After hearing what Dayong said, Zhao Peng and Zheng Nan were utterly dumbfounded, and the lab fell into a deep silence.
Two seconds later.
"Damn it!"
Zheng Nan slapped his thigh, letting out a miserable wail.
Meanwhile, Zhao Peng clutched his head in both hands, turning his already messy hair into a veritable bird’s nest. His face was a mask of utter despair.
"Three days! Old Zheng, we spent three days and three nights in here calculating partial differential equations! I even factored in the variables for quantum fluctuation, and it turns out to be goddamn physical resonance!"
He tilted his head back and looked at the fluorescent light on the ceiling.
"I should’ve checked that stupid metal rack first! All my education has gone completely to waste!"
Seeing his two seniors on the verge of an existential crisis, Dayong actually felt a little bad.
He pulled up a chair and sat down, waving his hand nonchalantly to console them.
"Seniors, don’t take it to heart. You guys are staring at computers solving partial differential equations all day. Your minds are working on such a deep level, it’s easy to overcomplicate simple things."
"It’s like that crappy twin-tub washing machine we use in the dorm. When it gets to the spin cycle, it starts THUMPING and jumping all over the place. You guys would insist on trying to calculate its surface area of force and centrifugal force from a theoretical standpoint, but that’s pointless. All you have to do is stick a piece of cardboard under it to make it level, and it immediately settles down. It’s the same principle with this metal rack and the water-cooling pipe!"
Just as he was speaking, the lab’s soundproof door was pushed open.
Professor Liu walked in, holding a freshly printed optical path test report in his hand.
"Zhao Peng, Zheng Nan."
Professor Liu asked as he walked in.
"Have you solved the background noise problem? We can’t delay the testing schedule any longer."
Zhao Peng and Zheng Nan exchanged a glance, their faces flushing bright red.
Zhao Peng steeled himself and stepped forward.
"Teacher Liu, the background noise... is solved."
"Oh?"
Professor Liu quickly walked to the computer, glanced at the perfectly smooth curve on the screen, and nodded in satisfaction.
"Very clean. Which parameter did you adjust? What filtering function did you use in the end?"
Zheng Nan coughed from the side and pointed to the water pipe at the base of the vacuum chamber.
"Teacher Liu, we didn’t adjust any parameters. It was Dayong... Dayong put a piece of rubber under the pump pipe. It was mechanical resonance."
Professor Liu was stunned for a moment.
He followed Zheng Nan’s finger, bent down, and carefully examined the rubber pad, slightly deformed by the pressure of the nut. He then turned back, glanced at the two mobile whiteboards by the wall covered in complex mathematical derivations, and finally, his gaze landed on Wang Dayong, who was sitting at a desk reading *Materials Physics*.
Professor Liu didn’t say much, just reached out and knocked on the console’s desktop.
"There’s no friction in theoretical models."
Professor Liu looked at Zhao Peng and Zheng Nan, his tone casual.
"No matter how precise your calculations are, they can’t tell you if a zip tie was fastened tightly or loosely today."
He turned and instructed.
"From now on, whenever the lab is running core data, hold off on the supercomputer. Have Dayong run a check on the basic physical baseline first. Once he confirms the platform has no mechanical interference, then you can start adding algorithms on top of that."
"Understood, Teacher Liu," Zhao Peng replied.
Sitting at the desk, Dayong nodded.
Professor Liu pulled over a folding chair and sat down. He continued to study the data on the screen as he laid out the next steps.
"Now that the noise is filtered out, go to the warehouse tomorrow morning and swap in that set of high-precision probes. Since there’s no more hardware interference, let’s try to push the absolute precision of this equipment even further. Aim for five decimal places by tomorrow."
Dayong was about to put the scratch paper on the desk into his book when he heard this, and his hand paused.
"We can’t push it any further, Teacher Liu."
Dayong replied directly without looking up.
The lab went quiet for a moment.
Professor Liu turned his head to look at Dayong.
"Why?"
Dayong stood up and walked over to the vacuum chamber, which was over two meters tall. He lifted his foot and kicked a metal support frame on one side of the base that was suspended in the air.
"Look. The core chamber weighs several tons, and all that weight is concentrated on these four main load-bearing points in the center. But the auxiliary frames on the sides are suspended in the air, bearing almost no load. It’s like a four-legged wooden stool with one leg that’s too short."
He crouched down and traced a line with his finger along the metal grain of the base.
"I put that rubber pad under the pipe, so it’s not vibrating with the pump anymore, but the internal stress within the large metal frame itself hasn’t been distributed evenly at all."
Dayong stood up and dusted off his hands.
"If the temperature in the lab changes by just a degree or two, the metal will expand or contract, and the strained load-bearing points will undergo micro-deformations. A better probe will only measure that deformation more accurately. The hardware itself is the bottleneck; the precision can’t be improved."
Zhao Peng and Zheng Nan exchanged a glance.
Professor Liu didn’t speak immediately after hearing this.
He walked over, bent down to personally inspect the main load-bearing points Dayong had indicated, and then reached out to tap on the two auxiliary frames that Dayong said were suspended and bearing no weight.
After a while, Professor Liu straightened up.
"You have a sharp eye. The original factory-made cast-iron base does have a structural problem with stress concentration."
He looked at Dayong, his tone making it sound like the most natural assignment in the world.
"Since you can see where it’s under strain, can you fix it?"
Dayong looked at the machine, his eyes slowly lighting up.
"Alright, how about this: come to my office tomorrow morning and get the original mechanical schematics for this device."
Professor Liu stared at the young man.
"You come up with a retrofitting plan to redistribute the base’s support points and relieve the stress concentration. Whether you need channel beams, jacks, or dampers, just make a list and get it reimbursed directly from the finance department. If you can truly push the physical limits of this machine’s hardware and increase its precision, then from now on, you’ll have full responsibility for this device’s underlying physical architecture."
Wang Dayong nodded, a little excited. He might not have been keen on poring over complex calculations, but when it came to getting his hands dirty with hardware, his interest was definitely piqued.
"You got it, Teacher Liu. I’ll come take a look at the schematics tomorrow morning."
Professor Liu nodded in satisfaction.

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