"Story, what story? Huang Tongyuan seemed interested.

Ge Juntian did not tell the story directly, but first asked: "Have you ever heard of a very famous reportage called "Goldbach's Conjecture"?"

At that time, I had just entered junior high school, and after reading it, I was like being beaten with chicken blood, and my blood was boiling all over my body, and I was determined to learn from that great mathematician, doing ordinary work, living a poor life, and studying the world's most advanced knowledge in obscurity, and the people around me did not know or understand it, until one day professors and scholars from all over the world came to me by name. For this reason, I also borrowed a lot of Olympiad books from the school library. It's a pity that I really don't have the talent to learn mathematics, and I have to give up the book in tears when I see that there are fewer and fewer numbers, more and more letters, and theorems are becoming more and more difficult to understand!"

"Learning mathematics depends on interest, talent, and hard work, and hard work is especially important. Like some people, who go to sing a song today, take leave to shoot an advertisement tomorrow, and take time to write a book the day after tomorrow, even if their talent is good, what's the use?" Uncle Ge never forgot to scratch someone, "As for the story of the famous mathematician Mr. Lu Jiaxi, you should have heard more about it, right?"

"Of course, since I was studying at the Normal University, the teacher has been using Mr. Lu's story to educate us, saying how good it is to be a teacher, how good it is to be a teacher, if you want to be relaxed, you have three months of vacation every year, and if you want to work hard, you can also have three months of vacation every year, and you can make outstanding achievements like Mr. Sun Yuanqi and Mr. Lu Jiaxi. After arriving at Huai'an Fuzhong, Mr. Lu was mentioned more than once in the school meeting, asking everyone to learn from Mr. Lu and work and scientific research at the same time. ”

Chen Xuan patted Ge Juntian on the shoulder: "It seems that the position of a middle school teacher is really promising, no wonder you want to be a teacher!"

Ge Juntian ignored him, and continued: "Cheng Jingrun and Mr. Lu Jiaxi are both mathematicians of the older generation, at that time, we did not have any achievements in mathematical research, and we had no status in the world, and at the same time, there was a lack of grandmaster-level figures who led the way and discovered talents. Unknown ordinary people have made earth-shattering academic achievements, which are the topics of people's talk in any era, so the deeds of the two gentlemen have been wildly hyped by the media, and have also been made into documentaries and written as reportage, which has greatly encouraged the public's enthusiasm for mathematical research. ”

Huang Tongyuan smiled: "Just like I did back then?"

Ge Juntian shook his head: "It's much crazier than you were back then!" Under the fanfare of the media, many people seem to see a shortcut to success, and feel that engaging in mathematical research has little investment, low risk, and great returns, and all they need to do is buy a few books and a stack of papers, and sit at their desks and scratch their heads and smoke cigarettes when they get home from work. Once a flash of inspiration comes one day, you can be famous all over the world, and titles such as professor and academician are at your fingertips. The good thing is that the enrollment of the Department of Mathematics was very hot in those years, and the admission score once surpassed that of law and medicine, and it did attract and cultivate a large number of outstanding mathematics talents——"

Huang Tongyuan was a little puzzled: "Look at what you say, there are still a lot of disadvantages to math fever?"

"That's nature!" Ge Juntian replied firmly, "At the time of the math fever, the civil sciences who were engaged in high-tech such as perpetual motion machines, water-to-oil, and relativity all changed careers one by one, and they opened and closed their mouths to the Goldbach conjecture and the hail conjecture. At its peak, the Department of Mathematics of Jingshi University received dozens of letters every day about the successful proof of Goldbach's conjecture, and for this purpose, the department also printed a batch of stationery with the words, "Dear Mr. So-and-so, the first error in your proof appears on the pages and lines of the certificate, resulting in the invalidity of the proof", which is handed over to the students in the department to pick out the mistakes, fill them out, and send them back. ”

Turning a crossroads, the gate of Jingshi University was already in sight, and Ge Juntian still didn't mention the key point for a long time, a typical "writing a thousand words and digressing thousands of miles". Jiang Shuiyuan couldn't help but remind: "But what do you say have to do with the gate of Jingshi University?"

"Of course it has a relationship, and it has a big relationship!" Ge Juntian paused and continued, "More than 90% of those civil sciences have not even learned the most basic mathematical analysis and probability theory, and they dare to challenge problems that have been unsolved for decades or hundreds of years, and they simply treat mathematicians all over the world as nothing." In the words of our Mr. Hui, they are 'very talented, but it is recommended to take a bachelor's degree in mathematics first'. In my opinion, their talent is mainly reflected in perseverance and brainstorming. They are not satisfied with just sending letters, but also come to the school in person to present their academic achievements. Even when the teachers pointed out their mistakes, they were stubborn and unrepentant, and even thought that the current textbooks were fundamentally wrong, and that they should build their own mathematical theory system just as Riemann and Lobachevsky denied the fifth axiosum of Euclidean geometry!"

Huang Tongyuan couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's really ignorant and fearless!"

Ge Juntian finally completed his foreshadowing: "For a while, I often squatted at the gate of Jingshi University to sell my new theories of civil science, until a new security guard came one day. The security guard was not very old, estimated to be seventeen or eighteen years old, and it is said that he dropped out of school to work in the capital due to family reasons. I don't know if it's curiosity or bored, he will go to chat with those people after work. Because the students of Jingshi University are busy with their schoolwork, they have received a solid basic education, and have established a perfect knowledge system, and they do not care about the group of civil sciences that set up stalls. The civil scientists are bored, and when they see someone coming to humbly ask for advice, they are all like the development of MLM downline, and they are full of energy and spitting. Strange to say, whether it is claiming to have proved the four-color problem or cracking the Poincaré conjecture, as long as you chat with the security guard, you will definitely get out of the stall and leave within half a day. In less than a week, all the civil sciences at the school gate disappeared without a trace!"

Not only did Huang Tongyuan feel strange, but Jiang Shuiyuan was also very curious, and hurriedly asked, "Why? That security guard is a self-taught sweeping monk?"

"Whether he was self-taught, I don't know, but what I do know is that he hadn't graduated from high school and had not received any extracurricular training. No matter how good you are, your math knowledge is about the same as you are now. Do you know what his killer weapon is? It is to study with an open mind and keep asking questions. Because he only had a high school level at that time, it was impossible to judge whether those theories of civil science were correct or not, so he had an attitude of learning with an open mind, first assumed that those theories were correct, and kept asking questions in the process of studying. ”

"Asking questions can make those people run away?"

Most of our current mathematics discipline system is strictly defined, deduced and proven, the foundation is very solid, and the logical system is also self-consistent, so I am not afraid of you to ask questions, if you can really ask any questions that no one can answer, it means that you have stood at the forefront of the development of the discipline. As long as you have clear logic and quick thinking, it is easy to find the contradictions in them and let them slap their own mouths. ”

Chen Xuan said: "It's not very easy for high school students to find the contradictions in a short period of time, right?"

Ge Juntian did not speak.

Huang Tongyuan was more concerned about another question: "What happened to this security guard later?"

After graduating with a doctorate, he went to teach at Huazhong University, and was later elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of the Chinese Mathematical Society. ”