Chapter 230 Breaking the Door

"Why are foreigners here?"

Lao Bai was stunned and muttered: "What's so great about being educated? You can freely speak words we don't understand?"

Although this is a bit shameless, it really speaks out the cry in my heart! !

Unfortunately, I don't have the face of a villain like Lao Bai, so I can only wave the flag in the dark.

Zhang Xinya was quite tough and never tolerated Lao Bai. Upon hearing this, she immediately sneered: "You are an uneducated person. You are right to be uneducated?"

"Ahem..."

Brother Yaozi coughed lightly, reminding Zhang Xinya that this statement was indeed a bit damaging, so he should not continue, and immediately changed the subject: "Second girl, tell me what the conjecture about this song is."

"It's the Goldbach conjecture!"

Zhang Xinya emphasized, looking at Shi Kuang's sculpture with a complicated look, and sighed: "Although I have heard that Shi Kuang is extremely smart and talented, but... being smart to this point is indeed shocking."

She was worried that she was too direct and we couldn't understand it, so she explained it slowly and carefully. She also left time for us to think about it after each point, which made the three of us feel so ashamed that we wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

But there is nothing we can do about it. Just like watching a fireworks display, educated people will use words like gorgeous and colorful to describe it. The more literary people will even sigh with emotion - the east wind blows thousands of flowers at night, and blows down the stars like rain, which humiliates the illiterate people who can only say "wow".

And what about us now? We can't even say "wow"! !

Illiterate people know that fireworks are beautiful when they see them, but we have no idea what is shocking about this question!

Fortunately, Zhang Xinya has good expression skills, and gradually we understand it.

This Goldbach conjecture is two bold conjectures proposed by the German mathematician Goldbach in the 18th century. Simply put, any even number not less than 6 is the sum of two odd prime numbers, and any odd number not less than 9 is the sum of three odd prime numbers!

This conjecture once became a world mathematical problem. It was not until modern times that the Chinese mathematician Chen Jingrun broke through and found this theorem. However, even now, many so-called folk mathematicians will have a strong interest in it. The reason is very simple. Even elementary school students can understand what the Goldbach conjecture means. Unlike the Riemann conjecture and other mathematical problems, people who don't understand mathematics can't even understand what it means!

However, if this conjecture was put in Shi Kuang's era, it would be a bit shocking.

You know, Goldbach is more than 2,000 years later than Shi Kuang!

At least, if you want to consider the Goldbach conjecture, you must first understand what a prime number is. This is also called a prime number, which is a natural number greater than 1. Except for 1 and itself, it cannot be divided by other natural numbers.

Zhang Xinya feels that in Shi Kuang's era, Chinese people should not understand division, and there should be no research on prime numbers.

I don't like to hear this. I'm not good at mathematics, but I know history. Prime numbers should have been proposed by Euclid, a mathematician in ancient Greece. He lived not far from Shi Kuang. He could discover prime numbers, and our Chinese ancestors were not far behind!

First of all, division must have appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period!

Although the first mathematical work "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art" appeared around the first century AD, and it systematically explained division for the first time, it does not mean that our ancestors understood this thing in the first century. There was a person named Li Kui in the Legalist School of the Pre-Qin philosophers. This person wrote a book called "Law Classics", which clearly contained relevant division operations, and this Li Kui was just a little later than Shi Kuang!

"I admit that after hearing what you said, the problems related to the Goldbach conjecture here are indeed a bit scary. It's more than two thousand years earlier, but there's no need to make a fuss. Our ancestors were not that stupid. Look at the mechanical techniques in this tomb. How many applications of mechanics and geometry are involved? They don't have to understand these academic issues, but they have life experience. How many great academic discoveries are accidents in life? Academics themselves come from life, don't make it so sacred!" I said: "Of course, if Shi Kuang fully expounded the entire Goldbach conjecture more than two thousand years ago, I don't believe it. The mathematical system at that time could not do this, but... he was a blind man, unable to see things, so he was prone to fantasizing and pondering every number, and then he happened to find some interesting numbers that could not be divided by anything except 1 and itself. Maybe he didn't realize what these numbers were at that time, but he did discover the existence of these numbers, and then he pondered these numbers and gradually found some interesting operations that met the Goldbach conjecture! Look, the number of questions he asked us was only 100, which means he didn't go too far on this road. He just found a prototype. Under the conditions at that time, it was impossible to continue because the calculations involved were too huge."

I shrugged my shoulders. What I meant was that there was no need to demonize them too much, and there was no need to look at the ancients as idiots.

"I feel calmer now."

Zhang Xinya nodded: "At least I don't feel scared anymore. It's like seeing a time traveler."

Is this called a time traveler?

I smiled silently. Shi Kuang's talent was indeed very strange, but not the most strange. Look at what Wang Mang did. That was the most like a time traveler. It was simply against the sky. If he hadn't met Liu Xiu, who was a cheater, who knew what he would have done to the new dynasty!

"Come on, now that we understand what this mechanism is, let's open the tomb door!"

Lao Bai had been listening to us for a long time and was already impatient. He said angrily: "Look at you two. You are obviously doing the menial work of digging graves, but you are discussing it like an old scholar. It's just like when I was moving bricks at the construction site. You were obviously doing hard labor with your butts sticking up, but when you have free time, you talk about national affairs. Damn it, I just have one sentence - what the hell is it to you?"

Zhang Xinya glared at Lao Bai fiercely and said nothing. There was no signal on her mobile phone, so she couldn't rely on it, so she could only take out a wooden stick, write out all the prime numbers within 100, and then write out the answers one by one through calculation.

However, this answer is too much...

3+97 is OK, 11+89 is OK, 17+83 is OK...

Shi Kuang didn't want one answer, but all of them! !

I pulled out the iron counting sticks from the stone tube beside the statue and began to put them on the green plate.

As I expected, the counting sticks were immediately attached to the green plate with a "snap". At that moment, I could clearly feel the green plate tremble, and a crisp "click" sound came from below.

This movement was undoubtedly the sound of the mechanism running, sometimes it sounded so pleasant, and sometimes it was a note of death.

Of course, it definitely sounded more pleasant at this time. My guess was completely correct. There should be countless very delicate mechanisms under this green plate. After the counting sticks were placed on it, they would be touched. If the data calculated by the counting sticks was completely correct, the mechanism would open automatically, similar to the keys of a piano. If your notes were properly organized, it would be a beautiful fairy music. If they were not well organized, what would be played was shit!

Counting sticks are actually very simple. Before the abacus appeared in the Yuan Dynasty, the ancients had been using this thing for calculations. It can be regarded as the predecessor of the abacus. The principle is also very simple. Using the decimal system, the units are placed vertically, the tens are placed horizontally, the hundreds are placed vertically again, and the thousands are placed horizontally. In this way, many natural numbers can be expressed by small sticks. When calculating addition, just add sticks. Even elementary school students can learn it at a glance, but it is a bit too troublesome. It just so happens that there are many answers to Shi Kuang's question. It took a long time to express them one by one with counting sticks.

Unconsciously, sweat has seeped out of my forehead. I am concentrating, afraid that if I make a mistake in a detail, we will not be able to pass through this tomb door.

During this period, the "clicking" sound of the mechanism under the green plate is endless.

When the last answer was calculated, there was only a small stick left horizontally on the green plate, representing one hundred, and our breathing became rapid, staring at the tomb door in front of us.

Boom!

A huge roar was heard, and the tomb door... finally moved!

Brother Yaozi silently put on a gas mask, and the rest of us followed suit. The temperature underground was higher, not as cold as the surface. The mercury in the tomb was still in liquid form, or simply water vapor. If you were not careful, you would immediately get heavy metal poisoning. It was always right to be careful.

Behind the tomb door, it was pitch black, and I didn't know what was waiting for us ahead.

Brother Yaozi silently waved his hand, beckoning us to follow, and he himself took the lead and plunged in...