fictionpage Chapter 44 Total Annihilation
Chapter 44 Total Annihilation
Marcelo coldly watched the students below the stage, biting their pens and sweating profusely.
Looking back at those champions who emerged from the IMO, which one of them didn't leave a significant mark on the history of mathematics in the years that followed?
For example, there's Grigori Perelman, the reclusive genius who proved one of the Millennium Prize-winning problems, the Poincaré Conjecture, and shocked the world!
That was the perfect template in his mind!
But now?
What about these "champions" on the assembly line today?
After the exams, how many of them can still make waves in the mathematics world?
Is this really a sacred exam designed for mathematics?
Marcelo had countless late-night moments in his office where he harbored deep doubts about the current education system.
Of course, when releasing this exam paper, which he designed himself and is known as the "most grueling exam ever"...
Deep down, he also felt a faint sense of apology towards most of the participants present.
After all, his old-fashioned and cruel values are not very friendly to these sheltered flowers who are used to formulaic questions; in fact, they can be said to be somewhat cruel.
"But, as sorry as I am, reality is cruel."
Marcelo pushed up his glasses and scanned the entire arena with eyes like a hawk.
"The Mathematical Olympiad should not be a game of who can do the most practice problems."
From the day it was born, it should have been a brutal, bloody, ultimate exam specifically designed to select true mathematical geniuses!
Marcelo clenched his fists secretly.
In the endless sands, we search for those promising talents who can carry the torch of human wisdom and become true mathematicians!
Kick out those mortals who have sneaked in without any mercy!
This is the most fundamental meaning of that altar when IMO was first established!
Now, it's time to set things right and let these little brats experience what it means to be dominated by real mathematics!
Everything returns to its origin!
……
"Time's up! Please stop answering."
The examiner's cold, hard voice echoed in the empty examination room.
The long, four-and-a-half-hour battle on the first day of the IMO was finally brought to a forced close at this moment.
"Clatter".
Clang.
Inside the examination room, the crisp sound of pencils falling onto the table could be heard one after another.
However, there was no joy of relief after finishing the exam; instead, there was a heavy and desperate atmosphere, as if the entire army had been wiped out and the whole family had been executed.
The students stood up and handed in their papers like zombies, their faces filled with bewilderment, as if asking, "Who am I? Where am I? What just happened?"
Some people covered their heads with their hands, their hair becoming a mess;
Some people looked like soulless salted fish, their dead fish eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
That's a physiological aftereffect of racking one's brains to the extreme.
"What the hell is this question...?"
"It's completely different from past exam questions!"
"Has the competition organizers gone mad? This level of difficulty is clearly not meant to be solved by anyone!"
Desperate whispers spread like a plague through the hall.
"Huff... huff..."
On the American team's roster, Lucas was breathing heavily, his chest heaving violently.
He stared intently at the table that had been cleared away, his eyes filled with horror.
He couldn't remember the last time he felt "not enough time" when he faced a math test.
But today, the first question alone took him a full two hours!
Two whole hours!
Looking back, Lucas felt like slapping himself twice.
He chose the wrong approach at the beginning, which caused him to keep hitting walls with this problem.
This is the very first question!
Normally, even the most complicated number theory problem, no matter how tedious the steps are, he could solve it in thirty minutes with his eyes closed!
But this question is nothing short of a devil in sheep's clothing!
The conventional solution? Total failure!
Factoring? That won't work!
Congruence operations? A dead end!
Diophantine equations? They're utterly useless!
He exhausted all the familiar variations, yet it was as if he were facing a smooth wall of sighs, unable to find a single point of leverage!
Just as Lucas was on the verge of a mental breakdown, and the shameful words "give up" even flashed through his mind, he suddenly woke up!
This problem isn't pure number theory at all; you have to introduce the perspective of ideal class groups from algebraic number theory to solve it!
However, by the time he realized this, the daylilies had gone cold.
One step wrong, step by step wrong.
The oppressive feeling of being relentlessly pursued by time, coupled with an imbalance in mindset, triggered an avalanche-like chain reaction.
On the geometry problem that he should have solved with his eyes closed, his performance was like that of someone suffering from a stroke!
As he struggled to arrive at the answer to the second question with trembling pen, his gaze had barely touched the question stem for the third when the proctor ruthlessly blew the final whistle.
Lucas looked around, his face pale.
It was a scene of wailing and lamentation.
Let alone the third question, there are plenty of people who couldn't even answer the first question!
Lucas's eye twitched slightly, and he sneered inwardly.
What is this?
Deliberate targeting?
Is it because the US team won the championship last year with an unreasonable and overwhelming victory that the tournament organizers came up with this extremely embarrassing underhanded tactic as a countermeasure?
That's incredibly stupid!
When a question is so difficult that it deviates from common sense, it loses its original ability to differentiate students.
So what if the questions are difficult?
It's tough for everyone!
He couldn't solve it, and the others couldn't even understand the question!
This level of difficulty alone is not enough to keep the American team out!
No matter how absurd the exam paper was, he was absolutely confident that he could get more points than others and still crush all these so-called geniuses present!
"Lucas, how did the exam go?" A teammate from the US team, looking ashen-faced, cautiously approached.
Lucas kept a straight face and remained silent.
"I barely managed to finish the first question, and I'm not even sure if I was just making things up."
"Stop talking, I didn't even see what the third question looked like."
Seeing his teammates pouring out their grievances as if they had lost their parents, Lucas's suspicions were completely confirmed.
This indiscriminate attack, which reduced the dimensionality of the cultivators, clearly destroyed their resolve.
Ultimately, it all comes down to a lack of sufficient talent and ability.
But it doesn't matter, all crows are black, and this applies everywhere.
As long as we can consistently score the highest points in the game, this team will not fall!
Just then, a sudden voice interrupted his thoughts.
"What are those people laughing at?"
A teammate pointed in astonishment to a spot not far away.
Lucas looked in the direction the finger was pointing, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
That's a spot for the Xia Guo team!