MMB It's not surprising that Chapter 35 is about Lu Feng.
It's not surprising that Chapter 35 is about Lu Feng.
In the afternoon, at the Mathematics Department Office of Hong Kong City University.
Xu Yun, looking exhausted, pushed open the door after returning from a business trip out of the province. He tossed his briefcase onto the sofa, sank into his chair, and let out a long sigh.
At the next desk, Ye Guodong, wearing reading glasses, was slowly sipping a freshly brewed cup of Longjing tea, its aroma filling the air.
"Old Ye, I feel like my bones are about to fall apart," Xu Yun complained weakly.
He pulled a small, exquisitely packaged tin of tea from a brown paper bag and tossed it onto Ye Guodong's desk. "Here, this is for you, genuine West Lake Longjing tea, first-picked before the rains."
Ye Guodong raised his eyelids, adjusted his glasses, picked up the tea canister and examined it for a moment, a look of surprise on his face: "Wow, has the sun risen in the west? You stingy rooster can actually pluck feathers now?"
"Take it or leave it, or give it back to me." Xu Yun made a move as if to snatch it away.
"What's given to me, there's no reason to take it back." Ye Guodong deftly put the tea leaves into the drawer, his movements swift and precise, as if afraid the man might change his mind. He took a sip of tea and shifted to a more comfortable position: "How did the meeting go?"
"Don't even mention it." Xu Yun waved his hand, a serious look on his face. "This year, several key engineering universities are preparing to make a name for themselves in the National Undergraduate Mathematical Modeling Contest."
He looked at Ye Guodong: "Old Ye, this is a provincial-level Class A competition, with extremely high prestige. Shouldn't our HKU organize one this year? We can't always let those guys from the Mechanical Engineering Department steal the spotlight, can we?"
Ye Guodong put down his teacup, a hint of a smile flashing in his eyes: "That's exactly what I was thinking."
As the two were talking, there was a knock on the office door.
It was Wang Wen, Xu Yun's second-year teaching assistant. He walked in carrying a stack of midterm exam papers that he had just finished grading, and his expression was a little strange.
"Teacher Xu, Teacher Ye," Wang Wenxian greeted them respectfully.
"Have all the papers been graded?" Xu Yun asked casually as he took the exam papers. "Did you encounter any unusual situations while proctoring this morning?"
"They were all pretty honest." Wang Wen scratched his head, hesitating to speak, "It's just that... one student handed in his paper early."
"Submit the paper early?" Xu Yun frowned. "Are students these days so impatient? It's good enough if they finish, let alone submit it early?"
Ye Guodong, who was standing next to him, chuckled, put down his newspaper, and asked with interest, "How much earlier?"
Wang Wen held up two fingers, his voice slightly weak: "The exam starts... less than twenty minutes."
"puff--"
Ye Guodong almost spat out the mouthful of tea he had just taken a sip of.
Xu Yun slammed the test paper down on the table with a "thud." He abruptly looked up, staring intently at Wang Wen: "Twenty minutes? Did he hand in a blank paper?!"
"No...no." Wang Wen was startled by his reaction and quickly rummaged through the stack of papers, pulling out the top one. "This is it. Look, it's completely filled with writing. I...I thought he just scribbled something down, so I just marked it casually, but..."
As a result, his hands were shaking while grading.
Xu Yun snatched the test paper away, his eyes sharp as knives.
The paper was neat, and although the handwriting was slightly messy, the logic was clear, and there were no corrections.
His eyes quickly scanned the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions in front of him, and he got them all right.
The steps for the calculation problems are concise and precise, with each step hitting the mark and not a single word wasted.
Xu Yun's breathing became rapid involuntarily.
He flipped directly to the last page and looked at the final proof problem he had personally set, a problem that would drive ninety percent of the students to despair.
When Xu Yun saw the derivation process on the answer sheet, his pupils suddenly contracted.
The way the auxiliary function is constructed is tricky, yet perfectly natural, as if this problem was born to be solved this way.
The Lagrange Mean Value Theorem's approach is truly ingenious, directly transforming the complex parametric inequality into a simple problem of function monotonicity.
This line of thinking...
It's even more concise and elegant than his own standard answer!
The office was eerily quiet.
Seeing Xu Yun's astonished expression, Ye Guodong curiously leaned closer and asked, "What's wrong, Lao Xu? It's just a question, why are you so shocked?"
Xu Yun didn't say anything, but mechanically handed over the test paper, her fingers turning slightly white from the force.
Ye Guodong took the test paper and his gaze fell on the last proof question.
He stopped moving after just one glance.
"The way this auxiliary function is constructed..." he muttered to himself, then looked at the handwriting on the paper, his brow furrowing slightly. "This handwriting... it looks vaguely familiar?"
His gaze slowly moved upwards and landed on the column for the candidate's name.
When Ye Guodong saw those two words clearly, all the doubts on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a bewildered and amused realization.
He slammed the test paper on the table with a "thud," leaned back in his chair, picked up his teacup, blew on it to cool it, and said slowly:
"Oh, so it's Lufeng."
"That's alright then."
His nonchalant tone made it sound as if he were saying, "The weather is nice today."
"Huh?" Xu Yun was completely dumbfounded. He looked at Ye Guodong's nonchalant attitude, his mind a little foggy. "What do you mean it's alright? Is this kid your relative?"
"No." Ye Guodong took a sip of tea, enjoying Xu Yun's anxious expression, before slowly pulling out a piece of densely written draft paper from his drawer, a piece he had treasured for over a month.
"Take a look at this first." He handed the calculation paper to Xu Yun.
Xu Yun took the paper with a puzzled look. It contained the derivation of fractional calculus, which involved the Gamma function and the Mittag-Leffler function. Even he felt his scalp tingle just looking at it.
"This is……"
"This is what Lu Feng casually threw away in the library last month." Ye Guodong leaned back in his chair and succinctly recounted how Lu Feng derived the idea, how he approached Lu Feng, and how Lu Feng's "variable substitution" approach enlightened him.
Xu Yun's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he heard this.
He held the priceless draft paper in his hand, then looked at the perfect exam paper on the table, which was a work of art, and felt as if his understanding was being repeatedly rubbed into the ground.
A freshman?
How to learn fractional calculus on your own?
Did I casually offer some pointers to an associate professor in the mathematics department at the library?
Then, having nothing better to do, he took the midterm exam and got a perfect score, and even improved the standard answers?
He taught for over twenty years, and had taught at least eighty to a hundred gifted students, but none like Lu Feng…
This isn't a genius, this is a monster!
Xu Yun took a deep breath and slowly sat down, feeling his legs go a little weak.
"Old Ye..." he said in a dry voice, "About the mathematical modeling competition... I think we can try for the national prize this year."