one's mental arithmetic ability, since the string of numbers is indeed quite long.

Chang Niankong straightened his back, lightly stroked the peach wood plaque at his waist with his left hand, and rhythmically tapped it on the table with his right hand. He quickly obtained the first result of the calculation, which was a 5-digit number.

After completing the calculation, he glanced at the time in the upper right corner and found that 24 seconds had passed.

"It's not hard to remember this string of numbers, but calculating it takes too much time."

After thinking about it, Chang Niankong felt that he couldn't do the problem this way, otherwise he might not have enough time to memorize the problem after he finished calculating it all.

So he changed his strategy: he started by memorizing, and after he had memorized everything, he would calculate directly based on his memory.

For others, memorization might be a tedious task, requiring encoding and association, but for Chang Niankong, it's just a quick glance.

His eyes were like a camera, scanning the row of numbers from left to right, and storing those 25 numbers in his brain.

Chang Niankong didn't check the time to see how long it would take to scan a row. The game rules included a speed-weighted system, and since he didn't know his opponent's strength, he could only go all out and wouldn't allow himself to waste time on useless distractions.

After all the scanning was completed, Chang Niankong glanced at the upper right corner of the screen before clicking the "Answer in Advance" button, which showed that there were 20 minutes and 11 seconds left.

This means he memorized 2000 numbers in less than 10 minutes.

This scene was quickly witnessed by the onlookers outside the Moyu Internet Cafe, who were all dumbfounded and couldn't believe it.

"Wow, is Master Chang starting to answer the questions?"

Hearing someone exclaim, Yang Haoran looked up in surprise, then looked down at the answer sheet and his phone on his lap.

He had just finished converting a page of paper, but he didn't bother to memorize any of the calculations.

Before hearing the exclamation, he thought he was pretty good at converting a page so quickly.

But upon comparison, the boy's arrogance vanished instantly, replaced by a deep sense of defeat.

"Haoran..."

Seeing Yang Haoran's dejected expression, Principal Han guessed that he might have suffered a setback!

But this is for the best. I heard that the higher-ups are planning for young astronauts to cope with new changes in the situation. Being killed today to curb their arrogance is a good thing.

Hearing Principal Han call his name, Yang Haoran asked absentmindedly, "Principal Han, is the memory master really that amazing?"

"Yes and no!"

Several young students around him looked at Principal Han with curiosity upon hearing this.

"The reason for saying yes is that these people do indeed have exceptional memory, a talent that is different from ordinary people. It's a gift from God, and we don't need to compare ourselves to them."

"Isn't that right?"

"The reason is simpler: it's the result of hard work and training. For example, you've probably seen memory masters memorize a deck of cards quickly. It's not all about rote memorization; they quickly incorporate encoding or associations during the memorization process. This is a kind of training, and ordinary people can do it through training if they're willing."

"Then what about Master Chang? He's a Taoist priest; Longhu Mountain shouldn't have this kind of training! How did he manage to do it?"

Upon hearing this, Principal Han turned to look at the large screen hanging on the left side of the alley.

Now, the dense array of 0s and 1s has disappeared, replaced by blank pages for each row.

Master Chang has already started filling in the third line of answers.

Perhaps to deliberately test the contestants' mentality, each correct answer was automatically marked with a "correct" icon.

Now, the first three lines after Chang Nian Kong finished answering are like this.

"Master Chang, you should belong to the first type of person!" Principal Han said helplessly.

Such memory geniuses are both admired and a source of frustration for those in education.

The reason I like it is that as long as I teach him, he will remember it. Even if he can't understand it quickly, as he remembers more and more knowledge, with practice, he can quickly achieve the transformation from quantitative to qualitative change.

The reason for feeling powerless is that after teaching this type of student, teaching ordinary students reveals a world of difference.

Especially for some slow learners, it's truly a case of wanting to but being unable to.