Chapter 17: Five Divisions? No, Five Hundred Divisions!
“As expected, it’s 1000 US dollars. 4v is still generous, taking a large amount of gold and cultural relics from the Mainland, and sparing no effort to win over talented Chinese people in America.”
After Zhou Shukai left, Lin Ran took the US dollars out of the envelope and thought to himself.
1000 dollars in 1960 had real purchasing power equivalent to at least around 12000 dollars in 2020.
Besides the US dollars, there was also a letter of appointment in the envelope, inviting him to serve as a distinguished professor at 4v Tsinghua University.
It was truly a case of falling asleep and having a pillow delivered.
If he didn’t go to the Island, Lin Ran really couldn’t think of how to establish a connection with China in this era.
At this point in 1960, China and America had not established formal diplomatic relations, and there wasn’t even an office here.
To establish a connection with China, there was only one way: find a chamber of commerce close to China.
Chinese people in America had all kinds of large and small chambers of commerce, and there were definitely some close to China.
The problem was, if he proactively contacted such chambers, while the chambers were friendly with China, it couldn’t be guaranteed that all their personnel would keep secrets.
Even if Lin Ran just solved an equation for China, he could be investigated.
In the current situation, establishing a connection with China was extremely difficult.
But with 4v as a springboard, the situation was completely different.
China definitely had far more personnel in 4v than in America.
More importantly, Lin Ran was going to 4v to be a distinguished professor, to give lectures there.
Giving lectures there, with students asking questions and him answering as a professor, was very normal, right?
If the other party asked about equations related to ballistic calculation, how would I know?
What, you say that during my lectures at Tsinghua University in 4v, the students who came to consult me passed what I taught back to Mainland China and used it in intercontinental missile design?
This is perturbation theory related to intercontinental missile launches, this is a simplified model of the Navier-Stokes equations for aerodynamic heating, and this finite difference method optimization, if used in ballistic simulation, could save eighty percent of the time.
The problem was, I thought at the time it was just a simple partial differential equation.
When the investigators asked if this was simple? As the prover of Fermat’s Conjecture and the youngest Fields Medalist, of course it was simple beyond simple for Lin Ran.
As for how to precisely select students from the many at 4v who would pass the news back to Mainland China, this naturally relied on the information declassification from later years.
Lin Ran also very much hoped to give this era’s China a little “small” help while ensuring his own safety.
“Being able to directly threaten America’s homeland with intercontinental missiles would be great.
Dongfeng-1’s range was only a mere few hundred kilometers, and it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that the Dongfeng-5 with a range over ten thousand kilometers was successfully developed.
With my help, it could probably be developed in the 1960s.
As for being investigated, as long as he fully proved his value, plus strong ties with the Jewish community, it wouldn’t be a big problem.
He could even drag the Jewish community down with him.
If the situation really turned dire, with the door there, he wouldn’t be unable to escape.”
After Columbia University provided a professor position and he took 1000 US dollars in seed funding from Zhou Shukai, Lin Ran rented a house next to Horkheimer’s home and moved in.
After having a place of his own to stay, Lin Ran finally felt a bit of security and a sense of belonging to this era.
“Next, the plan is to first make a name in the mathematics community through Fermat’s Last Theorem and the extended Langlands Program, then wait for Kennedy’s election at the end of this year, and after the Soviet Union achieves manned spaceflight first next year, find an opportunity to infiltrate NASA,” Lin Ran thought.
After carefully studying the ability of the “door,” Lin Ran profoundly realized that his biggest capital in jumping through the timeline was technical data.
An 18-gram USB drive could transport over a hundred GB of technical data, whose value couldn’t be measured by money, far beyond what 18 grams of gold could compare to.
And what he could bring from 1960 back to 2020 with the most value was also technical data.
Who says that technical routes abandoned or overlooked in the past must be wrong? Must be unable to develop valuable technology?
The range extender engine popular in new energy vehicles can be traced back to 1900, and had always been left in the pile of discarded papers, waiting for automakers in China to restart it and bring it new life.
The evolution of technology is never a one-way “elimination-progress,” but a spiral upward process. Many abandoned technical routes are revitalized due to new materials, new demands, or cross-disciplinary fusion.
The reason for starting with NASA was that Lin Ran’s personal interest in aerospace was one aspect, and another very important aspect was that NASA controlled the most research resources at the time, with research funds equivalent to about 2% of America’s GDP being burned through NASA every year; controlling such a colossus to serve his purposes.
And these new technology routes reignited by him in 1960, who says they couldn’t come back to life in 2020?
The ternary computer technology route was probably what Lin Ran most wanted to reactivate.
Although ternary was eliminated in history, in today’s booming artificial intelligence era, who dares to say this technology route won’t be pulled out again? Revitalized in the artificial intelligence era?
Ternary’s so-called advantages, like logarithmic efficiency in representing numbers being higher than binary—for example, representing the decimal number 10 requires only 3 digits (101) in ternary, while binary needs 4 digits (1010), reducing information redundancy by about 25%.
When chip advancement becomes increasingly difficult, ternary might be a good technology route.
Even more crucially, in simulating neuromorphic computing, three-state logic can naturally simulate the activation, inhibition, and resting states of biological neurons, making the synaptic models of brain-like chips more precise.
Similar technology routes abound; starting from utilizing NASA’s resources, then the world’s resources, leveraging funds, organizations, talent, and business to operate according to his will, with the generated technology feeding back to 2020—just thinking about it was enough to excite Lin Ran.
As for such a technology empire, it naturally couldn’t be placed in America.
Choosing a middle ground would be a good option.
Lin Ran had already figured out the entire plan during this time: leveraging the power of Jewish people and rescuing Kennedy during his assassination, with the Jewish community, the lifesaving grace, plus his own abilities, making the White House willingly hand over the highest control authority of the rocket console to him.
Eight years later, when the Donkey Party steps down and the Elephant Party takes power, then through the door go to Hong Kong to start his technology empire.
And precisely because of this, by that time, Lin Ran’s value wouldn’t be five divisions, but fifty divisions. If China didn’t have some real stuff in hand, it really couldn’t protect him.
So it’s like wanting to sleep, and Zhou Shukai timely handed over the pillow; he was just worrying about no way to establish contact with the China side.
em Afraid everyone thinks Yahann is rare, writing black tech articles helping America develop, so still explain: it’s just starting with NASA, in the 70s he’ll return to Hong Kong to start building the technology empire.
