In the afternoon, at the Yan University Library.
Li Dong looked around, but didn’t see any sign of Yang Shengguo.
After all, the library was enormous. With several floors above and below ground and millions of books in its collection, finding one person was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He found a random empty seat by a window and sat down.
Then, he closed his eyes.
A fourth-year male student sitting nearby casually looked up.
The student’s name was Xu Ming, a senior from the School of Physics in the Program for Cultivating Outstanding Talent.
On the desk in front of him was a copy of An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory, which he had open to the fourth Chapter: "Interacting Fields."
His notebook was filled with notes.
Derivations of Feynman rules, calculations of scattering cross-sections, ultraviolet divergence and renormalization of loop diagrams...
This was all for Xu Ming’s undergraduate thesis on lattice QCD numerical simulations, which was now mostly complete.
He planned to apply for graduate studies at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The competition for a spot there was nothing short of brutal; no more than twenty undergraduates from across the country were accepted each year.
That was why he hadn’t gone home for winter break, instead spending his days holed up in the library, poring over books from morning till night.
At that moment, he glanced at the young man beside him who had his eyes closed.
He felt that the face looked a little familiar.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t recall where he’d seen it before.
’Sleeping in the library, though?’
That was a pretty rare sight at Yan University.
Although the library certainly wasn’t as packed after finals season, someone so brazenly napping with their eyes shut was still a bit baffling.
Xu Ming didn’t pry.
He turned his gaze back to his work, once again burying his head in the fourth Chapter of Peskin.
Momentum-space representation of the Feynman propagator... the LSZ reduction formula... Wick’s theorem and normal ordering...
He had already read this material three times, but he gained new insights with each reading.
He picked up his pen and added another note to his notebook...
Ten minutes later.
Li Dong opened his eyes.
Inside his Memory Palace, he had finished laying out his entire study plan.
Which books to read, which Chapters to focus on in each book, the order in which to read them, and roughly how much time it would take... everything was planned out.
He stood up and walked over to a search terminal in the library’s first-floor lobby.
The Yan University Library’s collection search system was connected to the campus network, allowing anyone to use a terminal to look up physical books and electronic resources by keyword, author name, ISBN, and other criteria.
Li Dong typed a few keywords into the search box.
A list of books and documents appeared, showing their specific locations and availability status.
Li Dong jotted down the call numbers and then searched for a few more keywords:
"Fiber bundle," "characteristic class," "Chen Shengshen," "index theorem."
Another long list of results popped up.
He quickly scanned the list, archiving the call number and location of every book in his Memory Palace, then headed straight for the stacks.
Fifteen minutes later.
THUD.
Li Dong dropped the armful of books and printed documents he was carrying onto the desk.
The stack was at least half a meter tall.
Hearing the noise, Xu Ming, who was sitting next to him, looked up.
And his expression became quite a sight to behold.
’Th-that many?’
The borrowing limit for undergraduates at the Yan University Library was twenty volumes.
This stack wasn’t quite twenty, but a quick glance suggested it was at least thirteen or fourteen books, not even counting the printed papers.
’Besides, aren’t these books a bit too hardcore?’
’Heat Kernels and Dirac Operators?’
’That’s a reference book for graduate students in the math department, isn’t it?’
’Geometry, Topology and Physics? That’s fucking standard reading for doctoral students in theoretical physics!’
’And Milnor’s Characteristic Classes?’
’Even graduate students in pure mathematics would probably struggle to get through that.’
’And what’s with reading such a disorganized jumble of topics? Are you planning to unify the two great disciplines of mathematics and physics all by yourself?’
Xu Ming grumbled internally but didn’t say anything out loud.
’Maybe he’s just borrowing them to read slowly at home.’
He lowered his head and went back to grinding through his Peskin.
However, Li Dong didn’t take the books home.
He sat right there and opened the book on top: Heat Kernels and Dirac Operators.
Basic concepts of fiber bundles, connections and curvature, the Chern-Weil construction of characteristic classes...
Li Dong’s eyes scanned rapidly over every line of text and every formula.
He was turning the pages at an unnatural speed.
With every page he turned, a complete copy was added to his Memory Palace.
Moreover, Li Dong discovered that the Memory Palace could do more than just "remember."
It could also automatically sync and categorize information, and even create associations and indexes.
This was getting a little ridiculous. If he could load all of Yan University’s books and documents into the Palace, he would become a walking human library!
Once the thought occurred to him, Li Dong couldn’t resist the urge to try.
"I’ll start with you guys, then..."
Li Dong grinned, eyeing the stack of books before him.
Then, a pile of new knowledge flooded into Li Dong’s brain, where it was categorized, filed, and cross-referenced.
Another pile of new knowledge flooded in, followed by more categorization, filing, and cross-referencing.
The cycle repeated.
The RUSTLE of pages turning seemed especially clear in the quiet library.
Sitting beside him, Xu Ming finally couldn’t take it anymore.
He frowned and looked up.
’Can you really read that fast?’
’How long did it take to turn that page? Three seconds? Five?’
’You wouldn’t even flip through a novel that quickly.’
Xu Ming spoke.
"Excuse me."
But Li Dong didn’t react at all.
Xu Ming’s frown deepened.
He reached out, about to touch Li Dong’s arm.
"Hey."
Another student next to him called out softly.
Xu Ming turned his head. It was a classmate from the School of Physics, in the same year as him.
The classmate shook his head and lowered his voice.
"Don’t bother him."
"He’s studying."
Xu Ming was unconvinced.
"How can you call this studying? He’s flipping a page every three to five seconds, and it’s Berline’s book on heat kernels. Is he really reading it?"
The classmate sighed.
"People are different, you know?"
"Though I also find it hard to believe..."
"But that’s Li Dong."
Li Dong.
When those two words fell on Xu Ming’s ears, he froze completely.
He finally remembered.
’No wonder he looked so familiar!’
The story of what happened in Sunshine Hall had spread throughout all of Yan University.
A freshman had, in front of big shots like Qiu Chengtong, Terence Tao, and Yuan Yaxiang in Sunshine Hall, completely reproduced the entire derivation for Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association in half an hour. He had also brought some shady business to light...
Although the School of Physics didn’t discuss the incident as if it were earth-shattering news like the School of Mathematics did, their level of interest was definitely second-highest in the entire university.
After all, mathematics and physics are two sides of the same coin.
At the frontiers of theoretical physics, one’s level of mathematical proficiency directly determines how far one can go.
So, the students and faculty of the School of Physics paid just as much attention to the waves Li Dong was making in mathematics as the School of Mathematics did.
Xu Ming silently withdrew his hand.
’Fine.’
’You’re the big shot.’
’You win this round of showing off.’
Deep down, he still didn’t quite believe that someone could actually "absorb" a book at that speed.
But celebrities did get a little bit of "special privilege," after all.
Xu Ming turned back around and paid Li Dong no more mind.
An hour later.
Li Dong put down Heat Kernels and Dirac Operators.
Inside the Memory Palace, the core content of the book had been completely deconstructed, categorized, and archived.
But the price was...
His head hurt a little.
Li Dong had discovered one of the Memory Palace’s limitations.
After more than an hour of high-intensity use, his brain would start to ache, a bit like an overloaded processor.
It wasn’t unbearable, but it definitely affected his processing efficiency.
If he forced himself to continue, his accuracy would drop.
He also realized that while the Memory Palace was supposedly infinite, he, Li Dong, was finite.
After storing just one book, Heat Kernels and Dirac Operators, he could already feel that his thoughts were not as clear as before.
And he would even find his mind wandering for a moment.
’Looks like it’s because my other two attributes can’t keep up.’
’Sigh, so much for the human library project. R.I.P.’
Li Dong closed his eyes and let his brain rest for half an hour.
Once his headache had subsided a bit, he picked up the second book, Nakahara’s Geometry, Topology and Physics.
This time, he didn’t read the whole thing, just a few key Chapters.
Connections and curvature forms on fiber bundles, the construction of the Chern-Weil homomorphism, and the relationship between the second Chern class and the instanton number.
Another hour passed.
Then another half-hour rest.
Next came Fujikawa’s papers and monographs, path integral quantization, one-loop renormalization, the Ward identities...
And so it went: an hour of study, half an hour of rest.
Li Dong continued this cycle, absorbing knowledge from the books and papers.
With each session, an entire new wall of files would appear in his Memory Palace.
And the cross-references and logical connections between these files were growing automatically at an astonishing rate.
Before he knew it, the sky outside the window had grown completely dark.
Groups of people had come and gone from the library.
Xu Ming had left at around six in the evening.
Before leaving, he took one last look at Li Dong.
The guy was still flipping through pages. The stack of books that had been on his left was now mostly on his right.
Xu Ming had only one thought in his mind.
’Is this for real?’
9:45 PM.
"Excuse me, we’re about to close."
The voice of the library attendant came from beside him.
Li Dong finally snapped out of it, and then his stomach let out a ferocious growl.
"Ah, yes, of course. I’ll leave right away."
He hurriedly began to pack up the books on his desk.
As he packed, he muttered under his breath.
"Damn it, I underestimated this problem."
"Two days is a really tight schedule."
"Looks like it’ll take three days..."
Zhou Qifeng: ???

Comments

Loading...