Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
When Wang Xiaodong finished the last step, he opened the data package and looked at Lu Zhou, “The iterative calculation program is completed. The coordinates for the far and close side of the moon, the speed, and the direction of Chang’e 3 are calculated. I’ll send it to your email?”
Lu Zhou, who was writing, did not even lift his head, “Just send it to my QQ.”
Wang Xiaodong, “Okay, what’s next?”
“… The satellite orbit around the moon and the satellite landing trajectory geometry data and parameters are all here. You’ll have to do the plotting,” replied Lu Zhou. He threw the fully written A4 at Wang Xiaodong’s desk and began his next calculation.
Wang Xiaodong looked at the data on the paper and noticed that he had changed the MATLAB software to a more professional SAS software for data mapping. Without any expression, he answered, “Okay.”
The two collaborated quietly and were fighting in their own areas of expertise.
It was around twelve o’clock when Lin Yuxiang walked quietly into the computer room. She placed a plastic bag containing two packs of yellow chicken rice and two cans of coffee on the table.
“Geniuses, time to eat!”
Wang Xiaodong got up and took his plate. With a smile on his face, he said, “Thank you.”
Naturally, Lin Yuxiang smiled back. She then walked next to Lu Zhou and said, “This one’s yours.”
Lu Zhou did not raise his head as he replied, “Put it aside. I’ll eat it after I finish calculating this.”
“Okay!”
It was nine o’clock at night when Lin Yuxiang yawned and went back to the dorm. Wang Xiaodong went back at around ten o’clock. As he was the main force for tomorrow, he had to get a good night’s rest.
At this point, other than Lu Zhou, there were only a few people left in the computer room.
The genius mathematics student Luo Rundong was also there with Liu Rui.
There was also a third-year genius statistics student next to Liu Rui.
Their team configuration was special. The captain was responsible for programming and part of the modeling but did not do calculations. Most of the modeling was done by Liu Rui who then directed another person to do the thesis.
The third-year genius statistics student asked, “Is that guy in your dorm?”
Liu Rui nodded, “Yeah.”
The genius statistics student said casually, “That guy is insane. I briefly looked at him when I went to the bathroom. He chose question A. They’ll have a lot fewer competitors than us.”
Liu Rui asked curiously, “Then why didn’t we choose question A?”
Liu Rui has been solving question B for a while now and he did not feel like it was easy at all.
The genius statistic student said impolitely, “Because I have you guys for this year. Do you think I wanted to choose question B?”
Liu Rui: “…”
The other guy in his team: “…”
At three o’clock in the morning, only five people were left in the computer room.
At four o’clock in the morning, Lu Zhou was the only person still sitting in front of a computer.
By the time the sun started to shine through the window, Lu Zhou finally finished writing the last line of calculations.
When Wang Xiaodong opened the computer room door and walked in, he asked, “Finished?”
“Finished…” said Lu Zhou. He sighed in relief before saying, “The basic modeling is completed. The rest is programming, plotting, and sensitivity analysis by observing changes in the simulation. When you’re done, I’ll start writing the thesis.”
Wang Xiaodong nodded his head and said, “I got this. Go and rest.”
“Okay.”
Lu Zhou pinched his eyebrows, shook his head, and stood up before he walked out of the computer room.
Compared to his all-nighters during the summer, this was nothing.
Lu Zhou could not remember how he got back to the dorms. He just remembered that he opened the door and without even taking his clothes off, he went to sleep.
When he woke up, it was already dusk.
Lu Zhou sat up in bed and rubbed his messy hair as he took out his phone from his pocket to take a look at the time.
He recalled that he got back to the dorm around six in the morning.
“I slept for twelve hours…”
The next time he could sleep would be after the competition.
Lu Zhou went to the bathroom and cleaned himself up before heading towards the computer room.
When he arrived at the computer room, Wang Xiaodong was already writing the last line of the program.
Lin Yuxiang was away but she had brought food. The food was still hot. She probably left recently.
Lu Zhou opened the plastic bag and was about to grab a pair of chopsticks when he saw a piece of paper in the bag.
He slowly unfolded the paper.
[Try your best ~ ^.^ ~]
Lu Zhou: “…”
Lu Zhou crunched the paper and threw it in the rubbish bin before opening the disposable chopsticks to begin eating.
When he finished eating his dinner, he went to the bathroom and along the way, he threw the takeaway box away.
When he came back, Wang Xiaodong pushed his glasses. He stood up and started talking, “I’ve already finished writing the program. The code I’ve used for the three questions have been sent to your QQ. I’ll come back at three in the morning. You’ll have to do the thesis.”
“Ok, set an alarm. Don’t forget.”
“I know,” said Wang Xiaodong as he nodded his head and left.
Lu Zhou was the last relay runner. He sat in front of the computer and stretched.
It was seven o’clock at night and they still had 37 hours till the thesis submission time.
Within the next 37 hours, he had to summarize all of the calculation processes, modeling ideas, procedures, and answers to the three questions, all into a 20-30 page thesis.
No matter how exquisite the model or how ingenious the program, the judges would only judge by the thesis presentation. If the thesis could not be understood by the judges, then there was no hope for the prize.
Therefore, this last step could not be done sloppily!
Lu Zhou went into his working mode and he had completely forgotten about the time. His attention was entirely concentrated on the computer screen and his typing and thinking were operating at the speed of light.
The abstract and keywords had to be written in one page according to format requirements. Lu Zhou edited his abstract and even then, he barely made the cut.
No one knew his model thought process better than him. Therefore, this stage was easy to do.
The next was the cumbersome process of proof and reasoning. This was the main part of the entire thesis. Although it did not take up too much space, it was the most time-consuming part to complete.
The main reason was that not only did it involve mathematical modeling ideas, it also involved programming.
Lu Zhou was comfortable with mathematics but he needed to communicate with the coder for the program part.
Time slowly past by and the sun fell down and rose again. Once again, it shined across the horizon.
When the night was over, Lu Zhou had finished the last part of the question answering section.
He stretched and started at the thesis with his sleepy eyes before yawning as he started to talk to himself.
“… Next up is the reference and appendix. Finally, it’s almost done.”
Lu Zhou placed his hands on the keyboard and he copied the title of the cited documents.
[
… Moon soft landing gravity turning track design and analysis (C), Huaguo Aerospace Association deep space exploration technology professional committee second academic conference. 2005.
… Research on the detection and evasion scheme of manned lunar surface obstacles, Space Return and Remote Sensing. 2014, 35: 11-19
…
]
In total, he cited six Chinese theses, and one English thesis.
For the final step, Lu Zhou copied Wang Xiaodong’s code into the appendix.
Wang Xiaodong stood behind Lu Zhou. As he pushed his glasses, he looked at the texts on the screen and asked, “Finished?”
“Yeah, all finished. Help me check for errors. If there are no errors, convert it to PDF format,” said Lu Zhou while standing up from his chair. He shook his groggy brain and said, “I’m going to sleep. I’ll delegate the md5 hash check and uploading work to you.”
“Go rest,” said Wang Xiaodong. He paused for a second before saying with a concerned voice, “Be careful on the road. Don’t trip.”
“Ok,” said Lu Zhou as he nodded his head before he walked out of the computer room.
