Phi-Fic Chapter 7 Reviewing Papers
Chapter 7 Reviewing Papers
Six months ago.
The 19th Xia Hua Cup Mathematics Competition, closed marking group.
Stanford University mathematics professor Zhou Mingyuan sat idly in the uncomfortable leather chair on the judging panel, his eyes scanning the surroundings with boredom, wondering what had gotten into him that led him to be here today.
Invited to return to China to serve as the chief judge for this competition, all of this was not out of any noble academic curiosity.
Perhaps it was simply because of the request from an old acquaintance that I couldn't refuse, and the deepest, unspeakable sense of guilt I felt towards my homeland.
But deep within his heart, hardened and worn down by reality, he had already reached an extremely tragic conclusion.
The domestic mathematics community is dead.
At least, that's how it is in this land steeped in distorted human relationships.
Whether it was five years ago, ten years ago, or now, whenever he heard those sarcastic rumors in the academic circles of the United States, the same thought would uncontrollably pop into his mind.
Undeniably, China has always been a prominent and highly ranked country on the medal table of international Olympic competitions.
But once you peel away that gilded shell, the number of these geniuses who were elevated to godhood who ultimately leave their mark on the halls of human mathematics is very small.
The few notable achievements we have are largely thanks to the overseas Chinese who left early to settle and conduct research abroad.
Of course, it cannot be denied that he himself was one of these "deserters".
This is an absolute irony.
squeak-
A dull thud sounded as the door to the marking room opened, and the judges, each carrying a thermos, entered one after another.
"Oh! Professor Zhou is here too! It's a pleasure to meet you!"
It is an honor to have you grace us with your presence and guidance.
I just read your paper that you published in a core journal a few days ago.
Wow, that's truly awe-inspiring, amazing, absolutely amazing...
"This guy hasn't retired yet."
Zhou Mingyuan sneered inwardly.
He's been teaching the same outdated and stale calculus lecture notes for decades. Can he really understand my paper?
Hmph, what a joke!
If this were in the fiercely competitive academic circles of Peking University, this kind of good-for-nothing who just loafs around would have been kicked out long ago!
However, this is precisely where the hypocrisy of the adult world lies.
The body's instinctive reaction is the complete opposite of the inner sarcasm.
In this world where interpersonal relationships are paramount, he stood up with extreme restraint, maintaining the decorum befitting a top scholar, and politely bowed his head in greeting.
"Long time no see, Professor Zheng."
Those who followed into the marking room were all people with the same, similar expressions.
They were all professors who had obtained tenure early on.
In this circle, once you reach this position, even if you never produce any research results in your entire life, you will never lose your job and can still live a life of luxury in this web of fame and fortune.
Of course, it cannot be denied that these people must have had their brilliant and outstanding periods.
But now?
Ultimately, it all comes down to money and power...
In fields like mathematics and the humanities, where direct commercial profits are extremely difficult to achieve and substantial funding is almost nonexistent...
These people are clinging to the top of the resource allocation pyramid by relying on seniority and their extensive networks.
Because the basic funding invested was so meager, the performance evaluation pressure on these "leading figures" was essentially nonexistent.
They have absolutely no interest in the latest cutting-edge international research; they are only keen on promoting their self-compiled textbooks and cultivating relationships at various academic conferences.
"Alright, alright, everyone! Today we need to keep our eyes peeled and carefully select some promising talents!"
We hope to attract even more brilliant talents to apply to our school this year!
"Hahaha! Old Li, you're being greedy."
Didn't your school sweep all the first prizes in the last competition?
Even when we're eating meat, we have to leave some soup for our sister universities!
Hearing these arrogant laughs, Zhou Mingyuan felt a wave of disgust rise in his stomach.
Using flowery words and high-sounding rhetoric to poach top talent is a key tactic they employ to consolidate their respective academic territories.
The reason these old guys, half-buried in their graves, always turn down other engagements to come to the judging panel for every competition isn't because they care about the future of mathematics; they're probably just doing this kind of shady business.
"Does this look like a group of scholars seeking the truth?"
They're practically a bunch of academic brokers picking through fresh meat at the market!
By leveraging titles, influence, and nepotism, universities can attract the best students. As long as gifted students continue to produce results, even if they never work on another topic in their lives, they will be revered as indispensable talents.
"Screw the domestic academic circle!"
Professors who are truly at the forefront of scientific research, whose brain cells are constantly burning, have no time to waste their lives in this arena of fame and fortune!
"Here's the answer sheet!"
Just then, the teaching assistants walked in carrying tall stacks of paper.
They carefully unpacked the sealed answer sheets one by one and laid them flat on the table.
The test papers, labeled with numbers and arranged neatly, were distributed to the judges in an orderly manner.
This level of Olympiad review is completely different from ordinary assembly line marking and scoring.
Whether the answer is ultimately correct is certainly important;
However, for true experts, the key to judgment lies in whether the logic of the problem-solving process is as sharp as a razor blade, whether the innovativeness of the approach can break through the constraints, and even the time allocation strategy of the test taker when facing extremely difficult problems.
The marking has begun.
"Sigh, this student's thinking is too rigid and too ordinary."
"It feels like the level of test takers is getting worse every year. They're just using rote memorization techniques."
"Is that even a question? All the truly brilliant and promising talents are going to study lucrative fields like electronics, information technology, and computer science, instead of basic mathematics?"
Who would want to be poor? It's really...
Listening to the affected sentiments of the group of people around him as they flipped through the exam papers, Zhou Mingyuan coldly lowered his eyes and curled his lips in disdain.
"Which of you here hasn't deserves credit for turning this fertile ground of academia into such a barren wasteland?"
Sudden.
"Wow! Everyone, look! This student is really something, he's got real talent!"
A judge exclaimed in surprise the moment he casually flipped through the answer sheet.
The previously languid and perfunctory atmosphere inside the room underwent a subtle chemical change at this moment.
Candidate number 17.
To ensure the so-called fairness of the review process, personal information such as names and test centers have been completely covered by thick sealing strips.
"You've actually mastered the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality?"
Moreover, this is a complete integration and application of the knowledge, without any trace of forced or rote learning!
"What's the big deal?"
Nowadays, anyone who dares to participate in this kind of competition has to have taken linear algebra as a required course.
"Ah! This smooth and effortless problem-solving technique..."
Could this be the legendary child that people in the circle were talking about before?
I heard that child is only 15 years old, he's practically a prodigy...
"Ahem! Old Zhao! Mind your manners!"
"This is the blind review stage. Making such leading remarks in this setting is a disciplinary violation!"
Listening to the discussions around him, Zhou Mingyuan glanced at them briefly.
"His mathematical intuition and foundation are indeed frighteningly solid."
This is definitely not something you can achieve by simply doing practice problems.
This is the kind of pure talent that drives people crazy with envy.
There was a chilling calmness in the handwriting.
Instead of using any unnecessary and lengthy calculations to brute-force the problem, it saw through the complex structure disguised on the surface of the question like a top-tier assassin.
It directly reduces a whole page of tedious calculations to just three very elegant lines of core matrix transformations!
That terrifying intuition that seems to see through the fog and directly grasp the core structure of the question is truly exceptional!
He nodded slightly, giving it a very high rating in his mind.
"This is definitely a promising talent worth investing time and effort in nurturing!"
Besides number 17, there were a few other candidates who performed reasonably well.
But that's just being "good"—meaning being one of those "well-behaved students" who strictly follow the professor's established approach and solve problems step by step.
He couldn't help but shake his head with a wry smile.
These children, distorted by training institutions, have probably already practiced these basic logic questions thousands of times.
It is estimated that all possible variations and pitfalls have been etched into muscle memory and memorized perfectly.
This isn't mathematics; this is conditioned reflex.
Time passes little by little.
After looking at the same monotonous exam papers for several hours, everyone's eyes started to feel sore and swollen.
One by one, the judges took off their reading glasses, pinched the bridge of their noses, and stretched in their chairs.
"Alright, alright, it's already 12:30, let's eat first! Mental work drains blood sugar too much."
The teaching assistants seemed to have timed it perfectly, as if they had been waiting outside the door all along. As soon as they heard the noise, they immediately came in carrying heavy insulated bags.
Upon opening it, a custom-made luxury meal was revealed:
Steamed grouper, braised sea cucumber in abalone sauce, and stewed old chicken with matsutake mushrooms, paired with exquisite cold dishes and freshly made dim sum, the dishes are plentiful and sophisticated, and the aroma instantly fills the entire examination room.
Zhou Mingyuan looked at the sumptuous lunch, but found it particularly jarring.
"Instead of squandering this competition budget on fancy lunches, why not give those students under your command who are working like dogs a bigger subsidy!"
His gaze involuntarily drifted past the professors who were enjoying their meals and towards the corner.
After delivering the meals, the teaching assistants very consciously retreated to the few makeshift low tables in the corner.
That place, piled high with draft papers and discarded documents, is a cramped, dark corner of the room where no sunlight can reach it.
Some people were probably exhausted from working on experiments for several nights in a row. They were still holding a half-sharpened Zhonghua pencil in their hand, but their heads were already starting to doze off.
Some people held paper cups of cheap instant coffee in both hands, staring blankly out the window.
Their eyes were sunken, with dark circles under them, and their complexions were sickly sallow due to a lack of sunlight and rest.
These young people, who should be the future pillars of the nation's scientific research, show absolutely no vigor or sharpness befitting their age; all that remains is exhaustion and numbness from being squeezed dry by reality!
Looking at them, Zhou Mingyuan's eyes suddenly welled up with tears, and in a daze, he seemed to see himself fifteen years ago, humbly struggling to survive in the dark corners!
This exquisite lunch, which was delicious and visually appealing, suddenly became as unpalatable as chewing wax.
Meanwhile, the professors sitting at the main table were completely at ease, treating the young man in the corner as if he were invisible, not even giving him a second glance, and happily eating and making vulgar jokes.
"Oh dear, grading papers is such a physically demanding job! You have to be well-fed to keep going."
"Hey! You there, Xiao Zhang, right? Do you have any extra boxed lunches? Bring me another one, it tastes pretty good."
"Okay, okay! Professor Zheng, please wait a moment!" The teaching assistant in the corner suddenly woke up and scrambled out.
"Sigh, I can't deny that I'm getting old. I'm really struggling to keep up lately, and I even find it difficult to teach an undergraduate class."
"Alas! This is what they call the decline of morality!"
The country is now completely neglecting our basic sciences, and all the funds are being poured into popular engineering projects that can generate immediate profits, leaving our mathematics department in a state of poverty.
If this continues, what will become of the foundation of basic sciences in our country?
The sounds of large gulps of chewing and smacking lips were particularly jarring in the room.
"Sigh, it's been going on for a while now, I should have gotten used to it by now."
If you ask me, we should be thanking our lucky stars and burning incense for the fact that our current budget hasn't been completely cut by the higher-ups!
Zhou Mingyuan felt a dryness in his throat, as if he had a fishbone stuck in it.
He subconsciously tightened his grip on his chopsticks, and once again glanced with a complicated look at the teaching assistants silently munching on cold bread in the corner.
He knew better than anyone what those young people, gritting their teeth, were thinking.
"Just hang in there... As long as I can persevere a little longer, as long as I can get this core document out, there will always be a day when I can get through this!"
What a pathetic fantasy!
But what is the reality?
Reality is a beast with gaping maw, devouring people without spitting out bones, and will absolutely not go as they wish!
In this distorted circle, when dirty political maneuvering and intricate personal networks stand like a mountain, firmly above pure academia...
Your supposedly real strength has become utterly worthless! It's not even worth a pile of dog shit!
Only when all hope is completely exhausted will they wake up in despair and, one after another, sadly change careers.
Or, like I did back then, I might leave my hometown and flee this land to seek a chance at survival.
A strong, almost nauseating feeling of vomiting welled up inside him.
Even in this gathering of so-called "industry titans," even though he is a tenured professor at Stanford, he is completely unable to help these young people.
A deep-seated sense of powerlessness transformed into an inaudible sigh.
Snap, snap.
"Alright, alright, everyone's finished eating, right? Let's get back to work! The sooner we finish, the sooner we can go home!"
Someone clapped their hands greasyly, and only then did the judges pick their teeth and slowly move back to their seats.
The time after lunch is when you're most likely to feel sleepy, with the air filled with the languor brought on by the digestion of carbohydrates.
The other professors were yawning casually, their minds extremely relaxed.
To dispel his frustration, Zhou Mingyuan picked up the last few answer sheets in his hand and flipped through them one by one.
"Um?"
Just as he casually flipped through the somewhat sloppy answer sheet in front of him, his gaze seemed to be suddenly drawn in by some irresistible force, his pupils contracted abruptly, and his breath caught in his throat for a moment.
Not right.
From the very first question, there was an extremely weird and unsettling feeling about it!
This is a classic inequality proof problem that has been thoroughly studied by countless competition students.
However, this candidate's problem-solving approach completely deviated from the framework set by the question-setting team, which was considered "standard and unique".
"This is... a high-level generalization of the Konosei inequality?!"
Zhou Mingyuan felt a slight tingling sensation on his scalp.
Without a doubt, this solution is like looking down at the maze from high above, cutting through all the detours—extremely simple, getting straight to the point, and even brutal!
But how is that possible?!
To achieve this level of "minimalism," the candidate's mind must be capable of performing an extremely large amount of logical reasoning in an instant, comparable to that of a supercomputer...
Only then can we bypass those tedious dozen or so steps and directly reach this seemingly "obvious" conclusion!
But this is just an appetizer.
What truly made this top Stanford scholar breathless and his heart pound was yet to come.
His gaze moved downwards and landed on question 4.
[Question 4: Prove that the sum of the distances from any point inside an equilateral triangle to its three sides is equal to its altitude.]
For any professionally trained mathematician, this would seem like an easy question.
This is a fundamental special case of the famous Viviani theorem.
However, the theorem can only hold if the plane in which it is located strictly follows Euclidean geometry.
Once placed in a sphere, or in a curved space with curvature such as hyperbolic geometry, this theorem collapses instantly, and complex correction terms must be introduced.
But this is just a high school competition and doesn't involve manifolds and curvature at all.
The proof can be obtained simply by drawing a few auxiliary lines and using the most basic area method.
However, unlike the others, this candidate did not write any proofs of Euclidean geometry on their answer sheet.
He only wrote a few lines of formulas and annotations:
h_1 + h_2 + h_3 = h - frac{h}{2pi} iint_{Delta} K , dA
If the formula is modified with the above metric, it can be generalized to non-Euclidean spaces with Gaussian curvature.
boom!
It was as if a thunderclap exploded in Zhou Mingyuan's mind!
This is totally the research perspective of a top-level geometric topology expert!
They don't look like high school students at all!
This seemingly casual yet incredibly weighty answer was like a heavy hammer blow, violently shattering Zhou Mingyuan's long-buried memories.
He instantly recalled the feeling of intense discussions with those once-in-a-century geniuses at the Institute for Advanced Study at Stanford, and how he was almost breathless from being overwhelmed by their talent.
Zhou Mingyuan gripped the answer sheet tightly, his knuckles turning a pale white from the extreme force.
He desperately tried to suppress the violent, pounding heartbeat in his chest, his voice so hoarse that even he himself felt like a stranger to him:
"Ladies and gentlemen... please put down what you are holding and take a look at this."
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an eerie heaviness.