Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 21: Something big happened

　　Nearly four hours remaining till the resistance ends, from six o'clock, till 11 o'clock in the evening are in the period of effectiveness of the medicine, hold up and stay up till 12 o'clock is not a problem. At this time, the library has already closed, so it is naturally impossible to study in the library today.

　　Although he was planning to use the medicine every other day, but tomorrow he has something to do, so, in order not to waste precious time and complete the reward task as early as possible, he decided to make an extra effort today.

　　Turning on the computer and checking email, Ethan had already sent over the program, Orion extracted the code into text for backup and then started writing it in the format of a mathematical modelling paper. With the paper done, he packaged it up with the program and dropped it into David's email.

　　"...... Let's find some food first before coming back to work." Stretching, Orion stood up and headed out of the classroom.

　　Because of the summer holidays, the cafeteria was sparsely populated. Just by chance, he met Old Tang during dinner, so Orion walked up to say hello and sat down across from the professor.

　　Professor Tang smiled when he saw Orion and asked in a casual tone, "How are the preparations for mathematical modelling going?"

　　Orion smiled, "Not bad, just sent the homework to David."

　　"What have you been studying recently?"

　　Orion knew that Professor Tang wasn't asking about mathematical modelling, so he thought for a moment and said, "I recently read a piece of literature about the progress of the GIMPS research program ......"

　　"I went through that "Laws of Distribution of Mersenne Prime Numbers" paper from '92 and found that the conjecture in it was very interesting."

　　"That paper, I know." It was too short, that paper was just two pages. Although the exact formula for the Mersenne prime distribution was proposed, the proof process was not given, so it could only be published as a conjecture.

　　After a moment's pause, Professor Tang looked at Orion and said with a smile, "Why did you run off to study Mersenne prime numbers instead of continuing to study your linear generalized functions?"

　　"Erm ...... might be an interest?" Orion himself didn't believe his own words, so much so that he accidentally with a questioning tone at the end.

　　Sure enough, he didn't believe him, Professor Tang shook his head and said in a serious tone, ''There's nothing to say about your talents in maths, it's just that you're too impatient. It's okay to be utilitarian, after all, researchers are also human beings, but do you think Mersenne prime numbers are that easy to calculate? The GIMPS project took eight years to figure out whether the 44th Mersenne prime number is the 44th or not, do you think the prize money is that easy to get?"

　　Because the number is just too huge, and the amount of arithmetic involved is beyond human imagination. And as it stands, according to the GIMPS project's reward criteria, the only way to get the next reward is to aim for the hundred millionth Mersenne prime number. However, even so, what you get is completely disproportionate to what you pay. After all, the reward is only $150,000, and the cost is more than that.

　　As a joke, if you had that kind of time, why don't you mine Bitcoin?

　　Recognizing Orion's money-minded character, Professor Tang subjectively believed that this kid must have seen the reward and drilled into the eye of money.

　　Orion embarrassedly smiled, and it was difficult to argue against. Because it was too troublesome to explain. "You can misunderstand it whatever you want. "