In the second half of 1952, both the government and the opposition in the United States were nervously busy preparing for next year's general election. At this time, General Truman, who had been re-elected for two terms, announced that he would not run for election, and the Republican Party put forward a presidential candidate of the 62-year-old General Eisenhower.

In the history of the U.S. military, Dwight D. Eisenhower was a legend full of drama, and he won many firsts.

For example, the U.S. military awarded a total of 10 five-star generals, and he did get promoted the fastest.

At the same time, he is also the poorest of all the generals.

He commanded the first person in the largest campaign of the American army. He was also the first to serve as Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He was the first retired senior general of the U.S. Army to serve as president of Columbia University.

Even so, no one is optimistic about his candidacy for the presidency. Instead, he thinks that the Democratic candidate, the famous orator Adlai Stevenson, is more certain that he will become president. Especially the news media at that time were generally optimistic about Adlai, and they thought that Adlai must win.

At the same time, the sales of the "first generation" of computers produced by CPT were influenced by IBM. Under the strong network of Watson Sr., the "first-generation" computers accounted for only 30% of the government's most recent computer procurement plan.

On the other hand, IBM's computers account for more than 60%. This cannot but be admitted, IBM's public relations capabilities are so strong, and sometimes it depends on whether the product is sold or not.

To make matters worse, there are rumors that the "first" generation of computers had no computing speed, but the accuracy was not as good as that of vacuum tube computers. This kind of rumor that understands people can see what is going on at a glance, so the rumors that are obviously aimed at the "first generation" of transistor computers are believed by some people.

At the same time, IBM has been releasing rumors that their "defense computer" will be launched soon. This makes many large companies that want to buy computers stop and watch, and want to wait and see.

The repeated shocks have caused the sales of the "first generation" computers to fall again and again.

Faced with this grim situation, Bart and Old Joe were as anxious as ants on a hot pot, and they were in a mess. At a dinner table, Alex learns about the current state of CPT from Bart. He didn't want to worry about this kind of thing, and he thought that as long as he continued to launch computers with better performance than IBM, he could have a place in this market.

"After all, with Seymour Clay in hand, are you still afraid that IBM will not succeed? At least until the seventies, you didn't have to worry about your computer falling behind other companies. ”

But seeing Bart look so anxious, and it was obvious that IBM was behind it, it made Alex a little annoyed. He thought about it for a while, and suddenly it occurred to him that next year was the year of the general election, and many people were paying attention to this election. If you can plan it well, you might be able to beat the rumors about the "first-generation" computers.

Thinking of this, Alex smiled mysteriously and said, "Want to change people's perception of the 'first' computer?" ”

Bart's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he quickly asked, "What can you do?" ”

"There's a way, you send me a computer engineer who can speak well. I asked him to run a presidential election prediction program, and as long as they can successfully predict who will be president next year, then what reason do they have to question that our computers are not accurate enough? ”

Bart was shocked, and he stammered, "Well, wouldn't it be worse if the prediction failed?" ”

Alex gave Bart a blank look and smiled, "Predictions or anything, that's all a lie." Do you think machines are smarter than people? ”

"You, you mean, you're going to make your own predictions?"

Bart didn't expect Alex to be able to predict the presidential election, and if he could do it, wouldn't it be scary. The presidential election is a matter of national concern, everyone is participating, and no one knows who the final president is.

"Yes, I'll predict the outcome of this president."

"How is that possible! Are you sure? ”

Angel listened to it until now, and couldn't help but interject.

"Don't be stupid, who dares to say 100% that they can predict tomorrow. Of course, I will carefully weigh the strength of both sides and choose the one with the best odds. ”

Alex, of course, knew who the president was, but he couldn't say that he was the president, so he had to pretend to be confident so that they could rest assured. However, some explanations for this are obviously unacceptable.

"Sounds like fun, so I'll predict next year's president."

Richard was afraid that the world would not be chaotic and wanted to get involved. Luckily, Karen couldn't understand what they were saying, otherwise, she would have been added and the world would have been in chaos.

Bart hurriedly stopped Richard and said, he slapped the table: "Don't make trouble, don't make trouble!" Quiet down, and let me have a good talk with Alex. ”

When everyone heard this, they all fell silent and stared at Alex. They wanted to know how Alex could predict who the president would be.

Alex shrugged his shoulders, knowing that he hadn't convinced his parents yet, so he said in a hurry, "If we don't do anything now, is there no way to solve the rumors about the 'first' computer?" Will it get worse and worse? ”

Bart nodded and said, "Yes, it's going to be harder and harder to sell." ”

"So let me ask you, what are the chances of guessing who next year's president is?"

"Well, how do I know this? Oh, it should be small. ”

"yes, I don't think it's possible to guess right. Unless there is really a supercomputer to calculate it, as it is written in the novel. ”

"Don't talk, Richard, listen to what your brother has to say."

Alex then continued to analyze: "In fact, the probability is very high, at least higher than 50%. ”

"Ahh There is such a high probability! ”

"Yes, you see, there are quite a lot of presidential candidates, in fact, except for the Republican and Democratic candidates, no one else has a chance to be elected. In that case, it is to choose one of these two candidates, and then combine the comparative analysis of the strength of the two sides, do you say that the probability has been 50%? ”

After listening to it, it dawned on everyone that this was the case. Alex is saying that since the sales of the "first generation" have been so bad that it is better to give it a chance, because the win rate must be higher than 50%.

It's just that Bart is a very conservative person, and he doesn't want to gamble to solve problems. If it becomes a habit to rely on luck, you will like to do things in the future, and you will not be able to achieve great things.

Alex also knew about Barth's concerns, but he wasn't gambling at all. He won nine times out of ten, and he knew that his parents still couldn't rest assured, so he deliberately said: "You forgot, didn't I claim to have an IQ of 220." Since it is predicted by a computer, of course, it is a human who writes a program to make the prediction, in other words, I make the prediction. If you have to have some confidence in me, I'm afraid that I will be too accurate and scare you to death. ”

"Ha Lu Ha!"

After everyone listened, they all laughed. At this time, Bart also figured it out, anyway, the "original" computer was designed by Alex, so just let him toss. Even if you accidentally mispredict and fail, it's not a big deal. It's just that the "first-generation" computers are eliminated, in fact, the situation will not be so serious, and many smaller companies still like their high-quality and inexpensive transistor computers.

Through such things, the Carpenter family also began to feel the pressure on the development of their company. These pressures come from vested interests, and CPT's computer is only one aspect, and other companies are expected to encounter similar problems in the future. When the time comes, if they can't solve it again, they will sail against the current, and if they don't advance, they will retreat.

Bart soon sent over a computer engineer from CPT, who was in a pair of thick glasses and looked a little skinny. The first impression given to Alex was not very good, he was afraid that the engineer's eloquence would not be good.

The man with glasses introduced himself and said, "Hello, my name is Evan! ”

Alex touched it a little, and soon found out that the engineer named Evan was indeed able to speak. Almost all the world, all over the world, can be pulled through, there is nothing that cannot be pulled. Seeing this, Alex was relieved.

"Do you know how to write a program?"

"Procedure? Of course, what kind of program do you want? ”

"It doesn't have to be complicated, you just have to simulate the number of votes in the presidential races in each state."

Evan was very depressed when he heard this, and he said in surprise: "Isn't this complicated? Then I really don't know what kind of program is simple. ”

Alex laughed, knowing that the other party had misunderstood what he meant, thinking that he really wanted to predict the outcome of the presidential election. So I took out a piece of paper, drew a few flowcharts, and explained it to the other party.

Evan immediately understood that the program Alex wanted was a complete fool, a program that relied on input parameters to display a mock poll result. It's very simple, and it only takes half a day to get it.

The procedure is only a small issue, and the key is that Evan can fool the others. So Alex prepared all kinds of materials for him, and also played the role of a reporter to ask Evan some "key" questions.

Evan is indeed capable of blowing, and under Alex's guidance, he quickly mastered the method. That is, as long as you ask how to predict the outcome, you will direct all the questions to the "first" computer.

Why did the "first" generation of computers predict so accurately? Because it's the fastest computer in the world.

Why did the "first" computer know who the president was so early? Because it's the fastest computer in the world.

Why did the results of the "first" computer simulations look similar to the real thing? Because it's the fastest computer in the world.

Whatever the problem, it has to be brought to the "original" computer. Even if you question the truth of the predictions, you have to say: "The 'first' generation of computers was as high-tech as nuclear weapons, do you think that the lethality of nuclear weapons was fake?" ”

In order to make Evan stand up to the test of the big scene, Alex hired a special person to train him. During this time, Evan's eloquence became more and more fluent, and no matter how much others asked, he could not get anything out of his mouth, but he dominated the conversation.