At 9:50 a.m. on the eighth day after the end of the competition, there were still 10 minutes left before the organizers announced the winners.

If there is no special delay caused by special accidents, the organizer will announce the ranking of the competition on the official website, as well as the guidance of the main examination committee for the entrants' works.

At this moment, in the computer room of the library of Xiazhong University of Science and Technology.

Several students are nervously huddled in front of a computer, repeatedly refreshing the official website of the Hope Cup competition. Li Rongyun was anxious like a restless wild boar, walking back and forth behind several classmates.

As the ace of Xiazhong University of Science and Technology, and also the president of the Computer Association of Xiazhong University of Science and Technology, he is determined to win the championship of this Hope Cup competition, and it is also the dean's expectation that the trophy will continue to remain in the dean's office.

In fact, he was quite satisfied with his work until he submitted it, and he had no doubt that it would help him win the competition.

However......

Just a few days ago, he had heard some rumors that made him feel uneasy.

Noticing the restless expression on Li Rongyun's face, several members of the Computer Association cheered him on.

"It's okay president, with your strength, it's definitely fine."

"Yes! Anyway, we're definitely better than next door! ”

"What are you talking about? Our president is definitely a champion! ”

"I hope so," Li Rongyun smiled reluctantly, looked at his watch for the Nth time, and whispered, "Is there still a minute......

A minute flies.

It can even be said that it is fleeting.

The moment the time in the lower right corner of the computer reached 10 o'clock, the refresh of the website was momentarily frozen due to the surge in visits, but it quickly returned to normal.

Li Rongyun rushed to the computer, pushed away the two students who were blocking him, and looked at the list of winners on the computer screen. However, at this moment, his expression froze.

Champion –

Department of Software Engineering, Jiangcheng University - Hao Yun!

Topic selection - 4!

"It can't be!"

There was a roar of disbelief from his mouth, and it wasn't until everyone in the computer room was looking this way that he retracted his volume with a fixed expression and lowered his voice in disbelief.

Question 4...... How can it be?! ”

This has also been the case in previous years.

A small number of players were unlucky enough to solve a specially set trap problem.

However, due to the difficulty of the questions themselves, most of the answers submitted are flawed, so they basically miss the championship, and it is difficult to even see the top ten.

In particular, the fourth question of this year is simply impossible......

The members of the Hadong University Computer Association looked at their president in a daze, wanting to comfort but not knowing how to speak. I saw that his whole body seemed to be stunned, and while muttering to himself, he downloaded the attached file that could be browsed freely.

However, something even more unbelievable had happened.

The answer that appears in the attachment has only one hexadecimal number.

Although there is a large paragraph below this number, which is supplemented by the competition organizers, explaining the use of this number, and the judging committee opinion that is even longer and more professional than this caption, it still does not change the fact that he was beaten by a mere number.

"One Digital ......"

His eyes were bloodshot, Li Rongyun looked at the list of winners, looked down the first place, and sure enough, he found his name in the second position.

And this also made the frustration in his heart even stronger.

He can accept that he defeated himself with a piece of code that is too good to be faulty, but it is difficult to accept that he won over himself with such a seemingly insignificant thing.

Li Rongyun's face was full of frustration.

Standing next to him, Yang Yunhui, who is also a member of the Computer Association of Xiazhong University of Science and Technology, had a thoughtful expression in her eyes. Pinching her chin and recalling it carefully for a long time, she suddenly spoke.

"This man...... It seems familiar to me. ”

"Familiar?" Li Rongyun, who was in despair, glanced back at her.

"Well, to be precise, we only met him a few days ago," Yang Yunhui said with an intriguing expression on her face, embarrassed, "We were having afternoon tea at the W Hotel, and he seemed to be sitting at the table not far from us...... When we came in, he seemed to have been sitting there for a while. ”

Li Rongyun was stunned.

"It's at the table not far from us...... That is, he submitted his answers before we did? ”

But he soon realized that he was talking nonsense.

After all, people's answers are just a line of numbers, and how much time can a line of numbers take.

With a reluctant expression in his heart, he sat down in front of the computer, downloaded the code to the computer, and quickly wrote a code that can record the number of steps to find the reciprocal of the square root according to the code provided on the official website of the competition.

Optimized the underlying functions?

How is this ...... it? Really?!

The result of the operation came out in an instant, and Li Rongyun and several classmates behind him were stupid on the spot.

If you enter a random number, it takes five steps to calculate the original function, but after modifying the hexadecimal number used to calculate the guessed value, the number of steps is instantly reduced to two steps.

Li Rongyun didn't believe in evil and tried a few numbers again, but the results were the same without exception. The number of steps of the original function basically fluctuates between 4 and 7 steps, and only in rare cases can it reach 2 steps, and the optimized function, no matter how he tries, will get the result in two steps.

"It's math...... a student standing in the back couldn't help but say, "but how did he do it?" ”

That's right......

How exactly is this done?

Everyone, including Li Rongyun, wanted to know this question, but no matter how they thought about it, they were confused.

Just by adding and subtracting hexadecimal numbers under the shift algorithm, the exact value can be directly approached to the edge of the final result in one step, and no known mathematical formula can explain this strange mathematical principle.

At this moment, Li Rongyun, who was confused, suddenly began to understand why the main examination committee used the word "unbelievable" in the evaluation.

Truly......

This really deserves an incredible review.

If the underlying function that has been rewritten can really be so much shorter than the original function, even if it is reflected in the hardware that it is only 0.0001 seconds of operation time, and it is accumulated into thousands of programs that call the function, it is a pretty amazing optimization.

And not even just the glacier engine......

The entire field of computer graphics will benefit from this.

Li Rongyun's shoulders loosened slightly, and the expression on his face finally stretched a little comfort.

At least......

It's not wrong to lose to such an opponent!

……

At the same time, Academician Zhan Yongshu, who was far away at Mizuki University, was sitting in his office, having just finished the thesis he had been conceiving for the past two days.

Unlike many of his impressive publications, this paper is rare in that it does not present any innovative ideas, but merely summarizes and evaluates existing knowledge.

Speaking of which, the content of the paper actually has a lot to do with the hexadecimal number called the "magic number", and even more than 50% of the paper is concentrated on it.

However, unlike Professor Jia Yuxin, as a scholar in the field of information, he did not explore the hidden mysteries from the perspective of mathematics, but only evaluated the contribution of this number to the field of information engineering from the perspective of informatics.

And, some instructive clues.

At the end of the paper, Academician Zhan Yongshu wrote down his views after thinking for a long time.

[Although I have studied and researched in the field of information engineering for many years, I never imagined that the underlying functions, which have been reduced to an impeccable degree by countless generations of scholars, still have such amazing room for improvement. 】

[I have no way of understanding the mathematical logic contained in this for the time being, even if a friend of mine who works at the Xia Guo Institute of Mathematics has already contacted the student, but the answer he got is only a flash of intuition. 】

[I believe this explanation, just as we solved the Basel problem in the first place because of all sorts of intuitions and coincidences.] At the same time, I also believe that the mathematical principles contained in this may provide a key and invaluable clue to the progress of informatics! 】

After reading the paper he had just finished from beginning to end, Academician Zhan Yongshu nodded with satisfaction, and then picked up a written letter placed on the table.

This letter was sent by Zhang Wei, the editor-in-chief of the Times Youth Daily, hoping to interview himself as the main test committee about the champion work of this Hope Cup competition.

He did know this warm and polite young man, and he was quite a good person. In the past two years, "Times Youth Daily" has been operating well on social media, and its influence among students has been increasing year by year.

Looking at the interview invitation in his hand, the corners of Academician Zhan Yongshu's mouth suddenly turned into a smile.

The troubles of fame......

That student will probably be able to understand it soon.

-

(Ahem, I was surprised to find that there was still a chapter in the manuscript, so I won't leave it until tomorrow...... ）