The unparalleled talent of the country started from Harbin Institute of Technology

Chapter 127, Buying a Siheyuan, List of Academic Conferences and Functional Programming (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

With the sound of firecrackers a year old, the spring breeze sent warmth to Tusu.

Accompanied by the crackling sound of firecrackers, 1979 was already approaching Wang Duoyu. This was the first Spring Festival he had spent since traveling to this parallel time and space, and it also meant that he had been here for more than seven and almost eight months.

The New Year's Eve reunion dinner was held at the "ancestral home". There were really a lot of people at Wang Duoyu's eldest brother's house. Even Wang Xiangdong and other children who had already separated from the family gathered together, and there were a lot of people.

Halfway through the New Year’s Eve dinner, Wang Shuting and her other children came to join in the fun, and for a moment, the entire ancestral home became even more crowded and lively.

New Year's Eve passed in laughter.

In a blink of an eye, it is the first day of the new year, and it is another busy day of distributing red envelopes.

On the third day of junior high school, Wang Duoyu bid farewell to his family and returned to Harbin Institute of Technology.

In the dormitory, when Liu Xiaoli arrived, Wang Duoyu was reading a book.

"Ha, we're like souls, aren't we? You just arrived, and I just happened to get here too... Isn't your house extra lively? You brought back a lot of stuff, didn't you?"

In the living room, there were so many local specialties that Wang Duoyu brought back from his hometown that Liu Xiaoli arrived before he had time to unpack them.

"Yeah, it's very lively. I have a lot of brothers and sisters. Besides me, my younger brother and sister, my eighth sister and her family are all married, and they have a lot of children..."

Holding Liu Xiaoli's little hand, Wang Duoyu smiled and hugged her in his arms, but she exclaimed, the door was not closed.

As a result, Wang Duoyu kicked the door shut and then hugged the other person intimately.

A long time passed, I'm not sure how long it was exactly, but the sun was already much further west and half the afternoon had passed.

After Liu Xiaoli put on her clothes, Wang Duoyu still felt a little unsatisfied. Who made him so angry?

Rolling her eyes at him, Liu Xiaoli stopped Wang Duoyu who wanted to continue filling in the blanks.

The two chatted for a while, and then went about their own business.

Wang Duoyu reads books, mainly those related to aerospace.

Scientists like Qian Xuesen are very talented, but they are still working on the front lines, so they don’t actually have much time to organize and compile textbooks.

Not only is compiling textbooks time-consuming and labor-intensive, but as Liu Tieben said, it is also a thankless task.

Wang Duoyu's purpose is more to learn and organize aerospace-related technical information for his own use. Simply relying on the current textbooks is not only too messy, but he will also feel uncomfortable when reading these books.

So he took the lead, learning, organizing, and editing the materials at the same time, which was equivalent to taking notes.

Although Liu Xiaoli was curious about his work, she remained silent after taking a few glances and was no longer curious.

After returning to school, Wang Duoyu devoted himself to compiling teaching materials. It was not until the eighth day of the Lunar New Year that he received a call from Beijing, which broke his peaceful life.

Xia Peisu called and said that there were several technical issues that required him to go to Beijing, and that could not be resolved by phone or letter.

After learning about this, Wang Duoyu agreed without much thought. When he told Liu Xiaoli about this, she actually asked to go to the capital together.

"Aren't you going back to Jiangcheng to work? How do you still have time to visit Beijing?"

Today is the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, and it's time to go back to work. Nowadays, most people's Spring Festival holiday is only three days, not the nearly ten-day holiday in the future.

Seeing Wang Duoyu so surprised, Liu Xiaoli immediately rolled her eyes at him:
"You are allowed to go on business trip, but I am not allowed to go out for fun?"

She explained that she still had some vacation time and that it would be no problem for her to stay in the capital for a few days.

Before the Spring Festival, the two had already discussed purchasing a courtyard house in Beijing to store the letters from readers.

So since I have some time now, I might as well solve this problem.

Of course Wang Duoyu agreed. The sooner the matter is resolved, the better.

As long as he could handle this matter, he would no longer have to bring large and small bags of readers' letters back to Harbin Institute of Technology from Beijing.

Besides, the house at Harbin Institute of Technology only has two bedrooms and a living room, which is not very big. He has a lot of books and does not have more space to store these letters from readers.

"Okay then, we'll leave tomorrow."

The two of them decided to set off for Beijing the next day. When they arrived at Beijing Railway Station, it was already the afternoon of the tenth day.

After arriving at the place, the two were taken to a guesthouse near Zhongguancun by the security staff of the Institute of Computing Technology.

After settling down in the guesthouse, Liu Xiaoli asked in a low voice:
"Duoyu, why was that security guy so respectful to you just now? What are you hiding from me? I feel like you have a lot of secrets..."

Wang Duoyu was immediately at a loss for words. "Didn't I tell you before? I'm participating in a research project at the Institute of Computing Technology. This time I'm here to solve the technical problems in the project..."

"As for why he respects me so much, how would I know?"

Seeing that she still looked unconvinced, Wang Duoyu quickly said:
"Okay, do you want to take a break? Or should we go for a walk around the neighborhood now?"

Of course, she just took a walk around the neighborhood. She was very proactive about buying a house and even wanted to make the decision for Wang Duoyu.

What are the things to do near Zhongguancun?
Peking University's Yanyuan, the Summer Palace, the Old Summer Palace ruins, Tsinghua University, etc. are all nearby and can be visited, but Liu Xiaoli is not very interested in them.

The next day, Wang Duoyu asked a researcher from the Institute of Computing Technology for help and took Liu Xiaoli to find Siheyuan. He himself stayed in the Institute of Computing Technology to solve the technical problems encountered in the project.

In the office, Xia Peisu exchanged a few polite words with Wang Duoyu, said Happy New Year, and quickly got back to work.

The technical problems encountered in the high-speed array processor project are somewhat complicated, mainly programming problems.

The entire system program architecture was determined after discussion between Wang Duoyu and Xia Peisu. After it was determined, Wang Duoyu programmed it himself and was the first to complete the programming of a four-MB memory.

The subsequent work was handed over to the Beijing Institute of Computing Technology to complete, but I didn't expect the progress to be so slow, and we even encountered some difficult technical problems. This is quite interesting.

However, Wang Duoyu soon discovered something wrong. Why were there nearly twenty fewer people than before?

Although confused, Wang Duoyu did not ask any questions, and Old Lady Xia had no intention of explaining, so they just started working.

In the office on the other side, Liao Qiyuan was chatting with an old lady with gray hair, and their conversation was obviously related to Xia Peisu.

Or to be more precise, it has a lot to do with high-speed array processors.

"Sister Zhen, you said you were fine, so why are you so picky? Professor Xia is a nice person, why do you always pick on him?"

Liao Qiyuan said to the old lady in front of him with a smile.

The old lady's name was Zhou Qiaozhen. She was from the same era as Liao Qiyuan and Xia Peisu. However, Zhou Qiaozhen and Xia Peisu did not get along well. Over the years, she had often secretly competed with Xia Peisu.

This time, Xia Peisu's original plan for the high-speed array processor project was to start in the middle of this year, but it was started half a year earlier in November last year.

After the project was launched, Zhou Qiaozhen's original project suffered a sudden setback. Many staff members were transferred away, and the project funds originally promised to her were temporarily withheld.

Zhou Qiaozhen applied to Yan Peilin, director of the Institute of Computing Technology, but was rejected by the latter.

Because Yan Peilin was more optimistic about the high-speed array processor project, Xia Peisu was always given priority in everything.

Xia Peisu has a long history at the Institute of Computing Technology. Although Zhou Qiaozhen is also considered a senior employee, she is much weaker than the former.

Over the past few years, the two have competed openly and secretly, and have also cooperated several times, but in most of the competitions, Zhou Qiaozhen almost always failed, and only defeated Xia Peisu three times.

This time, it was obvious that Xia Peisu was going too far, but Director Yan Peilin actually sided with the other party. This made Zhou Qiaozhen very angry.

Although she was angry, Zhou Qiaozhen would not be so mean as to directly disrupt Xia Peisu's project.

If that's the case, then it's not competition, but mortal hatred, which is a crime.

So Zhou Qiaozhen has been thinking about how to turn the game around.

Three months later, she finally came up with a solution.

Taking advantage of Yan Peilin's business trip, Zhou Qiaozhen used her scheming and Xia Peisu's kindness to transfer the eighteen members of the high-speed array processor project back to her own project.

In fact, Zhou Qiaozhen's project was also quite urgent, but although the high-speed array processor project had been going on for three months, it was not that urgent.

In addition, Xia Peisu is also very kind and confident enough that she believes that even if 18 researchers and graduate students are missing, it will not have much impact on the project.

Unexpectedly, not long after the personnel were transferred, problems arose with the high-speed array processor.

Then technical problems arose, which kept Xia Peisu very busy. Thinking of Wang Duoyu who was leisurely reading books and compiling textbooks at Harbin Institute of Technology, he called him over.

"I admit that Professor Xia is a good person, but Old Yan is too partial. I can't stand it. Why does he always bully me?"

Zhou Qiaozhen rolled her eyes, then said with some gloating:
"Professor Xia's project is having some technical issues. Hehe, I don't know how long it will take. Given her arrogant personality, I'm afraid she won't tell me."

"If Old Yan comes back and finds out about this, Sister Zhen, you're probably going to get scolded."

Liao Qiyuan heard this and immediately said, Zhou Qiaozhen heard this and shook her head:

"You know Professor Xia, right? She definitely won't take the initiative to talk about these things. If she doesn't say it, who would know?"

After a pause, she continued:

"As for Old Yan himself, he's on a business trip this time and won't be back for at least a month and a half. Haha, by the time he finds out about this, it will be too late."

Just at this moment, someone came to the door.

Soon, Zhou Qiaozhen and Liao Qiyuan learned that Xia Peisu had hired external help, but to be more precise, he had hired a student.

"You mean the math genius Wang Duoyu, right?"

Liao Qiyuan asked again with a puzzled look on his face. After receiving an accurate answer, he looked at Zhou Qiaozhen and said,

"Sister Zhen, it looks like we might not get to see the fun. This math genius is quite capable. I heard he's very strong."

Upon hearing this, the latter shook his head and said:

"Old Liao, you're overthinking it. This is a computer science project, not a purely mathematical problem. There's a fundamental difference between the two."

"I've also heard of Wang Duoyu, the math genius. I know he's very capable, but there are limits to how good he is. Furthermore, just because he's good at math doesn't mean he's also talented in processors."

"He's just a college student in his early twenties. Don't take him too seriously."

Then, Zhou Qiaozhen talked about some examples of geniuses in the past. Being good at mathematics does not necessarily mean that you are also strong in other areas. Moreover, mathematics itself has been subdivided into many fields, so it is not easy to accomplish something.

Liao Qiyuan nodded silently after hearing this. Perhaps Zhou Qiaozhen was right. One should not believe everything one hears. No matter how strong Wang Duoyu was, how strong could he be?

At the end of last year, Liao Qiyuan and Zhou Qiaozhen had heard so much about Wang Duoyu that their ears were almost callused from hearing about it.

"Director Zhou, Team Leader Liao, I think you should take this matter seriously. I heard from Shan Yunbo and the others that Comrade Wang Duoyu is very powerful."

Seeing that Liao Qiyuan and Zhou Qiaozhen were both unconvinced, Meng Bojun immediately tried to persuade them:
"The high-speed array processor project has many plans and system architectures, and Wang Duoyu has participated in all of them. He even proposed some of them himself. Don't underestimate them."

At this time, Zhou Qiaozhen smiled and shook her head and said:

"Now that they're here, what can we do? We can't stop them, right?"

The three of them were still discussing here. Zhou Qiaozhen didn't quite believe that Wang Duoyu could turn the tide. Anyway, Xia Peisu would definitely be in a mess this time, and he would even be too busy to do anything.

At noon, Wang Duoyu, Xia Peisu and others came to the Institute of Computing Technology cafeteria to eat together. They sat there chatting and talking.

At this moment, Liao Qiyuan, who still didn't know why Wang Duoyu and the others were so happy, saw this scene and stepped forward to ask with concern:
"Professor Xia, have the technical problems of your project been solved?"

"It's solved. Team Leader Liao, you really care about us. By the way, how's your project going? Do you need any help?"

Xia Peisu was in a very good mood and took the initiative to smile and express his concern. The smile on Liao Qiyuan's face suddenly froze.

After shaking his head, Liao Qiyuan politely declined Xia Peisu's concern and couldn't help but ask curiously how the problem was solved so quickly?
Xia Peisu nodded at Wang Duoyu, who was busy eating, and said:
"Look, it was Team Leader Xiao Wang who helped me solve it. I didn't expect him to be able to solve it right away. I just thought he wasn't very busy, so I asked him to come over and help. I didn't expect him to actually finish it in just one morning."

Liao Qiyuan was stunned when he heard this.

In the Institute of Computing Technology cafeteria, Liao Qiyuan looked at Xia Peisu in disbelief, then asked seriously:

"Professor Xia, you're not lying to me, are you? Didn't you tell me before that this programming problem is very troublesome and difficult? Even if you were to solve it yourself, it would take you ten days or half a month. How could you solve it in just one morning?"

"Really? You don't believe it either?"

Xia Peisu took a bite of the steamed bun and said with a smile:
"I didn't believe it at first, but young people these days are really amazing. I can't understand it."

Seeing this, Liao Qiyuan reluctantly believed it, but he still couldn't understand why Wang Duoyu solved the technical problem so quickly?

At this time, there was a guest sitting in Zhou Qiaozhen's office, Feng Kang who came from the Institute of Mathematics.

"Professor Zhou, our Computing Center is really short of staff right now. I've looked around at the Institute of Computing Technology, and I think you're the only one who can help."

Feng Kang is the director of the Computing Center of an independent computational mathematics research institute. Whenever he encounters any problems, he will first seek help from the Institute of Mathematics.

But this time it was different. The mathematics department was very busy and no one had time to help him.

Everyone is nervous just because of the academic conference that will start in April.

The main reason why everyone is so nervous is that they are very much looking forward to this lecture.

Before the Spring Festival, Chen Shiing-Shen had already called Yang Zongli, the leader of China Resources Company's Hong Kong headquarters, to inform the latter about the list of names for the April academic conference.

Abroad, due to the successful release of the special issue of the Annals of Mathematics, many mathematics professors, doctoral students, mathematics enthusiasts, etc. have received the magazine and have begun to study it seriously.

Out of trust in the "Annals of Mathematics", most people are still willing to believe that the Poincare conjecture in four-dimensional space has been proved, but there are still many people who simply cannot understand the paper.

However, these are not important, because when Chen Shiing-Shen personally invited those well-known professors and experts in the mathematics community to go to Beijing to attend an academic conference in April, after the news spread, many people used their connections to find people to attend the conference.

Of course, those who need connections to get tickets to the lecture are all ordinary mathematics enthusiasts, or some so-called masters or doctoral students.

Yang Zongli received a notice from Chen Xingshen that before the Spring Festival, it had been confirmed that 620 people would attend the academic symposium to be held at Peking University in April this year.

There are many famous mathematicians and professors on this list, not to mention Smale and others. Famous mathematicians from Europe and other places have already stated that they will attend this symposium.

For example, Lars Valerian, André Weil, Charles Fefman, Sergei Novikov and others all wrote to Chern or called him directly to sign up.

The reason why these people were so proactive in wanting to attend this lecture was that even though it was held in Beijing, the ancient capital of China, it did not make them give up.

The reason is very simple, that is because the Poincare conjecture is indeed the most popular top mathematical problem in the past ten years.

Many professors and experts were studying this topic, but because of Wang Duoyu's paper, many people lost their projects. They were filled with anger and helplessness, but at the same time, they also had a glimmer of hope: what if this paper was not so sufficient?

Perhaps they can find relevant loopholes in this paper before the academic conference begins?

This is one of the reasons why most people want to attend this seminar.

There were many people attending the lecture, so Tao Fangqi, Chen Jingrun, Lu Qikeng, Yang Le, Zhang Guanghou and others from the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences were all very happy and looking forward to it.

In addition to looking forward to it, they also want to be very eager to prepare so that they can communicate smoothly with their international mathematics colleagues when April comes.

One of the preparations they made was language!

It is impossible to make a breakthrough in language in just a few months, but as long as you can communicate smoothly, that is enough, and nothing else matters.

Anyway, mathematical symbols are unified, and it is enough to be able to communicate smoothly in the end.

The Institute of Mathematics was so busy that Feng Kang suddenly lost his biggest external support, so he had no choice but to come to the Institute of Computing Technology for help.

Although the names suggest that the Computing Center and the Institute of Computing Technology are almost the same unit, in reality, although the two are related, they are completely different.

The Computing Center is mainly responsible for research in high-energy physics scientific computing, data storage, networking, and scientific research informatization. The Institute of Computing Technology is mainly engaged in the research and development of computer technology and is committed to the research and development of high-performance computers.

So there was absolutely no problem for him to come to the Institute of Computing Technology for help.

Moreover, in the 1950s, the Institute of Mathematics and the Institute of Computing Technology were actually separate but not divided. Hua Luogeng once organized Xia Peisu, Min Naida and others to imitate and develop computers. At that time, researchers from the Institute of Mathematics helped a lot.

Since 1958, several universities in China have established departments of computational mathematics. The students are basically all from the mathematics department, or must be students with very good mathematics grades.

After Zhou Qiaozhen understood Feng Kang's intention, she immediately declined with a bitter face:

"Director Feng, I'm so sorry, I don't have enough staff right now. I really can't assign more people to help you. I'm really at my wit's end."

"Last November, Professor Xia started a new project and immediately transferred all the people away. I begged Professor Xia for a long time before he reluctantly called in people to help."

"And Director Feng, you also know that this project of mine has been going on for nearly a year and a half. If I don't finish it quickly, I'm afraid that when Director Yan comes back, he will definitely scold me to death."

To be honest, she also wanted to help, but in reality she was powerless.

Feng Kang's heart sank when he heard this. At this moment, Liao Qiyuan hurried into the office.

"Sister Zhen, Sister Zhen, did you know? The problem with Professor Xia's project has been solved. Hey, Director Feng, you're here too."

When Zhou Qiaozhen heard this, she couldn't believe her ears. She looked at Liao Qiyuan in surprise and confirmed again:
"Old Liao, what did you just say? Professor Xia and his team's technical problems with their project have been solved? Wasn't it just this morning? And it was solved so quickly? Who solved it?"

In the morning, she had talked about this matter with Liao Qiyuan. She didn't expect that it had been resolved at noon. It was really unbelievable.

She even thought that Liao Qiyuan had heard it wrong.

"Sister Zhen, it was that college student named Wang Duoyu. Professor Xia said he helped solve the problem."

Liao Qiyuan explained the situation with great enthusiasm and explained the details to Zhou Qiaozhen, who was stunned.

Feng Kang couldn't help but interrupt:

"Team Leader Liao, you were talking about Researcher Wang Duoyu from the Institute of Mathematics, right?"

"Yes, Director Feng, you must know him. I've always heard that this young man is very capable, but I didn't expect he also knows so much about computer programming."

At this time, Liao Qiyuan praised with emotion.

To be honest, he was very surprised by Wang Duoyu's performance.

Zhou Qiaozhen was surprised to see Feng Kang suddenly stand up, confirm Wang Duoyu's current location with Liao Qiyuan, and then leave in a hurry.

What's happening here?
On the other side, Wang Duoyu, who had returned to the office from the cafeteria, had already picked up his book and was ready to continue reading.

What others consider to be a difficult and troublesome programming technical problem is, in Wang Duoyu's view, a rather simple problem.

Who made him a time traveler?

In his previous life, Wang Duoyu majored in automation as an undergraduate, and the core courses of this subject included the basics of software technology, computer control technology, computer-aided design, C language and C++ programming, etc.

These are just the basic computer courses for students majoring in automation. In addition, there are circuits, automatic control, digital electronic technology, motors and traction, etc.

Although students majoring in automation learn a lot of different things, Wang Duoyu was able to pass the postgraduate and doctoral examinations and finally become a professor. Naturally, he put in a lot of time and energy. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to do so well.

Programming technology in the 1970s was very simple. C language was the most mainstream computer programming language in the United States. In China, formula translators and algorithmic languages ​​were the main programming languages.

Before the 1950s, computers generally used two languages: machine language and assembly language.

Machine language is a language that computers can directly recognize and execute, but its instructions are binary code, which is very difficult to read and write, prone to errors and difficult to maintain.

Assembly language is a low-level language. Programs written in this language cannot be directly recognized by the machine. They must be translated into machine language programs by an assembler before the machine can execute them.

So assembly language is easy to read and write, but it is still very difficult to program in.

After the 1950s, a high-level language emerged, and C was one of them.

Programs written in high-level languages ​​must be converted into machine language programs through a language processing system before they can be recognized and executed by computers.

But now in 1979, such high-level languages ​​still require a lot of time and energy for most people to complete related programming tasks.

Especially the system bug encountered this time, if it weren’t for Wang Duoyu, it would take at least half a month to a month to solve this system bug problem.

Wang Duoyu uses functional programming, a programming paradigm that emphasizes building programs using a series of functions and avoids changing state or mutable data.

In functional programming, computation is viewed as a series of evaluations of mathematical functions, avoiding the state changes and side effects common in imperative programming.

Its characteristics are immutability, high-order functions, no side effects, and recursion.

With this programming method, the system problem was easily solved.

"Team Leader Wang, can I ask you about the functional programming you talked about this morning?"

In the office, Wang Duoyu was still reading a book when three people walked in from outside. One of them was Shan Yunbo, and the other two were members of the same project team.

(End of this chapter)