Chapter 117 - 114: Yan University, Li Dong
Peng City. Peng City Laboratory.
In the director’s office, the afternoon sun struggled to pierce through the drawn curtains.
Gao Wen, an academician of the Academy of Engineering and the director of Peng City Laboratory, had just finished a closed-door meeting about the new phase of the "Peng City Mind" general AI large model project.
Gao Wen rubbed the bridge of his nose, walked over to the tea station, and brewed himself a cup of tea.
As a scholar, he had a habit of reading top international academic journals, as he needed to stay constantly informed about the latest global academic trends.
He returned to his desk with his teacup and casually picked up the latest issue of *Mathematics of Computation* that had just been delivered.
He took a sip of hot tea, idly opened the journal, and his eyes fell on the officially highlighted section at the beginning:[Editor’s Choice].
[A New Dimension-Reduction Algorithm for the Multi-Point Evaluation of the Riemann Zeta Function on the Critical Line]
Gao Wen paused, slightly stunned.
’Verifying the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann Zeta function?’
A flash of doubt crossed his eyes.
’How did this topic get chosen for the Editor’s Choice section of *Math. Comp.* again?’
He was very familiar with this field.
Ever since the academic community used supercomputer clusters to calculate non-trivial zeros up to the 10^13 level over a decade ago, the fundamental logic of the algorithms for this problem had been thoroughly explored.
The papers that followed were nothing more than shallow optimizations within the existing algorithmic framework, or simply throwing more computing power at it with better supercomputer hardware.
Without reducing the underlying time complexity, none of it could be considered a revolutionary breakthrough.
’It’s been a long time since anything eye-opening has come out of this area. Has *Math. Comp.* started publishing filler too?’
Gao Wen muttered to himself as he turned to the main body of the article.
However, after reading just the abstract and the first two sections of derivation, the hand holding his teacup froze in mid-air.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty minutes passed.
Half an hour later...
Gao Wen remained motionless, still in the same position.
He only snapped out of it when he felt his arm, still holding the teacup, begin to ache.
He subconsciously drained the cup of its now-cold tea before setting it down on the desk.
’This... How is this possible?’
’A new algorithm?’
The paper also included verification data provided by the Supercomputing Center at Brown University: under this brand-new algorithmic architecture, a supercomputer cluster had run for just three days and pushed the calculation of non-trivial zeros to 6x10^13!
Gao Wen calculated in his head.
Three days, 6x10^13!
If this algorithm continued to run on a supercomputer, breaking the 10^16 barrier was a sure thing!
Gao Wen immediately understood the key implication.
This meant the birth of a new, fundamental mathematical tool with extremely low time complexity.
If this dimension-reduction approach of non-linear FFT grid expansion were applied to cryptography or the underlying calculations of high-dimensional matrices...
Or perhaps...
He thought of Huaxuan Technology...
This was absolutely a bombshell of a breakthrough, enough to restructure the logic of today’s fundamental algorithms!
’Which top foreign university or team came up with this new algorithm?’
Gao Wen’s gaze naturally fell to the author’s byline beneath the paper’s title.
[Author: Dong Li (Li Dong)]
[Yenching University (Huaxia Yanjing University)]
"PFFFT— COUGH COUGH COUGH!"
Gao Wen sprayed the tea he had just sipped all over a stack of documents.
’Yan University?’
Gao Wen’s mind was reeling.
He mentally ran through his connections.
’That’s not right... I’m a Boya Chair Professor at Yan University, for crying out loud! If the School of Mathematics or the School of Information Science and Technology had a team of heavy-hitters capable of creating such an algorithm, how could I have not heard even a whisper about it?’
And Li Dong?
Mulling over the name, which seemed faintly familiar yet he couldn’t quite place, Gao Wen walked to the window and yanked open the curtains. Sunlight finally flooded the spacious office.
...
「At the same time, elsewhere.」
Kyoto, Yanjing University.
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research.
Professor Liu Ruochuan, the newly appointed Dean of the Yan University School of Mathematical Sciences, was not in a celebratory mood, despite being on the verge of becoming Huaxia’s first academician born in the 1980s.
He had just attended a departmental strategic development seminar on "AI4M (AI for Mathematics) and Fundamental Algorithm Innovation."
To be honest, the meeting had been incredibly frustrating for him.
He was an undisputed world-class authority in the fields of p-adic Hodge theory and arithmetic geometry.
But the School of Mathematical Sciences as a whole needed more than just breakthroughs in pure theory; it also had to produce field-defining results in computational mathematics and fundamental algorithms.
At the meeting just now, the university leadership had been tactful, but between the lines, they had subtly singled out the School of Mathematics.
They felt the School of Mathematics hadn’t been making big enough strides in algorithmic breakthroughs lately, lacking the kind of major achievements that cause a stir internationally. They were even about to have their thunder stolen by the neighboring School of Information Science.
’Are breakthroughs something you can just conjure up on demand?’
Liu Ruochuan sighed to himself.
Breakthroughs in fundamental sciences sometimes require toiling in obscurity for decades. How could they be rapidly iterated like internet products?
But frustration was frustration. As the Dean of the School of Mathematics, he still decided to catch up on the latest international developments.
He usually focused on fundamental pure mathematics and didn’t subscribe to top journals in computational number theory, so he went directly to the School of Mathematics’ reference room.
Entering the reading room, he found the newly arrived issue of *Math. Comp.*
The first thing Liu Ruochuan looked at was the [Editor’s Choice] section.
"A New Dimension-Reduction Algorithm for the Multi-Point Evaluation of the Riemann Zeta Function on the Critical Line."
Liu Ruochuan looked at the title and couldn’t help but snort softly.
’Just tinkering with the foundations we mathematicians laid, making a few algorithmic optimizations...’
Liu Ruochuan shook his head slightly.
’Looks like it’s not just our Yan University. Our colleagues in computational mathematics internationally are having a tough time too.’
Everyone’s just running in circles within the old frameworks, with no real disruptive breakthroughs.
Although he thought this, he still opened the journal and looked at the abstract.
"...completely avoids the exponential explosion of memory fragmentation, a brand-new dimension-reduction strategy..."
Reading these lines, Liu Ruochuan was momentarily dazed.
’A brand-new algorithmic architecture?’
He immediately perked up, holding the journal and walking toward his office as he read.
’Completely separating the odd and even indexed terms in the main sum... This line of thinking, tsk tsk...’
Without realizing it, his pace quickened...
He passed several professors from his department, who smiled and greeted him.
"Dean Liu, just finished your meeting?"
Liu Ruochuan walked right past them as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
Leaving the professors to stare at each other, bewildered.
"BANG!"
Liu Ruochuan threw open his office door, strode to his desk, and sat down.
All his earlier disdain was gone, replaced by a deep sense of awe...
’Sometimes you just have to admire them. This is like punching a hole right through the ceiling of the existing algorithmic system!’
The more Liu Ruochuan read, the more excited he became.
’Who accomplished this? Princeton or MIT?’
’If possible, our Yan University School of Mathematics has to find a way to arrange a research exchange or collaboration!’
’This is an opportunity to boost our School of Mathematics’ influence in the international computational field!’
Liu Ruochuan looked at the author byline of the paper.
The next second, he rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed them again...
’I’m not seeing things, am I?’
[Author: Dong Li (Li Dong)]
[Yenching University (Huaxia Yanjing University)]
Liu Ruochuan: "???"