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Subjective System 40
[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
Subjective System 1
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
Subjective System 2
“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,”
Subjective System 3
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
Subjective System 4
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
Subjective System 5
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
Subjective System 6
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
Subjective System 7
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