Super God-Level Top Student

Look, idle chatting is fine, but who the heck can keep up with conversation at this level?

"Then, then, then what does this indicate?" Li Chengze asked with a strained face.

Today, Qiao Ze seemed interested in talking, and surprisingly he answered this question which even Lv Bei thought was silly.

"It indicates that the development of human civilization is within planned boundaries, and no one has yet achieved anything outside those plans. Isn't this something that makes everyone feel defeated? What's more frustrating is that humanity struggles even to fully realize such simple things."

Qiao Ze's tone remained calm, but it carried a hint of regret.

"Does artificial intelligence not count?" Lv Bei muttered.

"It doesn't count."

After hesitating for a moment, Qiao Ze continued, "At least for now, it doesn't count. Whether it's deep learning models based on statistical correlations or causal inference models, they are all limited within existing rules. The complex internal structure of neural networks doesn't even compare to the structure of human brain neurons. The so-called black box effect is merely theoretical."

This almost seemed like he was disparaging himself as well.

It's well known that the world's most advanced artificial intelligence came from Qiao Ze.

Some have even called Qiao Ze the father of strong AI... well, Dou Dou certainly contributed to that spread.

Li Chengze, who had been lively all along, instinctively glanced at Lv Bei, just as Lv Bei was looking at him, a trace of worry in both their eyes.

Professor Qiao's mental state seems a bit off today. That's not good news for the two of them.

They weren't sure if they should report it and arrange for a psychologist to chat with Qiao Ze, fearing it might upset him.

Some jobs are just that way; the higher-ups don't reward you for being diligent but will certainly cause big trouble if you're careless.

Of course, the looks in their eyes weren't entirely the same; it was easy to read a hint of blame in Lv Bei's eyes...

Originally, it was nice for everyone to take a walk together, but you had to bring up such messy topics.

Luckily, during this brief chat, the three had already walked out of the Mathematics Research Institute building. Due to regulations, not many students came this way. Upon exiting the path, it was noticeably busier.

It was around six o'clock, a meal time, with young students heading to the cafeteria or returning to dormitories along the road. The distant playground was even more bustling, with cheers heard from afar, the air almost infused with the spirit of youth.

Perhaps infected by this carefree atmosphere, Lv Bei rarely smiled and said, "Professor Qiao, with my low level of education, I can't understand much of what you said. But I think, anyhow, in life, one can't accomplish everything."

Science gradually progresses, one generation after another, each doing their part. Honestly, compared to others, you are already very successful. If even you feel frustrated, how can others keep going?"

Li Chengze chimed in, "Indeed, Professor Qiao, many academicians came to inspect the institute today for its recent achievements. Just as I was leaving, I saw people gathered around Professor Witten discussing."

Qiao Ze nodded, not wanting to elaborate further.

To outsiders, the research achievements of the Mathematics Research Institute could be considered abundant, but Qiao Ze clearly didn't see it that way. In fact, he felt that their targeted research on the grand unification problem had been stalled for the past two, three months.

Applied mathematics is certainly important, but it wasn't the focus of Qiao Ze's work.

The distortion theorem couldn't fully explain the influence of curvature on many theories in the microscopic world within general relativity, such as supersymmetry breaking. The result was that energy spectrum calculations based on existing formulas were absurdly incorrect.

To put it simply, he once thought the mathematical framework he built could help find a direction from mathematics to physical unification, but after rigorous calculations, he concluded that his recent research had been just circular.

Although the new accelerator theory he developed was useful, it belonged to the realm of applications and still didn't break away from examining the quantum world.

In other words, the work on completing the mathematical framework at the microscopic level was quite accomplished, but once he truly tried to create a transition framework from macro to micro, he found himself lacking.

Energy transmission mechanisms in the macro world can be described by classical mechanics and thermodynamics, while the microscopic world is described by quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. To unify them, a mechanism capable of perfect energy transfer across different scales is needed.

Yet, these topics were clearly not suitable to discuss with the two people beside him.

Just like the collider technology the academicians came to discuss today.

Humanity invested enormous resources to construct the LHC, where proton collision energy can reach 7TeV. In the microscopic world, this is huge; however, when converted to the common macroscopic unit of joules, 1eV is the energy gained by one electron from a potential difference of 1 volt, approximately 191.602×10^−19 joules.

7TeV=7×10^12eV, according to conversion formulas, equals 1.1214×10^−6 joules.

If a droplet of water weighs 0.05 grams, the gravitational potential energy from a 1-meter fall would be about 4.9x10^-4 joules.

In other words, the energy generated by particle collisions in a collider, consuming almost exorbitant electricity, is two orders of magnitude smaller than the potential energy of a drop of water falling from a meter height.

The problem of scale conversion, inability to reconcile forces, huge differences between quantum and classical effects, for the first time gave Qiao Ze the feeling that the deeper he researched, the more lost he felt.

Oddly, there wasn't really anyone to confide in about this. Even communicating with Edward Witten, Peter Schultz and the like felt overly dramatic to them.

Yes, despite both leaving their homes without hesitation to come to Xilin, even they hadn't imagined there'd be quick results. Especially Edward Witten, who in his own words, just saw hope in solving the problem thanks to Qiao Ze.

Even if when he eternally closes his eyes, the problem remains unsolved, he wouldn't feel surprised in the least.

So, how long has it been?

In the world, there are always those who like to exaggerate problems as the pinnacle challenge of human intelligence, but clearly, in the eyes of top scientists, nothing seems harder than grand unification.

Now Qiao Ze is starting to understand this view. Even when he was young and thinking about the Yang-Mills Equations, he found a direction and ultimately proved his intuition right. But now he feels he has plunged into a multidimensional labyrinth. He once believed he found the direction, but is now questioning its correctness.

Lv Bei, Li Chengze, and most average people probably will never understand this sense of frustration.

After all, making mistakes and failing is utterly normal, even in one's specialty. Yet Qiao Ze truly had never genuinely experienced failure. Even when punished by teachers in high school, he never thought he was wrong, but this time he really feels he might have made a mistake.

...

"Hey, Qiao Ze, no, Professor Qiao, what are you doing here?" A familiar voice made Qiao Ze stop and turn to look.

Li Chengze and Lv Bei didn't look back; they already knew who was approaching, only taking a step forward in tacit understanding before stopping. Just by the sound, they knew it was Xu Dajiang.

This Mathematics College director's voice had been very loud and distinctive for some time.

"Xu Director." Qiao Ze greeted.

"It's like... I heard an expert group from the Capital came to our institute for an inspection today, didn't you entertain them tonight?" Xu Dajiang asked in surprise.

Originally, occasions like today, he should have participated.

But since this time it involved some new collider theory, which was a Physics College affair and even occupied the Mathematics Research Institute's resources, Xu Dajiang naturally preferred to stay out of it.

In fact, any act of taking advantage of Qiao Ze seemed like cutting flesh out of Xu Dajiang's heart.

"Entertain?" Qiao Ze frowned, indeed having no such concept.

But he was sure that when the expert group arrived, he accompanied Edward Witten in greeting them, which should count as entertaining, right?

"I mean, not having dinner with them or anything?" Xu Dajiang realized he asked a silly question, so he casually changed his inquiry.

Qiao Ze shook his head, then suddenly thought of something, looking at Lv Bei: "Did the institute arrange dinner?"