My IQ Increases Year by Year

The letter was long and extremely formal, written with a slightly exaggerated enthusiasm characteristic of Western academics.

Chen Zhuo quickly translated the letter’s contents in his mind.

"Dear Professor Zhuo Chen:

I am Delian of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. First, please allow me to express, on behalf of my team, our most sincere admiration. We have carefully read and worked through the derivations in the PDF you sent concerning discrete algebraic mapping."

The corner of Chen Zhuo’s mouth twitched when he saw the word "Professor."

He glanced down at his frayed, dark blue sweater, then at the face reflected on the screen.

He read on.

"It was an incredible solution.

We had been wrestling with the divergence problem for six whole months, trying every renormalization technique we could think of to smooth out those meaningless infinities, but the results were always lackluster. Your discrete lattice model, however, was like opening a window in the side of a dead-end alley.

That mathematical intuition, to leap beyond continuum thinking... it was crisp, beautiful, without a single shred of redundancy. David (my assistant) even let out a cheer in the office."

In the middle section of the letter, Delian devoted a great deal of space to a detailed discussion of several derivation steps within Chen Zhuo’s matrix, and he also posed some follow-up questions on a purely mathematical level.

Chen Zhuo read this part very carefully.

In the latter half of the letter, the topic shifted.

"Professor Chen, scientific exchange requires face-to-face interaction.

If your schedule permits, I would like, on behalf of the Institute for Advanced Study, to formally invite you to Princeton for a visiting scholarship of several months. All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by us.

Not only can we discuss perfecting this discrete model, but more importantly, I am extremely eager to hear your thoughts on this model’s physical implications."

Chen Zhuo paused at this point.

At the end of the letter, Delian posed the true core question.

"The beauty of mathematics is always intoxicating, but physics requires a foothold in reality. In your opinion, after using discrete algebra to resolve the Singularity, what is the physical meaning of the manifold boundary? Does it imply that at the Planck scale, spacetime itself is discontinuous?"

After reading the final question, Chen Zhuo took his hand off the mouse, lacing his fingers together in his lap.

Zhang Qiang yelled from nearby.

"Quick, quick! Loot the drop! A Silver Snake dropped!"

Chen Zhuo looked at the screen and sighed softly.

’A visiting scholarship at Princeton?’

The offer sounded tempting. Any ordinary professor in the country who received this letter would probably be too excited to sleep.

But Chen Zhuo just felt a sense of helplessness.

’Get a passport? Apply for a visa? At eleven years old, he was supposed to run off to New Jersey in the United States all by himself?’

If Chen Jianguo and Liu Xiuying found out, they’d probably tie him to the radiator overnight.

As for the physics question Delian had asked in the letter...

Chen Zhuo shook his head slightly.

He had, in fact, relied on a flicker of mathematical intuition to resolve the divergence using discrete algebra.

But that was only on the level of mathematical logic.

Mathematics could concern itself solely with self-consistency and elegance; as long as a formula could be derived without contradiction, it was valid.

But physics could not.

Physics must correspond to the real world.

When Delian asked about "the physical meaning of the manifold boundary" and "whether spacetime is discontinuous," he was essentially asking Chen Zhuo to define the fundamental structure of the entire universe.

Chen Zhuo was well aware of his own limitations.

He had never conducted a high-energy particle collision experiment, nor had he seen any observational data from astrophysics. On what grounds could he dare to make sweeping judgments about physical reality based on a single mathematical formula?

In science, especially fundamental physics, the biggest taboo was treating everything like a nail just because you were holding a hammer.

Chen Zhuo placed his hands back on the keyboard. It was greasy, and the keys felt awful to type on.

He opened a new email to reply.

Without weighing his words or writing a draft, he began typing in English at a steady pace, as casually as if he were replying to a classmate’s message about borrowing a book.

"Dear Professor Delian:

Thank you for your letter and for your praise. I’m very glad the discrete model has been helpful to your research.

Regarding your invitation, I am deeply honored. Unfortunately, I must apologize, as my current personal circumstances and pressing academic commitments prevent me from traveling to the United States for a visiting scholarship in the near future. I hope you understand."

After typing this, Chen Zhuo paused. He didn’t want the professor to think he was being pretentious, so he added a sentence of plain truth:

"This is not a pretense; my situation truly makes it impossible."

He then skipped a line and began to address Delian’s question about the physical boundary.

"Regarding the question of physical implications you raised at the end of your letter:

I must be frank: I cannot give you the answer you are looking for.

The matrix I sent you was merely a shortcut I attempted from a purely mathematical perspective while reading your preprint. It is just a tool, meant to bypass those troublesome infinities.

As for whether this tool conceals a physical truth about discontinuous spacetime—that is completely beyond the scope of my current deductions and knowledge.

Mathematics can sometimes be deceptive; it can construct a perfect eleven-dimensional space, but the real universe may not be so accommodating. In the absence of rigorous physical proof and supporting experimental data, I would not recommend treating this mathematical conclusion as a direct reflection of physical reality.