Rebirth: Controlled Nuclear Fusion

Part 81：The Shocked Old Wu

Mr. Wu, now in his sixties, had spent his entire career teaching mathematics at Long University. After retiring, the university rehired him to continue his lectures. At that moment, he was in the classroom, passionately imparting mathematical knowledge to his students.

Suddenly, his phone rang. Instinctively, he was about to hang up, but upon seeing that it was the principal calling, he answered.

"Excuse me, students, I need to take this call," he said, stepping toward the door.

A minute later, Mr. Wu rushed back to the podium, grabbed his teaching materials, and announced, "Please wait here, I'll have another professor come in to continue the lesson."

With that, he hurriedly left the classroom, leaving his students perplexed. What could have happened? Their usually composed professor seemed unusually flustered today.

A few minutes later, Professor Xiao, Mr. Wu's protégé, arrived to take over the class. Mr. Wu, having arranged for the continuation of the lesson, proceeded directly to the principal's office.

Ten minutes later, he arrived at the office.

"Principal, where is the solution to the millennium math problem?" he asked.

Principal Lu handed him the solution that Jiang Fan had written. Mr. Wu took it, and began to read.

Ten minutes... twenty minutes... an hour... two hours...

At last, Mr. Wu slowly lifted his gaze from the paper. His eyes were filled with astonishment.

"Who solved this?" he asked in disbelief.

Principal Lu pointed to the sleeping Jiang Fan beside him.

"Jiang Fan. You should know him."

"Jiang Fan... isn't he the freshman who recently solved the Riemann Hypothesis?"

"Yes, that's him."

"A genius! Absolutely a genius!"

Mr. Wu was deeply moved. "Such a young talent from our country, the future is certainly promising!"

Jiang Fan, seemingly hearing the praise in his sleep, unconsciously smacked his lips twice.

Just as Principal Lu was about to wake him up, Mr. Wu stopped him.

"Principal, let him rest. After solving such a problem, he probably hasn't had a good night's sleep in the past half month."

Principal Lu, hearing Mr. Wu's words, smiled and nodded.

"You're right. He hasn't had proper rest, but not because of this problem."

"Oh?" Mr. Wu raised an eyebrow, curious.

"You know about the new battery technology announced by our country, right?"

"Yes, it's a breakthrough. This new battery will accelerate our country's development by at least five years. But how does this relate to Jiang Fan?"

Principal Lu grinned. "This battery was developed by Jiang Fan."

"But he just arrived at Long University, how could he have developed such a battery in just half a month?"

"I heard from Long Lao, it's indeed true."

Mr. Wu gasped in disbelief.

"If that's the case, this kid is a genius comparable to Einstein!"

Principal Lu chuckled inwardly, thinking to himself: You don't even know, Jiang Fan also came up with the principles for controlled nuclear fusion. But alas, that's classified, so I can't share that with you. Otherwise, your jaw would probably hit the floor.

"Principal, so you're saying he solved this problem in just two or three days?"

"Yes, at most three days."

"Three days? Sigh! If you gave me thirty years, I might not be able to solve it!"

Mr. Wu sighed deeply. He had spent a lifetime researching mathematics, publishing many SCI papers, but had never solved a single one of the seven millennium problems.

However, he was still proud that such an extraordinary young talent was emerging in their country.

While Principal Lu and Mr. Wu conversed, Jiang Fan woke up. His body was exhausted from the continuous research, despite the help of the all-nighter capsules, which protected his health. Nonetheless, his body had been in a state of fatigue for too long, and it took a toll.

When he woke, Principal Lu and Mr. Wu immediately felt guilty.

"Sorry, Jiang Fan, we didn't mean to disturb your rest," said Principal Lu with an apologetic smile.

Jiang Fan, feeling more embarrassed, quickly replied, "No, it's my fault. I was so tired, I unintentionally fell asleep."

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Mr. Wu turned to Jiang Fan and asked, "I've read through your solution, but there are a few points I'm not entirely clear on."

"Please, go ahead, Mr. Wu," Jiang Fan responded.

Mr. Wu opened the paper to the fifth page, pointed at a section, and asked, "You introduced the concept of a Turing machine here. Could you explain what a Turing machine is?"

"A Turing machine is quite abstract," Jiang Fan began. "Imagine you have only a paper tape and a device similar to a typewriter that can write 0s or 1s on the tape... If such a machine existed, it would grant us a terrifying power: the ability to execute any algorithm that could be represented by a Turing machine."

Mr. Wu listened intently, now having a clearer understanding of the concept. He flipped through a few more pages and then asked, "Regarding NP-complete, why do you single out the hardest problems within NP?"

"At first, people didn't realize that there existed a problem within NP that was the hardest. There wasn't a fixed standard for comparison..."

"Once it was proven that any NP problem could be transformed into 3-SAT (a specific NP problem), which involves n variables and m clauses..."

And so, Jiang Fan and Mr. Wu continued their discussion for over an hour.

At the end of it, Mr. Wu was utterly astonished. The depth and breadth of Jiang Fan's mathematical knowledge were beyond anything he could fathom. He had spent his entire life mastering one-third of the world's mathematical knowledge, while Jiang Fan, at just 18, had already grasped far more.

After a moment of reflection, Mr. Wu returned to the matter at hand.

"Jiang Fan, if you submit this as an SCI paper, I can guarantee that there's a 95% chance it will be rejected."

"Rejected?" Jiang Fan asked, surprised.