After rebirth, I became a great master

Chapter 286 Returning a Favor
"The team is finally assembled." Tan Mingliang breathed a sigh of relief, but couldn't help complaining, "The college's efficiency is terrible! They finalized the draft in May and were waiting to submit it to the Ministry of Education for evaluation!"

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Even basic textbooks are easy to write."

Tan Mingliang nodded. "This is my first time compiling a textbook, so I have to do it well."

"It's an honor to be a part of this."

Zhou Haoran is truly honored to be the second author of the Fudan University edition of the textbook "Java Programming Guide".

"You're different."

Tan Mingliang gave a half-smile.

"Me?" Zhou Haoran was confused. "What happened to me?"

"Someone has taken a liking to you!"

Tan Mingliang got up to wash the coffee pot and make a cup of coffee.

"Who?"

"Professor Xiong Jiang, that guy with the slightly crooked chin at today's assessment meeting... he also returned from studying in the US, he's quite capable, and he's only 37 or 38 years old this year."

"I don't know him!" Zhou Haoran said, bewildered. "What did he see in me?"

Tan Mingliang laughed and said, "He's also compiling teaching materials."

Zhou Haoran's heart skipped a beat.

Tan Mingliang said, "The internet is very popular in the US right now, and it's also highly valued in China. The college needs to offer a course on the internet, and it's scheduled to start next semester, so the task is urgent. We need to compile the textbook this semester."

Zhou Haoran nodded. "Of course, those working in the computer and software industry must have a thorough understanding of the internet. What book is Professor Xiong Jiang going to compile?"

"The book, 'Computer Networks: A Top-Down Approach to the Internet,' primarily uses a top-down method to introduce computer networks." Tan Mingliang turned around, smiling at him. "He asked for my opinion, and I recommended you."

Zhou Haoran was pleased with the outcome. "And then Professor Xiong Jiang agreed?"

"Is it okay if I disagree?"

Tan Mingliang snorted.

Zhou Haoran tentatively asked, "Did Dean Cheng also recommend him?"

Tan Mingliang laughed and said, "Dean Cheng did recommend it, but that's an academic matter. Recommendations are about personal connections, while academic ability is the real strength. I forwarded a copy of those three papers about the internet that you sent me to Professor Xiong Jiang, so he can see your understanding of the internet!"

Zhou Haoran solemnly stated, "That's for sure. No one in the world understands the internet better than me. Once I've published dozens of papers and gained prestige and reputation in academia, I'll issue a solemn call to leave a mark of Chinese identity on the foundation of the internet!"

Tan Mingliang glanced back at him.

Weird expression.

It's hard to tell if this kid is joking or discussing a serious topic.

"By the way, Professor Tan, your research area is distributed systems, right?"

"Correct."

"Why don't you write a few world-class papers and participate?"

"what?"

Tan Mingliang was slightly taken aback, and almost burned his hand with the hot water.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Don't waste your expertise! There are so many technical directions in the computer industry, and so much unexplored territory to explore. Why don't you get involved?"

Tan Mingliang shook his head. "I don't have any sense of direction."

Asking questions is more important than solving them.

This is how academia is.

Tan Mingliang, a Stanford PhD, certainly doesn't have poor technical skills. His low academic standing is mainly due to his upbringing in China, which lacked the ability to "ask questions."

In China's educational environment, students learn what teachers say and children do what parents say.

This has resulted in China producing very few world-class talents in the scientific field.

Tan Mingliang is a prime example.

He's capable.

But what kind of paper is he going to write?

At Stanford, he had advisors who would give him requirements, help him find research directions, and provide paper titles. He just had to solve the problems according to his advisors' requirements.

Without his mentor's guidance, he was at a loss as to how to do it on his own.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "I'll help you find a direction, and then we can do research together. You have a lab, and you can have all kinds of data to support your claims, which is much better than me writing a paper by myself."

Professor Tan Mingliang was eager to work on the project, and said happily, "Sure! Find a few topics for us to work on together!"

"No need to look, it's all ready-made!"

Zhou Haoran is an internet expert; he knows how backward the internet is at this stage.

Therefore, asking questions becomes very easy.

How can we develop the current outdated internet into the advanced internet of 30 years from now?

He could find enough details from the information he already had to write thousands of high-quality academic papers.

"off the shelf?"

Tan Mingliang didn't believe that his brain could work like that.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "The current internet speed is so slow. The physical limitation that restricts the speed is that the underwater broadband speed across continents is only 45M. If we want to improve the internet speed under the current conditions, we need new technological means."

"Your previous paper, which described it as a P2P transmission protocol, presented concepts like caching hierarchy and prefetching, which was excellent!"

Tan Mingliang immediately followed his train of thought.

“There are many: compression algorithms, transmission protocols, distributed transaction processing.” Zhou Haoran could rattle off a lot about them. “But you’re right, caching and prefetching are solutions that can be applied in a short time, and this will be the general trend of the Internet.”

This is essentially a CDN service. For example, when someone accesses the internet in China and logs into Amazon... they don't access Amazon's headquarters in the US via undersea fiber optic cables. Instead, Amazon has already "predicted" their access and cached the relevant information in servers near them.

When he accessed the data, he was only accessing the data from the nearest server, not the actual Amazon server.

This greatly increases the speed.

However, this was not Zhou Haoran's core objective.

Physical conditions are limited.

It involves all aspects.

How to continuously adjust transmission protocols under existing conditions to improve information transmission rates is an ongoing topic.

Breaking through bottlenecks through protocol innovation and architecture reconstruction—this kind of technological creativity under extreme conditions—can provide a lasting methodological reference for addressing new network challenges in the future 4G, 5G, and even satellite internet era.

It's starting simultaneously globally now.

If Professor Tan Mingliang's team can achieve outstanding results in this area, it will greatly contribute to the future development of this field in China.

……

Professor Tan has been so helpful.

Zhou Haoran had to reciprocate.

After leaving this area, he went to see Dean Cheng.

Dean Cheng was very happy to tell him that after the Spring Festival, he and Professor Tan Mingliang would represent Fudan University to go to Stanford University for academic exchanges... There were seven or eight other people going with them.

Zhou Haoran understood immediately.

This is a publicly funded trip abroad!
While others were just hitching a ride, Zhou Haoran was the key person involved in the exchange, so the school specially approved $3000 in foreign exchange for him to spend freely, with the school reimbursing his expenses!

That's quite a big move.

Zhou Haoran has been exchanging foreign currency recently, and Yangyang has contacted four or five foreign trade companies for this purpose.

More than $100 million has already been redeemed.

"Old Dean, I have something to tell you."

"Ah."

“There’s a storage room on the first floor, I saw it, it’s not far from the door. Room 107 is pretty useless.”

"Are you useful?"

Dean Cheng understood what he meant.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "It's just sitting there empty anyway, what a waste of resources. I'll borrow it."

Dean Cheng asked, "What will you use it for?"

"Open a coffee shop."

Zhou Haoran needs to find some part-time jobs for Dongfang Lang that are challenging to manage.

This semester, this kid actually earned more than 2 yuan from part-time jobs!

That's truly astonishing.

They sell textbooks to graduate students, secondhand suits to undergraduates, and even started a fruit business. They pack various kinds of fruit into bags, call them "fruit bags," and sell them for 3 yuan each, mainly to female dormitories.

Selling fruit didn't make much money.

He used the opportunity of selling fruit to enter the girls' dormitory to date three girlfriends.

Zhou Haoran felt that he couldn't let him continue to mess around like this.

Open a chain of coffee shops at the school.

Give him something more difficult.

Dean Cheng Dechang was both amused and annoyed. "You want to open a coffee shop? Wouldn't it be better to focus your energy on academics?"

Zhou Haoran quickly replied, "It's not me who runs it, it's my classmate. I'm finding him some part-time work."

"Ah."

Dean Cheng's expression finally improved.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Then it's settled. I'll have him come over in a bit, and all the formalities will be completed. I don't want anyone from the academy to get jealous and try to take it from him after he makes a million or two."

Dean Cheng ignored him and said solemnly, "You must take this academic exchange to Stanford very seriously and prepare carefully. If this academic exchange is successful, Fudan University is very likely to establish a long-term dialogue mechanism with Stanford, which will not only involve student exchanges but also more collaborative projects. This is very important for the university."

Zhou Haoran chuckled and said, "No wonder the school has given me so many honors!"

"It will also benefit you personally." Dean Cheng gave him a deep look. "You wanted to participate in the textbook writing, right? It all depends on whether you can seize the opportunity. If you create opportunities for the school academically, the school will definitely give you special support academically. When the school has any new textbook writing assignments, won't you be the first to choose?"

Zhou Haoran cleared his throat and said, "I just want to make a contribution to the school; I don't care about personal fame or fortune."

Dean Cheng hummed in agreement. "Come to the school whenever you're free these next few days."

"what's up?"

"Final exam."

"Huh?" Zhou Haoran was extremely reluctant. "You really want me to take an exam? What if I fail?"

Dean Cheng said calmly, "It's not a freshman exam. It's an exam for all courses from freshman to senior year, taken in the first semester. If you don't want to take the exam with other students in a group, you can come to me and take it here individually. If you pass, you'll get the credits. You'll take it again next semester, and if you pass that too, you'll graduate with your bachelor's degree."

Zhou Haoran asked cautiously, "Dean Cheng, are you proctoring the exam?"

"Ah."

Dean Cheng put on his reading glasses without looking up.

Zhou Haoran understood now and said with a smile, "Okay, I'll come over when I have time! How about we pick a weekend, so it won't be bad if someone sees us?"

(End of this chapter)