[Hello, Blake. This is New York University’s Courant mathematical research department. First of all, thank you for submitting your research to the [ International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics] journal. One of your conclusions mentioned in the “Optimal Inversion Theory of Linear Operators and Linear Functional” thesis made significant progress for our research collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute.[... The project is regarding seismic wave back spectrum analysis which is used in geological exploration and seismic research. Specific details of the project are under a confidentiality agreement. But I promise you, your research is used for peaceful purposes...][... When we found out that you are only 19 years old, Professor Catwell and Professor Tom of our institute expressed their surprise.At the same time, I quite admire your talent in mathematics. While expressing gratitude for your research, we are also sincerely inviting you. If you are interested in comi
2014, City of BaymackThe blazing hot sun in June was heating up the ground as if it were trying to evaporate every last bit of water from the asphalt roads.Blake Watson listened to the sound of cars honking and looked at the busy people rushing along the streets. He stood in front of the Com Business Hall as he stared straight at the roads. Although cooled air occasionally blew across his back, his thick costume prevented him from experiencing the luxury of air conditioning.Someone might ask, why was he here?Of course, it was for survival...Okay, let’s clarify.Telecom Business Hall partnered with Vivo phones to do a promotion over the summer holidays. Workers were paid 40 dollars an hour to stand outside the door in a puppet costume. The pay was almost double the pay of him handing out flyers and not to mention, he did not have to suffer from people rolling their eyes at him. Additionally, because the temperature outside was over 30 degrees, he would receive a 10 dollar per hour
“Blake, wake up!”With his shoulders violently being shaken again, Blake slowly opened his eyes and saw Steve’s fat face.“F*ck! You’re finally awake,” said Steve before letting out a long sigh as he let go of Blake’s shoulders. He laughed apologetically, “Hope you don’t mind. I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. I saw that you were snoring and guessed that you were okay.”Blake looked at the surrounding white walls and the bedsheet covering the hospital bed before asking, “Where am I?”“Don’t you remember? You had a heat stroke at the Com Business Hall!” said Blake as he sat back down onto the chair. He sighed and patted his stout thighs before saying, “Ah, I told you not to be stubborn and you didn’t listen. We’re only doing this part-time. We’re not professionals. What’s the point of working so hard? Look at you now. You’ve sacrificed your health. Is it worth it?”Reluctantly, Blake smiled as he asked, “What did the doctor say about my health?”“Not much, just a bit of dehydration,”
Mission begin!”Blake closed his eyes and whispered the words. He did it two more times just in case it was not enough.When he opened his eyes, he saw a line of semi-transparent words floating in front of him.[Mission three begins. Current time: 0 hour. Timer stops when exiting the library.]Blake was startled by the words that appeared suddenly. He looked around the area and when he saw a student walked right through the semi-transparent words, he started to relax.It turned out that no one else could see the system’s words.Anyways, spend 24 hours reading a couple of books in the library and the mission should be completed, right?Blake walked towards the mathematics section as it was better than nothing. He was about to browse through the books when he suddenly noticed that the books had number labels. In addition, there was a pattern in the color of these number labels. As the numbers went from large to small, the colors went from red to gray.[Di Donne’s Foundation of Modern Ana
It was six o’clock in the morning when he felt his bed shaking softly. Jack squinted his tired eyes and tried to figure out where the shaking was coming from. When he saw Blake climbing down the ladder, he asked dramatically, “Blake, you’re awake this early?”Blake replied quietly as he was afraid of waking up his two other roommates.“Yeah.”Jack persisted and asked again.“Working again?”Blake hesitated before shaking his head and replied, “Not going. I’m resting for a few days.”“It’s so early. Where are you going then?”“The library.”Suddenly Jack was no longer sleepy.Blake went to the toilet to brush his teeth. When he came back and saw Jack climbing down from his bed, he asked curiously, “Are you not sleeping anymore?”“Study,” said Jack as he took his toiletries and swiftly walked towards the toilet.Blake did not know whether to laugh or cry at his overly competitive roommate. In the end, he shook his head and did not say anything. He put on his shoes and took his backpack
The library closed at 10 o’clock. Blake had just enough time to finish “Advanced Algebra” and “C Language Fifth Edition”.On the way out of the library, Blake glanced at the mission panel and saw that there were only nine hours left. He felt a little disappointed.He barely felt that fifteen hours had passed by. He had never felt time passed by like this while reading textbooks before.After a full day of studying, he discovered an issue. When he finished reading a book, that book’s value score would decrease to a single digit. Not just this, but other similar books’ value scores would also decrease to different amounts. On the other hand, books that were previously at a very low or even zero value scores started to increase to various amounts.For example, the “Di Donne Foundation of Modern Analysis” book only had a value score of 10 in the beginning, but now it had more than doubled to a value score of 30.As he walked home, Blake could not help but think of what would happen to his
As a mathematics major, Blake was obviously familiar with the Mersenne prime numbers.Of course, one would have to mention a famous Chinese mathematician when speaking about Mersenne prime numbers. In 1992, he published “Mersenne prime numbers distribution formula” and his paper was able to illustrate an equation for Mersenne prime numbers. It was then famously named “Zhou’s approximation”.Previously, the British mathematician William Shanks, French mathematician Tartaglia, German mathematician Luders, Indian mathematician Ramanujan, and American mathematician Gillies had all speculated on this problem. Although they had a common theme, which was the approximation of the equation, the closeness of their research to the exact answer was unsatisfactory.Zhou’s approximation formula was very simple. When 2^(2^n) < p < 2^(2^(n+1)), p has 2^(n+1)-1 prime numbers.Simple, right?Anyone could do this, right?However, the equation had not been proven or disproved. It had become one of the mo
At last, logic overcame greed. Blake dispelled his unrealistic idea.There was nothing special about a freshman publishing in a scientific journal. Not to mention, a lot of papers in the mathematical journals were subpar. As long as one’s English was good, one could probably sneak your way through even with subpar work.This type of masquerading behavior was exposed by an individual who ranked the journals by inferiority. The one ranked at number one was Applied Mathematics (AMC) as it was infamous for publishing subpar work.Some universities had published hundreds of AMC theses just in four years. It was not unusual for someone to publish 20 subpar theses in a year.To protect the academic integrity of the theses, some old-fashioned journals would often strictly limit the yearly published theses to 100 or less. However, this “monster journal” did not care. It published more than a thousand theses every year. This coupled with the phenomenon of overlapping resonance made the impact f
[Hello, Blake. This is New York University’s Courant mathematical research department. First of all, thank you for submitting your research to the [ International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics] journal. One of your conclusions mentioned in the “Optimal Inversion Theory of Linear Operators and Linear Functional” thesis made significant progress for our research collaboration with the Paul Scherrer Institute.[... The project is regarding seismic wave back spectrum analysis which is used in geological exploration and seismic research. Specific details of the project are under a confidentiality agreement. But I promise you, your research is used for peaceful purposes...][... When we found out that you are only 19 years old, Professor Catwell and Professor Tom of our institute expressed their surprise.At the same time, I quite admire your talent in mathematics. While expressing gratitude for your research, we are also sincerely inviting you. If you are interested in comi
Parker was feeling really good today.He normally just criticized people all day. He did not expect to be number one on trending.Although University of Baymack and the [Modern Communication and Geographic Information Technology] editorial department released a response indicating that the theses did not have any problems, the public was unconvinced due to the conflict of interest.University of Baymack had no other options. They even sent a lawyer’s letter to Parker!In the lawyer’s letter, University of Baymack righteously conveyed that the theses had no problems at all. Not only did University of Baymack asked for him to immediately withdraw the article, but they also requested for an apology. Otherwise, University of Baymack would maintain the right to sue.In addition, it was posted on the official University of Baymack’s Weibo account. It presented the response from the [Modern Communication and Geographic Information Technology] review board, which proved the academic value of
Harper Group Building, CEO’s office.Neo Carter leaned back in his office chair and was scrolling through his phone.It was after the lunch break. He would always take a half hour break after his lunch to look at what was trending on Weibo or today’s news. After all, his work was closely related to the Internet and so, it was important for him to keep up to date.“An undergraduate from the University of Baymack published nine SCI theses... Are undergraduate students these days so smart?” asked Neo Carter as he smiled and shook his head.He opened the article and saw that the author was by famous science writer Dean Parker.Neo Carter saw this name and twitched his eyebrows. His first impression of him was not good.This Parker counted as a celebrity. He was famous for annoying people on Weibo. He had no talent and was named “Big Mouth”. Neo Carter was a practical workman and did not like this type of clever clowns. Especially since this person loved to criticize China’s education syst
University of Baymack meeting room. An emergency meeting was held. The principal specifically requested for the dean of the computer science department to be present.A lot of professors were in their laboratories when they were called to the meeting.The topic of the meeting was simple. It was regarding one issue, which was the article floating around on Weibo: [On the topic of modern Chinese university academics: Starting from an undergraduate student’s thesis].The article mentioned that an undergraduate student published nine computer science theses within a month. It used that as an entry point to criticize the academic atmosphere of higher education institutions in China and their lax journal review process. It also mentioned that the student was from the University of Baymack.The article was basically roasting the University of Baymack.During the meeting, an old computer science professor adjusted his glasses, stood up, and said nonchalantly, “I’ve read those nine theses and t
It was six o’clock at night when Blake went into the kitchen and put on an apron before he started to cook. This was part of their agreement. The chick also followed him into the kitchen and watched him as she was very interested.The kitchen was stock with fresh food that Mrs. Jennifer probably bought.There was tofu, pork tenderloin, and some fresh vegetables. Not only that, the almost used up salt and herbs were also replenished.It seemed that Mrs. Jennifer acquiesced him using her kitchen. After all, she did not want her daughter to eat junk food and takeout every day.But...Why doesn’t she hire a maid?It did not bother Blake. He was happy to eat dinner at his customer’s house because he did not have to spend money. He asked if Jane could eat spicy food before he started to cook.Jane asked, “Have you been a tutor before?”Blake replied while pouring the oil into the pot, “This is my first time.”Jane’s eyes widened. She had not expected his answer and said, “Really? I think yo
It was the next day when Blake wanted to buy Ava food as a show of gratitude for helping him get this job.However, he did not know if they should eat KFC or yellow chicken and so, he was stuck in this decision.So he asked the only person alive in his dorm for advice: JackJack was playing video games with his online friends. He was killed and sent back to the respawn fountain. He felt annoyed and did not pay any attention to Blake’s question. He did not even turn his head to anwer, “Spicy hotpot. It’s cheap and affordable!”Then...Blake decided at that.They went to a place called Shancheng Spicy Hotpot on the street in front of their school. Ava had a ponytail and sat across from Blake. She was sticking her tongue out from the spiciness.Ava wanted to cry from the spice but she powered through. She continued eating as she asked, “How was it? Is there any hope for my cousin’s mathematics?”Is it even that spicy?Blake ate a fish ball and was confused. He chewed and spoke at the sam
Blake was slightly shocked. He pulled out his phone and saw that Mrs. Jennifer did actually sent him a message.[Teacher Blake, my apologies. I have a meeting at the office and I can’t make it back. it could be ten o’clock until I come back. I’ll pay you double the salary for your inconvenience. Hope you can forgive me.]Double salary...Which means, 400 yuan an hour?Blake took in a deep breath as he thought, “Ma’am, don’t be polite. You don’t even have to come back tonight!”He obviously knew that it would not happen.Jane poked her head out of the kitchen, looked at Blake, and asked, “Are you eating the chicken or beef flavored? There’s only sandwiches in the fridge. That woman locked the door so we can’t order food delivery.”Blake looked at the frozen sandwiches in her hand and could not help but ask, “You’re eating that for dinner?”“Is there a problem?” asked Jane. She did not care at all.Of course there’s a problem!Blake sighed. He stood up from the sofa and walked towards t
After explaining everything, Mrs. Jennifer left her house.Blake stood in front of Jane’s door. He looked at the keys in his hand and contemplated for a bit. Finally, he put the keys in his pocket and knocked on the door.Bong!Blake heard a soft muffled sound.It seemed that the door was knocked by a pillow of some sort.“Leave, I’m warning you. I’ll call the police if you come in!”This girl has such a bad attitude...Her voice is pretty nice though.Blake shrugged. He was not angry at all. He said through the door, “I don’t care. I get paid regardless. But is this what you want? I’ll get a thousand yuan for the five hours.”Anyone who heard a thousand yuan must feel bad right?Blake tried to change his approach, but he underestimated the attitude of rich people.“Oh,” a cold voice traveled through the door. Jane said with a careless and loud voice, “Do what you want, that woman has a ton of money anyway. Who cares how she spends her money, you might as well be adopted by her.”This
Blake was moved by Professor Phil’s wise words.It turns out Professor Phil really cares about me!However, I have no choice. The system gave me the blueprint, it would be a waste not to use it!After he was done with dinner, Blake went to the library. The librarian watched him borrow analytic geometry, ordinary differential equations, complex transformation real functions, functional analysis, topology and differential geometry, and other related textbooks that were on the system’s book list.A third of the book list contained mathematics books.If he could finish reading the books, he would have basically finished an undergraduate mathematics degree course.But...Blake looked at the pill bottle and thought, “Is 40 focus capsules enough?” He was unsure.He shook his head and decided not to think about it. He would try his best to complete the system mission.As for what would happen if the pills ran out?He would have to worry about that question later.Blake twisted open the pre-pre