Those who were watching the CCTV interview were not only Hao Yun's parents, but also Hao Yun's three sons in dormitory 401, plus a fat boy named Zhou Xuan who always came to sleep in dormitory 401.
"Brother Yun is awesome! This has to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest submission time for the Hope Cup competition, right?" Looking at Hao Yun walking out of the gym, Zhou Xuan couldn't help shouting.
"Is there still this record?" Liang Ziyuan asked.
"Hehe, we can apply for him." Zhou Xuan said with an embarrassed smile.
"But what the host said...the main audition committee is having a meeting. What exactly are you discussing?" Zheng Xueqian rubbed his chin and frowned in thought.
"Who knows, maybe I wrote some outrageous answer." Zhou Xuan shrugged his shoulders and said helplessly.
A surprising answer
What kind of incredible answer could this be
Including Zhou Xuan himself who said this, everyone gathered in front of the computer had curious expressions on their faces.
At the same time, Professor Li Xuesong, who was flipping through papers in the office of the School of Mathematics of Jiangcheng University, suddenly received a call from the Xia Guo Institute of Mathematics.
The caller was Professor Liu Shoufeng, a leading figure in the field of number theory in China, and the person who proposed the last big question in the previous college mathematics competition.
Professor Li Xuesong was too lazy to answer the caller ID on his cell phone, but he thought that the old man was not an ordinary narrow-minded person, so he patiently pressed the button to connect.
"Hello? What's the matter, Old Liu?"
"Did you read the email I sent you?"
"mail?"
"I just sent it to you!"
Not knowing what kind of medicine this old guy had buried in his belly, Professor Li Xuesong opened his mailbox full of doubts, and sure enough he saw an unread email.
Hey guys, the shipping time was 1 minute ago
It’s not like WeChat has message reminders, so why the hell can I see your email!
He rolled his eyes and opened the email, but Professor Li Xuesong was stunned when he saw the content inside.
The text contains only a string of unknown characters—0x5f375a86.
"Is this a hexadecimal number?" Professor Li Xuesong touched his chin with an expression of interest on his face. "Is there any mystery to this number?"
Every time the old man Liu Shoufeng called him, it was just for two things, either to show off or to share the latest discoveries. Normally he could see some clues, but after looking at this number for a long time and even silently making decimal and binary changes in his mind, he didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.
Professor Liu Shoufeng on the other end of the phone chuckled: "Sure enough, even you can't tell there's anything special about this number!"
"You old thing, stop showing off. If you fart, hurry up and let it go in one go. If nothing happens, I'll die!" Professor Li Xuesong said with a smile.
"Failed? Then you will definitely regret it! I won't bullshit you anymore, you remember the Newton-Raphson method, right?"
"Nonsense, who doesn't remember this!"
The Newton-Raphson method is a method proposed by Newton in the 17th century to approximately solve equations in the real number field and the complex number field. Although this method is rarely used among those who study pure mathematics, this method The method is widely used in the computer field.
For example, if you want to calculate the value of √2, you first guess a number, such as 4. There is no doubt that √2 cannot be equal to 4, but as long as you keep iterating using Newton's iteration method, after n steps of iteration, you can always calculate 1.414... And If you use 2 as a guess value, because 2 and 1.414 are close enough, it only takes two iterations to calculate it.
Li Xuesong remembered that he seemed to have talked about this knowledge point more than once in class with computer science students, but he really didn't know what to dig into in this stuff.
Professor Liu Shoufeng: "I just sent you another email. There is an algorithm in it that has been translated into mathematical language. After you read it, you will know why I am so surprised by this number."
Hearing these words, Professor Li Xuesong couldn't help rolling his eyes, but he couldn't hold back his curiosity, so he clicked on the next email as he said.
The whole algorithm itself is not difficult, it's just about finding the reciprocal of the square root. Professor Li Xuesong even felt that he could fully understand it even if it was not translated into mathematical language.
To put it simply, 0x5f375a86 is a constant used to calculate the guess value.
Because using Newton's iterative algorithm to find the reciprocal of the square root first requires a guess value, which is usually determined after a series of calculations based on the value entered by the user.
Professor Li Xuesong made up a random number and tried to use the algorithm to find the reciprocal square root.
But at this moment, something magical happened!
He found that no matter what value he entered, the guess value calculated by the system was so close to the final result that the entire algorithm only needed to be executed twice at most to end the loop.
And the reason for all this is because of that 0x5f375a86!
"Incredible..." Professor Li Xuesong murmured to himself as he gradually discovered the mystery, "How was this number discovered?"
All he could think about now was one question.
Why is it 0x5f375a86
Professor Liu Shoufeng said in a joking tone: "I have to ask you, after all, it was your students who caused the 'trouble'."
Upon hearing these words, Professor Li Xuesong was immediately shocked.
"My student? Are you sure?"
What the hell? !
Why didn’t I know I had such an awesome student
"That contestant named Hao Yun is not your student?" Suddenly, as if he remembered something, Professor Liu Shoufeng patted his head, "Oh, I almost forgot, the one you named is the main examination committee of the mathematics competition... I hope. Bei is a programmer, so it seems to have nothing to do with you."
"Wait, you mean Hao Yun? Hope Cup? What does it mean?" Professor Li Xuesong asked confused.
Professor Liu Shoufeng explained patiently: "In short, there is a question in the Hope Cup competition that requires improving the operating efficiency of a software. So far, your student has done it, and the solution surprised everyone. Usually, your student has solved it. The coder's idea should be to start with the code, right? As a result, he went directly to modify the code of the underlying function, so that the function that originally required a few more steps to be calculated can now be solved in two steps."
Professor Li Xuesong was stunned, and it took him a long time to say a word.
"... Are you so awesome?"
"Yeah, not only is it awesome, but none of the old guys on the examination committee understood what this number was, and then they sent an email to our Xia Guo Institute of Mathematics, but I couldn't figure it out after reading it for a long time. What a reputation."
As he spoke, Professor Liu Shoufeng sighed and continued.
"This reminds me of the famous Basel problem, that damn infinite series Σ1/n2. No one knows why the person who first discovered that it converges to π2/6 was so bored that he remembered the value of π2/6. You know that is an irrational number, who has no trouble remembering that? But the annoying thing is, he just knows it! And it was later proven to be right!"
"We have to admit that some people in this world are indeed very sensitive to numbers, even beyond the understanding of ordinary people, reaching the level of intuition... At least, before talking to your student face to face, this is the only way I can explain it at the moment. Got it!"
at the same time.
Shanghai is thousands of miles away.
The reporter lady who was squatting outside the gymnasium lounge finally waited for the opportunity for the door to open.
Without any hesitation, she immediately caught a man wearing a plaid shirt who was coming out of the backstage.
Judging from his appearance and appearance, he should be a software engineer.
In this case, maybe you will know some inside information!
"Hello, sir, I am a reporter from the education section of CCTV. Can I interview you? What kind of answers did the contestant submit that caused the audition committee to meet to discuss... Is there any news you can disclose?" The reporter lady asked curiously.
The man originally didn't want to be interviewed, but after seeing the logo on the microphone, he showed a hesitant expression on his face and finally spoke.
"The competition is still going on. I can't reveal too many details yet. As for the contestant you mentioned... the surprising thing about him is that his answer can be said to have only changed one number."
"One, a number?!" The reporter was shocked.
Even the photographer behind her had a surprised expression on his face.
"Yes... I am also surprised. It can even be said that this is completely beyond our expectation? Maybe it will not only affect the glacier engine, but also products in other fields."
When he said this, the face of the man who was probably a software engineer was half solemn and half helpless.
"In any case, this is beyond my own knowledge. Professors from the Mathematics Department of Xia Dong Normal University will come over soon, and they seem to have set up a temporary expert group. You might as well ask their opinions, maybe you can Give you a reasonable answer?"