booktalesy Chapter 31 I said you're a little stupid
Chapter 31 I said you're a little stupid
"Okay, very good."
Gu Feiyu gripped his pen tightly and sneered, "I hope this top scorer doesn't use up all his test-taking skills in tomorrow's placement test."
The following day, in the large lecture hall of the Physics Department at Jinghua University.
More than two hundred new students from all over the country gathered together. This is a tradition at Jinghua University—a placement test for new students.
Rather than a test, it was more like a wake-up call for these top talents from various provinces, making them realize the gap between themselves and truly top-level scientific research.
In front of the blackboard, the head of the physics department sat drinking tea. Gu Feiyu, as a teaching assistant, stood on the podium distributing exam papers.
When Gu Feiyu placed the curling iron on Lin Yu's desk, he deliberately paused for a moment.
"Junior Lin Yu, there are no standard answers for this test paper."
Gu Feiyu's voice wasn't loud, but just loud enough for the top freshmen in the front row to hear. "There's an open-ended question in it, which my advisor and I drafted together. It tests the ability to build physical models. I'm really curious to see where the true limit of the top scorer with a perfect score of 750 lies."
This is blatantly putting Lin Yu in a very difficult position.
All the freshmen in the lecture hall stopped what they were doing, their complex gazes all fixed on Lin Yu in the center of the examination room. There was curiosity, there was jealousy, and even more so, there was schadenfreude at the shattering of a myth.
Lin Yu didn't even look up; he simply silently uncapped the black water-based pen.
The exam has begun.
The entire classroom immediately fell into a deathly silence, with only the scratching sound of paper and pens rubbing together.
Lin Yu glanced at the exam paper.
The first few questions were standard basic mechanics problems, though they were beyond the sophomore level, but for him they were just simple arithmetic operations. He wrote quickly and efficiently, completing the first three pages in ten minutes.
Until you turn to the last page.
The final, most challenging question.
The question is very short, less than fifty words, plus an extremely complex topological diagram:
"Construct a decoherence time model for a superconducting quantum interference device under an extremely strong magnetic field, and give its modified evolution equation in a non-Markovian environment."
Xia Zijing sat diagonally behind Lin Yu, and the moment she saw the question, her brows furrowed tightly.
That's beyond the scope of the curriculum.
And it's ridiculously high.
This is not something that first-, second-, or even fourth-year undergraduates would encounter. It involves quantum open systems and advanced topological field theory, a sub-topic that several doctoral students in Academician Zhang Chengzhi's key laboratory are currently struggling with!
Gu Feiyu stood on the podium, looking down at Lin Yu's paused pen tip, a cold smile of complete control curling at the corner of his mouth.
This is a question without a definitive answer. Even his mentor is currently facing difficulties, so Lin Yu, a test-taking machine who hasn't even touched the basics of advanced quantum mechanics, would only experience a brain freeze and hand in a shameful blank paper when faced with such a purely cutting-edge theory.
You could hear a pin drop in the lecture hall.
Gu Feiyu rested his hands on the podium, his gaze sweeping across the entire room like a radar. More than two hundred top scorers and gold medalists from various provinces were all scratching their heads in frustration.
The basic questions on the first few pages had already exhausted their brainpower, and when they turned to the last page with the most challenging questions, most of them turned a liverish color.
Xia Zijing sat diagonally behind Lin Yu. She was biting the pen, her brows furrowed tightly.
Superconducting quantum interference device? Non-Markovian environment?
This is not part of the freshman curriculum at all. Her exceptionally sharp mind quickly searched and confirmed that the mathematical tools needed for this problem wouldn't be taught in sophomore year.
She looked up at Lin Yu in the front row.
Lin Yu's pen hovered above the exam paper for a full five minutes without falling.
Gu Feiyu's lips curled into a mocking smile. He picked up his thermos, took a sip of water, and slowly walked down from the podium, deliberately circling around to Lin Yu's desk.
blank.
The answer area for the final question was clean and tidy.
"Junior Lin, why did you stop writing?"
Gu Feiyu lowered his voice, his tone filled with a strong sense of superiority, "When the sea of questions in high school comes into contact with real physics models, do you feel at a loss? It's okay, being able to understand a few technical terms in the questions is not easy for a freshman."
Several freshmen around, who had pricked up their ears, exchanged glances, a hint of schadenfreude in their eyes. So what if he got a perfect score? He still couldn't write anything.
Lin Yu ignored him.
His gaze was fixed on the complex topological diagram of the problem. It wasn't that he couldn't solve it, but rather that the logical foundation of the problem seemed riddled with holes to him.
"Did you come up with this question?"
Lin Yu suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but the people around him could hear him clearly.
"It was drafted jointly by Academician Zhang and me."
Gu Feiyu straightened his cuffs. "What, do you think it's beyond the syllabus? Scientific exploration never restricts the exam syllabus."
"It's not beyond the scope of the curriculum. It's just a bit silly."
Lin Yu removed the pen cap.
Gu Feiyu's eyes darkened: "What do you mean?"
Lin Yu didn't answer. The pen tip scratched across the exam paper.
He didn't write any lengthy derivations or draw any force diagrams. He only wrote three lines of formulas.
It is extremely brief, without even a parameter explanation.
After finishing writing, Lin Yu capped his pen and pushed the exam paper forward.
"carry out an assignment."
Only forty minutes into the exam, Lin Yu stood up, put one hand in his pocket, and walked straight out of the lecture hall.
Xia Zijing watched his retreating figure, then glanced at the clock on the blackboard. She decisively wrote a line on her test paper, got up, handed in her paper, and followed him out.
Gu Feiyu stood there, his face ashen. He suddenly picked up Lin Yu's test paper.
The struggle of a top scorer? He'd like to see what kind of garbage he wrote.
The blank space at the end of the exam paper contained only three lines of text:
H_I = sum_k (g_k sigma_+ a_k + hc)
Gamma(omega) = alpha omega e^{-omega/omega_c}
t < 0 rightarrow Model Error
Gu Feiyu was stunned. He could understand the first two lines; they were standard system-environment interaction Hamiltonians and spectral density functions. But what the heck was the third line?
The time interval is less than zero, indicating a model error?
Is this a physics problem or computer error code?
"Stubborn to the end."
Gu Feiyu sneered and pulled Lin Yu's test paper out separately, slapping it on the podium.
Since he dared to provoke him with such an attitude, he would definitely make this arrogant top student lose face in front of the entire department after the exam was handed in.
Two hours later, the exam ended.
The freshmen were overjoyed and slumped in their chairs. Gu Feiyu had several teaching assistants collect the papers, then picked up the chalk and tapped the blackboard.
"Everyone."
Gu Feiyu's voice was loud and clear, with a condescending scrutiny, "The assessment is over. Judging from everyone's expressions, no one should have been able to solve the last question."
A deathly silence fell over the room. Xia Zijing stared blankly at the blackboard, while Lin Yu sat beside her, already wearing headphones and playing the Snake game on his phone.
"It's not your fault. This question is actually a variation of a cutting-edge research topic that Academician Zhang is currently studying."
Gu Feiyu turned around and quickly wrote down the complicated derivation steps on the blackboard: "The core of establishing a non-Markov model lies in introducing a memory kernel function..."
The blackboard was quickly filled with densely packed calculus equations.
Most of the freshmen were confused, but that didn't stop them from feeling a sense of awe towards Gu Feiyu.
"This is the direction the standard answer should take."