Chapter 6: Who is this person?

Ye Fan felt a deep disdain in his heart and decided to return to the office to write an article, thoroughly criticizing this unhealthy phenomenon.

If he could spark a topic and stir up quite a bit of heat, he could also boost his own reputation in the process!

He even already had a title in mind—"The Subway's 'Head-Down Tribe'—A Cultural Perspective of the Masses."

Thinking of this, he discreetly aimed his phone at Zhang Yuan, intending to use this counterexample as an illustration for his article.

He glanced again at Zhang Yuan's phone screen and frowned.

"Huh, not flirting with a two-dimensional girl. Turns out he's doing Super Brain."

"Can't be used as a picture anymore then..."

Of course, he had seen this TV show that was all the rage across the nation. The Super Brain app was specially developed to select contestants.

Contestants confident in their intelligence could answer questions on their phones, and the top one thousand of each season would qualify for the selection. After the selection, they could showcase their skills on the real stage.

Because it was an online competition, many people used computers to cheat, making the whole result not very genuine. However, these cheaters would eventually be exposed during the selection.

"Quick calculation, huh, I can do that too!"

Ye Fan curiously watched, eager to give it a try. He had also learned mental arithmetic in his childhood and now subconsciously wanted to compete with Zhang Yuan.

"88.8*8+88.88*8-8.99/8.88=... (retain 4 significant digits)"

Zhang Yuan thought for a few seconds and directly wrote down the answer.

"1420"

"So fast?" Ye Fan was surprised, "Though you only need to retain 4 significant digits, just enough to omit the decimals... This question is a bit interesting."

Still, he didn't think much of it, assuming Zhang Yuan had been calculating for quite a while.

Next question, Zhang Yuan tapped with his finger.

"ln(40) (retain 3 significant digits)"

This time, both stood at the same starting line.

Ye Fan put in all his effort, racking his brains.

"Wait a minute, how do you calculate a logarithmic function? What is the base change formula again?"

For a while, his brain turned a bit chaotic.

He struggled with it: "ln(40)=ln(4)+ln(10), and then... Oh, no, still can't figure it out, do we need to memorize some logarithm tables?"

Zhang Yuan again wrote down the answer on the screen.

"3.69"

"Correct answer!"

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

He still hadn't figured out how to calculate the logarithm and had no idea.

Right then, the other party started the next question again.

"sin(24°) (retain 3 significant digits)"

What was this? How to calculate trigonometric functions again? Double angle formula? Not right.

sin(24°), no way to calculate by hand!

The person wrote the answer on the screen again: "0.407"

"Correct answer!"

"..."

After suffering a series of invisible blows, Ye Fan had a knot in his head and could only give up.

He was too embarrassed to ask, so he searched through his phone and found the answer he wanted.

"So, hand-calculating logarithms or trigonometric functions requires Taylor series expansion... Well, it's normal not to compete with these long-term trained people!"

He couldn't help but pout, thinking with discontent: What's the big deal about quick calculation? This skill is completely useless—no matter how fast a person calculates, can they match a computer?

Perhaps, he could write another article to criticize those educational institutions teaching mental arithmetic. There was no need to burden children with irrelevant learning.

Thinking so, he quietly took out his phone and opened the calculator app, thinking, with a computer's speed, could he not match your mental arithmetic?

Zhang Yuan vaguely felt a sharp gaze at his back, as if someone was watching him. He looked around but didn't find anything.

However, he didn't mind too much.

A thief? Haha, he didn't have a cent in cash, and the only valuable item was the phone in his hand.

Besides, what's on his phone screen wasn't particularly private. Glancing at it wouldn't take away a piece of his flesh.

After completing a whole set of questions, the screen displayed the final score: "Congratulations! Final time 312.42 seconds, SSS, ranked 28th today!"

"Please keep up the good work!"

A two-dimensional girl with an admiring expression popped up on the screen.

Only 28th place.

It seemed a bit lower than expected.

Zhang Yuan thought to himself, "There are still many geniuses in this world; it's normal to rank like this."

With more training, perhaps his performance would improve again. But there was no need for that; he wasn't participating in competitions, and his calculation ability was just about enough.

He casually opened the leaderboard.

"First place, Eternal Eternity, time 0.01 seconds."

"Second place, Writing Novels Will Eat Dirt, time 0.07 seconds."

"Third place, Can You Support Originals, time 0.11 seconds."

"Third place, When Can I Take Leave, time 0.12 seconds."

Zhang Yuan smiled; humans couldn't possibly complete 20 questions in 0.01 seconds. These results must have been created by a program using screen-reading software to capture information.

Some people like this, using cheats to pretend as if they are very capable.

Human computational speed couldn't compare with cheats, so he extinguished this aspect of ambition.

"Dragon Bridge Station has arrived. Please get off. Distant Industrial and Commercial Bank reminds you: Please be careful when going out, mind your steps..."

Watching Zhang Yuan leave, Ye Fan was still in a state of confusion.

For longer calculations, even at the speed of his computer, he couldn't keep up with the other's mental arithmetic speed!

Who the hell was this person? Calculation champion?

Ye Fan tried hard to recall how long it took the last Super Brain champion to complete 20 questions.

"How long was it exactly..."

300 seconds? 200 seconds? It didn't seem right.

He searched again, and tens of thousands of alpacas drifted across his mind.

313.6 seconds!

Just one second more than the number he had just seen.

...

Intelligence was composed of three factors: memory, reasoning ability, and language ability. Quick arithmetic didn't necessarily mean high intelligence, but it undoubtedly represented a higher reasoning ability than ordinary people.

Throughout the training process, the exaggerated pace of improvement also excited Zhang Yuan immensely.

From a rusty brain to a flexible one, it took only a night!

He even had another slight suspicion in his heart: maybe... the speed of learning other disciplines was just as fast!

There was a faint feeling in his heart that this was a kind of luxury.

Becoming an all-around scientist like Newton in this era was already impossible.

No more Newtons or Einsteins had appeared in history because the entire civilization's knowledge system was too vast, beyond the brain capacity of humans.

No, it was difficult to bear even one ten-thousandth of the knowledge!

History was full of brilliant figures, and these geniuses laid the foundation for the knowledge system of civilization.

From the first Industrial Revolution to now, hundreds of years have passed, and the whole world had undergone dramatic changes.

Yet human innate intelligence hadn't improved much, still using very primitive brains.

Two hundred years ago, universities taught calculus; nowadays, universities still teach calculus. It's not that science hadn't progressed but that ordinary people's intelligence was like this.

So, modern humans were not smarter than those of the 21st century, but they had to master more knowledge.

To create new knowledge, one first had to stand on the shoulders of these giants. How hard was it?

"If it's really possible..."

Zhang Yuan hoped to find the point he was most interested in, then add some useful stuff to this mountain of knowledge; that would already be great.