Wandering Spaceship in Deep Space - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Who Is This Guy?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Ye Fan felt disdain for this phubber deep down in his heart. He decided to write an article to criticize this unhealthy phenomenon once he returned to his office.

If he could create a stir with this topic, he could even boost his popularity together!

He had even though up of the title:

He then stealthily aimed his phone camera at Zhang Yuan in preparation to take a photo of him to use as a supporting image in his article.

However, when he took a closer look at Zhang Yuan’s phone, he furrowed his brows.

‘Eh? He’s not dating a two-dimensional girl, but instead, playing Super Brain. I guess I can’t use him as an example then…’

Ye Fan had obviously seen this widely popular TV show that was currently the rage in the country. Furthermore, this Super Brain app was specially developed to be used as an audition platform to find participants for their show.

Participants who were confident in their intelligence could complete the questions on their mobile phones. The top 1000 players of every season would be eligible to participate in the audition, and after the audition, they would have the opportunity to go on stage and display their intellect.

However, as it was an online quiz, there were many who used calculators to cheat, resulting in inaccurate rankings. However, during the real audition, these people would very quickly give themselves away.

‘Quick calculation? I can do it too!’

Ye Fan curiously peeped over, eager to try the questions. He was pretty confident in himself since he had practiced mental arithmetic when he was a young child. At that moment, he subconsciously wanted to compete with Zhang Yuan.

“88.8*8+88.88*8-8.99/8.88=…(to four significant figures)”

After Zhang Yuan thought for a few seconds, he directly typed the answer.

“1420”

‘So fast?’ Ye Fan thought to himself, ‘Luckily, the question only asked for four significant figures, directly omitting the decimals… This question is quite interesting.’

However, he did not pay too much attention as to how Zhang Yuan got the answer, as he just assumed that Zhang Yuan must have been sitting on that question for quite some time.

Zhang Yuan tapped on the screen for the next question.

“ln(40) (to three significant figures)”

This time, both of them were introduced to the question at the same time.

Ye Fan gave it his all and racked his brains to calculate the answer.

‘Wait a minute, what’s the way to calculate a natural logarithmic function? How do I transform the bottom of the logarithm formula?’

For a second, Ye Fan’s mind was in a mess, but he still tried his best in an attempt to answer the question, ‘ln(40)=ln(4)+ln(10). After that… urgh, I can’t do it. I can’t calculate the answer. Am I supposed to memorize some logarithmic functions by heart to answer this question?’

While Ye Fan’s mind was in a mess, Zhang Yuan typed in the correct answer.

“3.69”

Correct!

Ye Fan’s eyes widened as if he had seen a ghost.

Until now, he had yet to figure out the way to calculate the function and was feeling helpless, but the other party was already starting on the next question.

“sin(24°) (to three significant figures)”

‘What is that? How do you calculate trigonometric functions? Double angle formula? That doesn’t seem right.’

‘It should be impossible to calculate sin(24°) mentally!’

However, he only saw the man typing the correct answer on his screen

“0.407”

Correct!

…

After the consecutive mental blows, Ye Fan could only give up.

As he was too embarrassed to ask, he searched for the method to answer the questions through his mobile phone.

“So, it’s like this. Taylor series expansion is used to mentally calculate logarithm and trigonometric functions… sigh, it’s perfectly normal that I can’t win against these people who have been trained for long periods of time! ”

He could not help but click his tongue as he thought. ‘What’s so great about calculating so quickly? This type of skill is totally useless. Even if you are fast, are you better than a calculator?’

Perhaps he should write another article to attack those educational institutions that taught mental arithmetic, as there was no need to increase the burden on children’s minds by learning something so useless.

As he thought of that, he stealthily opened the calculator app on his phone and thought, ‘Hmph, my speed of punching in the values can’t possibly be slower than your mental calculation.’

Zhang Yuan faintly sensed a sharp gaze behind his back, as if someone were closely paying attention to him. He surveyed his surroundings for a second but did not notice anything.

In the end, he decided to ignore it.

‘A thief? Ha! I don’t have a single cent on me, and the only valuable item I have is my phone, which is in my hands. Moreover, what I’m doing on my phone isn’t something that’s private so I won’t lose anything even if someone took a glance or two.’

After he focused and finished a set of questions, his final results were reflected on the screen: Congratulations! You’ve used a total of 321.42 seconds. Rank: SSS. Today’s rank: 28th!

“Keep up the good work!”

A virtual idol popped up on the screen, with an expression of admiration.

‘Only 28th?’

His rank was lower than his expectations.

Zhang Yuan secretly thought to himself, ‘There sure are many other geniuses in the world. So, my rank is pretty normal.’

If he continued familiarizing himself with such quizzes, perhaps his rank would rise. However, there was no such need for that as he did not have any intentions to participate in the competition. As for his ability to calculate, staying at the standard of daily use would suffice.

With that in mind, he casually checked out the leader board.

First Place: Final Eternity. Time used: 0.01 seconds.

Second Place: Writing Novels Will Starve You. Time used: 0.07 seconds.

Third Place: Can You Support The Official Copy. Time used: 0.11 seconds.

Fourth Place: When Can I Apply For Leave. Time used: 0.12 seconds.

Zhang Yuan chuckled. It was impossible for humans to complete 20 questions within 0.01 seconds—that result was obviously achieved by using a screen recording software to capture the questions, which then were calculated by some calculation program.

There were people who loved using cheats to make themselves appear very capable.

It was impossible for humans’ mental calculation speed to beat computers in that aspect, so he quickly extinguished whatever thoughts he had about rising higher in the leaderboard.

“We have arrived at Longda Bridge, please exit orderly. Yuanda Bank wishes to remind you to be careful when you go out and pay attention to your safety…”

Ye Fan followed Zhang Yuan’s departure with his blank gaze while he was still in a daze.

In the case of those longer questions, his typing speed on the calculator was indeed slower than the other party’s mental calculation!

Who was he? A mental calculation champion?

Ye Fan tried to recall how long did the previous Super Brain champion use to complete all 20 questions.

‘How long did he take previously…?’

‘300 second? Or 200 second? Both don’t seem right.’

When he searched for it, he was shocked by the results.

313.6 seconds!

It was coincidentally a second more than the number he saw on Zhang Yuan’s phone.

…

IQ consisted of three factors: memory, reasoning ability, and language ability. Even if one was capable of quick mental calculation, it did not mean their reasoning ability was strong. But without a doubt, their reasoning ability would still be a notch higher than ordinary people.

During the whole training process, the exaggerated speed of improvement caused Zhang Yuan to be extremely excited.

From a rusted brain into an agile brain, it only took one night!

He even had another guess, ‘Perhaps… My speed of learning other subjects would also be as fast!’

However, he had a faint thought that it was an extravagant hope.

It was impossible in this era to become another omnipotent scientist like Newton.

There was no second Newton or Einstein until now, because the knowledge system of the whole civilization was too massive. It was so huge to the extent it was difficult for human brains to contain all the available knowledge.

To be more accurate, it was difficult to contain even one thousandth of the knowledge available in the whole world!

Too many amazing figures had appeared throughout history, and these geniuses had laid the foundation of knowledge for the whole civilization.

It had been hundreds of years since the first industrial revolution and the whole world was already turned upside down ages ago.

However, humans’ innate IQ did not greatly improve, as it was still at the level of a primitive brain.

Calculus that was taught in universities two centuries ago was still being taught with no massive changes. It was not because science had not improved, but instead, ordinary people’s IQ were only at that level.

As a result, people of the current era were not any smarter than those of the 21st century. However, the amount of knowledge they had to master increased by a huge chunk.

If they wanted to pioneer new knowledge, they had to climb the shoulders of those giants. How difficult would that be?

“If it was really possible…”

Zhang Yuan hoped to find a topic he was most interested in, then contribute some of his own ideas on top of that mountain of knowledge. That alone, would suffice.