As Director Wang finished speaking, all eyes in the conference room fell on Alchemist.
The translator for the German Side dutifully relayed the sentence to Mueller and Hoffman.
Hoffman furrowed his brow slightly.
’Local algorithm validation?’
As far as Hoffman was concerned, Hua Country’s fluid dynamics algorithms were still stuck at the two-dimensional cross-section stage. Even if they borrowed a supercomputer, using a set of conventional N-S equations prone to divergence to run a three-dimensional model would only produce a pile of useless, garbled data.
Alchemist slowly put down the thermos in his hand.
He didn’t stand up, nor did he adjust the microphone in front of him.
"We made a sandbox."
Alchemist’s voice was a bit hoarse, and he spoke slowly, with a steadiness that suggested a long journey had just ended.
Alchemist reached out and unzipped the black briefcase in front of him.
He took out a file folder containing a bound report of a dozen or so pages. The paper was new, freshly printed from the Huake Institute Supercomputing Center’s printer.
Alchemist placed the file folder on the table and took out the report.
"A few days ago, we completely re-evaluated our underlying fluid dynamics algorithm."
As he spoke, Alchemist pushed the report to a Huafang staff member beside him, gesturing for him to pass it to the other side of the table.
"We first successfully ran a sandbox with this new underlying logic on our local servers. Then, using forty-eight hours of machine time on the national supercomputer, we conducted a preliminary three-dimensional transonic simulation for validation."
The staff member took the report, walked around the long table, and gently placed it in front of Hoffman.
Alchemist looked at Mueller and Hoffman across the table, his face expressionless.
"We fully agree with your side’s insistence on safety standards. Since the train will be running in Hua Country’s tunnels, it must comply with Hua Country’s aerodynamic boundaries."
Alchemist folded his hands on the table.
"This data is still rather crude, and the model’s precision isn’t very high. We offer it simply to get the conversation started. We’d like to ask Mr. Hoffman and the other experts to review it and offer your corrections. Please let us know if the pressure waveform trend looks stable enough."
The translator translated Alchemist’s words into German verbatim.
"To get the conversation started."
"Crude."
"Offer your corrections."
The choice of words was extremely modest, even projecting the deferential posture of a student submitting homework.
After listening to the translation, Hoffman glanced at the thin report on the table, the corner of his mouth twitching almost imperceptibly.
’Forty-eight hours?’
’A completely new underlying algorithm?’
That was a joke in the field of fluid dynamics.
Simen Zi’s aerodynamic model had been developed by hundreds of top engineers at the supercomputing center in Munich, who had spent three full years constantly running simulations and making corrections.
’Something run in forty-eight hours... was it even worth looking at?’
Hoffman even felt Alchemist’s actions showed a certain lack of professionalism.
But he remained polite. Hoffman took a pair of glasses from his suit pocket, put them on, and reached out to open the report’s cover.
The first page.
It was a black-and-white printout of a 3D model of the train’s head.
The mesh was coarse. It was clearly a low-precision sandbox model, rushed to meet a deadline.
Hoffman sneered inwardly. ’With a model of this precision, the equations would collapse instantly from turbulence separation the moment it entered the transonic range above Mach 0.8.’
He casually flipped to the second page.
The second page showed a dynamic cross-section of the pressure waveform at the tunnel entrance.
Hoffman’s eyes swept across the diagram.
At first, his gaze merely lingered for a moment.
But just two seconds later, his fingers, poised to turn the page, suddenly froze.
Hoffman’s back shot straight up in his chair.
He brought his face closer to the paper, staring intently through his glasses at the curves on the chart.
It was a set of 3D pressure waveform diagrams showing the moment the train entered a standard tunnel while traveling at 280 kilometers per hour.
The curves were exceptionally smooth.
There were no breaks indicating calculation overflow, no jagged divergences from violent fluctuations. The nonlinear convection term on the chart showed a state of near-perfect convergence.
’How is this possible?’
Hoffman’s breath caught for a moment.
He had been researching this field for decades.
He didn’t need to read the entire report. A single glance at the curvature of these waveforms was enough for him to know this was absolutely not some faked diagram.
This was real data, brute-forced into existence by a massive supercomputer operating under a set of self-consistent physical rules!
The model may have been crude, but its underlying algorithm was stable.
It had withstood the terrifying nonlinear transients of a 3D transonic state!
’Did the Chinese really figure it out?’
A thin layer of cold sweat beaded on Hoffman’s forehead.
This defied scientific common sense.
’Given Huafang’s current computing power, if they used the traditional Navier-Stokes equations to mesh this 3D model, our previous estimates put the number of mesh nodes at over forty million.’
’Without the optimization of Simen Zi’s proprietary algorithm, any supercomputer would run out of memory trying to process such a massive mesh matrix.’
’How did they bypass the computational barrier?’
’Could they have made some kind of epoch-making breakthrough in matrix algorithms?’
Hoffman’s fingers trembled. He flipped violently past the pages of waveform diagrams, going straight to the algorithm appendix at the end of the report.
He needed to see the parameters.
He needed to see just how many millions of mesh cells the Chinese had divided the train head into, and what kind of miraculous finite difference scheme they had used to make the model converge.
The first page of the appendix.
There was no familiar table of mesh generator parameters.

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