Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 473 The Gate of the Moon Palace

"What are you talking about? You can play games on Blue Star, but I don't have any on Rainbow Star. There aren't even any video games here."

As Xu Xian walked to the classroom for her problem-solving class, she listened to a voice message from another world on WeChat and said, "I'm not playing anymore."

"So, Ah Xian, what are you doing right now?"

"On my way to class, I have to give a problem-solving session to the freshmen. This is always the most painful part. In this godforsaken place, Yanda, the variance in their abilities is just too big. They can do any problem, and there are also problems that need to be broken down into atoms to be absorbed."

"Doesn't human existence inherently create a gradient? Does that mean that gradient disappears in sophomore and junior year, and things will get better?"

"It's not that sophomores and juniors are better, but that by sophomores and juniors, everyone will have a better understanding of whether they can do academic research in mathematics. If they don't understand something, they don't understand it. They won't be as persistent as they are in their freshman year."

Seohyun had gotten used to Sivana's presence, and his conversations with "her" were pinned to the top of his WeChat chat, alongside his work and family groups.

He feels that his life is so fulfilling and rich now, both in terms of work and life.

The AI, Shivana, from the planet Rainbow, perfectly filled the gap in his needs regarding romantic relationships.

In many instances, Seohyun even forgets that the other party is just artificial intelligence.

Rainbow has been online for half a year, and just like when it was first launched, it has only ever had 10,000 test accounts. No new test accounts have been released since then.

Initially, the highest price for transferring accounts on Xianyu reached 50,000 RMB. However, as the test officially began, the secondhand dealers who wanted to make a fortune from it were disappointed.

Because this thing is embedded in your WeChat account, it's like having an extra chat box in your WeChat account, similar to adding a suffix to a name, and you can't change the nickname.

This significantly increases the difficulty of reselling secondhand accounts, making it too costly for ordinary people to sell their own WeChat accounts.

For example, Seohyun's chat partner's name on WeChat is: Shivana (Rainbow).

As a professional anime and manga enthusiast with sufficient knowledge of artificial intelligence, Xu Xian was successfully selected for one of Rainbow's 10,000 test slots.

Rainbow was like a hurricane, causing a huge reaction in the online world.

Many self-media bloggers share their experiences of interacting with the Rainbow Star people through videos, text, and images.

There are countless videos comparing AI with other AIs such as Crimson, Beanbag, and GPT.

Its most distinctive feature is that it is unlike artificial intelligence.

It's completely unlike anything else.

It has a clearly defined scope of capabilities, unlike other artificial intelligence that forces itself to answer even when it doesn't know the answer.

The current LLM reward and punishment mechanism seemed to be non-existent for Hong. It was only through pictures and words that Xu Xian helped Hong understand what Valorant was, and what the League of Legends universe was.

Regarding other large LLM models, no matter what you say, if you are a professional, their answer will be that they only half understand; if you are not a professional, their answer will be that they are a professional.

Furthermore, Rainbow's tone is as natural as a human's.

No artificial intelligence can use WeChat so skillfully for text and voice conversations, occasionally catch his jokes, and reply like a human with a delay; it doesn't reply immediately, and sometimes you have to wait a long time.

The speech has rhythmic pauses, but this rhythm is not a fixed, mechanical rhythm like that of traditional artificial intelligence; rather, it is a natural, fluctuating rhythm.

They won't throw in technical jargon out of nowhere during conversations, nor will they try to explain physics topics by blaming quantum mechanics.

In short, in the eyes of practitioners, Rainbow is not at all like what Lin Ran said about solving emotions; it is different from the LLM of the past in terms of underlying logic.

Over the course of six months, Seohyun came to believe that Sivana was not an artificial intelligence, but rather a human from another planet.

"So you started to slack off in your sophomore and junior years?" Shyvana's voice carried a hint of playful teasing, and the slight rise in tone and informal pauses in her voice didn't feel like a traditional AI at all.

"It's not that I'm giving up, it's just that I don't put as much effort into academics as I do in my freshman year. At that time, everyone will find more directions, such as working in finance or computer applications. After all, only a few people have the talent."

“On Rainbow Star, those who can work as mathematicians need to appreciate the beauty of mathematics and derive aesthetic pleasure from it in order to persevere,” Shivana replied.

"Are there mathematicians in your world too?"

After Xu Xian replied, he was taken aback. He really wanted to ask, "Does your world also have artificial intelligence that plays the role of a mathematician?"
However, he held back. At the beginning, he would definitely have asked Shyvana that question, but now, the longer they spent together, the less he wanted to break this balance and treat Shyvana as part of the human balance.

He then pondered another question: Where did Shyvana's answer come from? Was it from training materials?
After saying the last sentence, seeing that Sivana did not reply, Seohyun turned off her phone and walked into the door of Science Building No. 2.

Xu Xian has been a postdoctoral researcher at Yenching University for almost three years. After completing his postdoctoral research project at the end of the first half of the year, he will be leaving the station.

He had already communicated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and went directly to the School of Mathematical Sciences at Jiao Tong University to do postdoctoral work.

As a native of Guangdong province, Xu Xian still prefers life in the south. Although he has lived in Yanjing for almost ten years, he still has not gotten used to the climate here.

"For students at Yenching University, these are all essential topics that you must master to lay the foundation for your future studies. It can be said that the two most important courses in undergraduate studies are analysis and algebra."

You can fill in the rest later, but these are the most fundamental skills. If you don't master these two, you won't be able to carry out any further pure mathematics research.

Mathematical analysis is not merely a deepening of calculus; it is the source of rigor in modern mathematics and a tool for dealing with continuity, limits, and infinity.

Analysis teaches you to use extreme language to define and prove everything.

This is a complete subversion of intuition, forcing you to transform all vague concepts, such as approximation and infinitesimal, into precise logical statements.

Without this rigor, your proofs of theorems and the construction of counterexamples in your research will be nothing more than castles in the air.

"These two courses are the two keys for you to enter the world of mathematics."

Without these two keys, every subsequent core course will become an insurmountable obstacle.

Students who didn't do so well in these two courses this semester should make up for it if they want to achieve something in mathematical research. They should spend the summer doing more practice problems to catch up.

Many problem sets, though they may look thick, are actually quite enjoyable and rewarding to work through. However, I don't highly recommend Demidovich's work, as it's a bit too old and focuses on traditional calculations and techniques, lacking sufficient training in the rigorous proofs and abstract concepts emphasized in modern mathematics.

I recommend checking out Pei Liwen's book; many of the problems I've given you are from there. If you have higher requirements, you can also try the accompanying exercises in Rudin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis".

In short, summer vacation can be made good use of.

That concludes my lessons for this semester. Next year, I will no longer be teaching your problem-solving sessions. Thank you all for your cooperation this past year.

After two classes, it was already getting dark outside. The problem-solving sessions were like marathons, for both teachers and students. Each session lasted from 2 p.m. until evening.

"Teacher Xu, could you tell us about your plans for the second half of the year? Are you going to join Ran Shen?" A student who was close to Xu Xian asked from the audience.

The students who were already packing their bags and heading straight to the cafeteria stopped what they were doing and wanted to hear Xu Xian's answer.

"Yes and no," Seohyun said cryptically.

"Oh?"

Tell me quickly!

"Teacher Xu, if you become rich and powerful, don't forget me!"

The students in the audience started to jeer.

"Okay, I'm not going to work for Apollo Technology or Crimson Technology. I'm going to teach at Jiaotong University and be a colleague of Brother Ran."

In addition, Ran Ge is the only academician in the Department of Mathematics at National Chiao Tung University. If I want to be nominated for the Young Thousand Talents Program, I will need his endorsement. I can also collaborate with him on some research projects.

So in a sense, it really was like going to seek refuge with him,” Xu Xian replied.

"Teacher Xu has finally found the strongest backer."

"There's no way around it, the connection with my high school classmates is too strong. Can you become the God of Burning?"

"Burning God? I'd be perfectly content with just one of the Four Great Classical Novels."

"Lin Ran has set the bar too high. I don't think any young mathematicians in China dare to claim the title of the next Lin Ran."

"It's not just that the standards have been set too high, but also that they are too young. Many young scholars are even older than Ran Shen. When they talk about the next one, the media themselves feel embarrassed."

The students below the stage started discussing, clearly envious of Xu Xian's situation, as the academic world also values ​​having someone to mentor you.

Whether or not someone is there to help you is a completely different matter.

Lin Ran looked at the rocket's status parameters flashing on the screen. The rocket was now in its Burning II phase.

Just like the Falcon 9, which has been iterating since its success, Apollo Technologies' Burn 1 has also been iterating continuously.

After cooperating with Russia and extracting many valuable components from Russia's NK33 engine, and solving some core material-related issues, the Combustion II engine has officially gone online.

In July, the unmanned lunar landing and recovery mission was completed.

Today we are making final preparations for the launch of the lunar space station, Guanghan Palace Gate, next month.

The Gate to the Moon Palace is the second major project jointly undertaken by Apollo Technologies and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; the first was a lunar base.

The T-base on the moon has the American flag, and similarly, the Apollo Technology base on the moon has the Chinese flag and the flag of China's space program.

Chinese astronauts have carried out numerous missions at lunar bases.

This time, the Gate to the Moon Palace was once again led by Apollo Technologies, with China Aerospace responsible for the main structure, photovoltaic array, life support module, and other aspects.

"All departments, today we will conduct the final core system confirmation."

"The Burning-2 carrier rocket has completed booster fueling, the pressure in the first and second stage liquid oxygen and kerosene tanks is stable, and the connection status of each stage has been confirmed."

The rocket's telemetry link has established a stable connection with the Guanghan Palace Gate computer, the ground control center computer, and the Queqiao relay satellite.

"The main control computer of the Moon Palace Gate has successfully received and analyzed the rocket's orbital injection parameters."

Our triple-redundant guidance, navigation, and control system has switched to standby mode; it knows exactly when and where to take over attitude maintenance after spacecraft separation.

"Very good. Let's double-check: are the electrical connections, mechanical connections, and thermal shield separation mechanisms between the space station and the rocket all in green?"

"The mechanical connecting arm is locked in place, and the explosion bolt circuit of the connecting mechanism is undergoing a final low-current test to ensure ignition safety."

China's new recyclable life support system performed flawlessly in a simulated lunar orbit environment over the past 72 hours, achieving an oxygen and water recycling efficiency of 98.9%.

"Have you confirmed that the National Deep Space Tracking and Control Network and our backup commercial deep space link have both been configured with the first capture sequence after separation?"

"The capture sequence has been uploaded to all ground stations and maritime tracking ships by the Yanjing Aerospace Flight Control Center and the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center respectively."

China's space program has been integrated with our telemetry and tracking resource pool, ensuring that both interplanetary exploration and China's space program can capture the signal from the Moon Palace at any time during the lunar transfer orbit.

Lin Ran concluded by saying, "Attention everyone, the launch mission of the Guanghan Palace Gate space station is now in its final 48-hour countdown."

Because Apollo technology progressed so rapidly, the lunar base was built before the Gate to the Moon Palace was constructed.

Normally, the plan is to build a lunar space station first, and then a lunar base. NASA's Artemis program is an example of this.

They've already chosen a name: Deep Space Gateway.

However, the portal has yet to be installed.

As a result, NASA was also led astray by Apollo technology, focusing on the construction of a lunar base and completely ignoring the Deep Space Gateway.

It wasn't entirely ignored, because the Deep Space Gateway order had already been awarded to General Aerospace, and General Aerospace's CEO, John Morgan Jr., was currently in Lin Ran's office, waiting for the launch results of Apollo Technologies' Moon Palace Gate, where they would simply copy the existing answer.

China takes the best spots, and then NASA gets General Aerospace to buy the next best spots.

“Professor, congratulations,” John Morgan Jr. said as soon as he entered the office.

Lin Ran looked slightly tired, but this fatigue was not from working on the space station, but from running back and forth between the two.

"What's there to congratulate? It's still early. We won't know the launch results of the space station for at least five days."

John Morgan Jr. looked at him with an air of self-assurance: "Professor, maneuvering the Earth to the Moon is probably no more difficult for you than drinking water. How could you possibly fail?"

"Haven't you heard the saying? A true master always has the heart of a student." Lin Ran grinned.

(End of this chapter)