Chapter 175 - 131: Who is Chen Lin?
The latest issue of JAMS was officially released on October 2nd. During the National Day holiday, a relatively quiet period in Huaxia’s academic circles, this paper had already, without a sound, set off the first monstrous wave in the international mathematics community and the AI industry.
Within the mathematics community, the astonishment was multi-faceted.
First was the paper itself, which showcased a terrifyingly complex process of argumentation and calculation. Its ingenious thinking and masterful techniques left many veteran professors in awe.
Second was the reviewer, Terence Tao, and the evaluation he gave.
Just getting Terence Tao’s approval was a miracle in itself. For him to describe it as "groundbreaking work," the paper’s significance needed no further embellishment.
Finally, and most incredibly for everyone, was the author’s identity—Lin Chen, from Huaxia’s Yannan University, a previously obscure... undergraduate student, not even a PhD, who was completely unknown in the international academic world!
Meanwhile, in the AI industry, especially among the researchers and engineers on the front lines of algorithm research, the focus was purer and more fervent.
They might not have understood the complex and profound mathematical derivations in the paper, but that didn’t stop them from grasping the meaning of the review.
For Terence Tao to give such an evaluation was to essentially use his own academic reputation to provide the strongest possible endorsement for the paper’s correctness!
This meant that completely solving the "hallucination" problem in large models at the foundational algorithm level was no longer a distant fantasy, but a clear, visible, and viable path that had truly appeared!
For the few American tech giants that were currently betting their entire fortunes on the AI track, this was undoubtedly a piece of game-changing news that could reshape the industry landscape!
Soon, the storm’s path of transmission rapidly spread from academic circles to the highest echelons of the tech world.
On his personal social media account, Terence Tao shared a link to the paper, accompanied by a concise recommendation: "A highly enlightening paper. I recommend all friends engaged in generative AI research take a look."
The moment this tweet was posted, several leading figures in the tech world appeared in the comments section like sharks that had smelled blood.
CloseAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, was the first to retweet: "Astonishing work! The path to AGI is paved by this kind of groundbreaking foundational research."
META’s founder, Zha, followed close behind: "Our FAIR team is studying this paper in depth. This is a significant step forward for the field of generative AI."
However, the one who truly pushed this storm to the center of global public opinion was the man known as "Blue Star’s number one influencer"—the super-billionaire, Jask.
His retweeted comment was filled with his unique brand of wild, uninhibited, and highly inflammatory style.
Jask: "My friend Professor Tao Zhexuan (he’s currently at our company, XAI, helping test the mathematical abilities of our latest large model) just showed me this insane paper! We’re solving the hardest problems in artificial intelligence! @Lin Chen, if you see this tweet, XAI is willing to offer you a position with an annual salary of one million US dollars. DM me directly!"
BOOM!!!
Jask’s tweet was like a nuclear bomb detonating across the global internet.
His terrifyingly massive personal reach instantly thrust the name "Chen Lin," which had previously only circulated in small circles, in front of every netizen.
「Imperial Capital time, 4:30 AM.」
While all of Huaxia was still deep in slumber, it began as an inconspicuous post from a Weibo blogger who specialized in reposting overseas tech news, who had casually translated and shared Jask’s tweet late at night.
Like a pebble tossed into a calm lake, the tweet initially only created a small ripple among the circles of night-owl tech enthusiasts, programmers, and overseas students.
"Holy crap? Is Jask going crazy again? Offering a million-dollar annual salary?"
"The key person is Terence Tao! The great Tao! For him to call a paper ’insane,’ just how badass must it be?"
"Lin Chen? That pinyin... a Huaxia person?"
The questions quickly fermented within these small communities.
Soon, internet sleuths with keen instincts followed the trail and found Terence Tao’s original tweet, as well as the PDF link to the paper on the JAMS official website.
When "YANNAN UNIVERSITY" clearly appeared in the author’s affiliation field, all speculation was answered.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
「5:00 AM.」
The on-duty editors for major tech media outlets and web portals were dragged out of bed by frantic, non-stop calls from their editors-in-chief.
「6:00 AM.」
As the first rays of dawn pierced the sky, the tag for "Chen Lin" had already climbed to the top of Weibo’s hot search rankings.
However, for the vast majority of ordinary netizens who had just woken up and habitually opened their phones to browse the news, their first reaction was a state of collective confusion.
"Who is Chen Lin?"
Within minutes, this question flooded the comment sections of all major social media platforms.
It couldn’t be helped; the internet’s memory was now measured in days.
For a complete unknown who had only given one public interview half a month ago, it would have been strange to be remembered.
However, this question didn’t persist for long.
Faced with the omnipotent netizens and media editors running on pure adrenaline, every piece of public information about Chen Lin was unearthed with breathtaking speed.
The short video from half a month ago, where he was interviewed in front of the Yannan University administration building and announced his transfer to the mathematics department and his early graduation, was dug up again.
Someone even found the on-site video of the National College Student Mathematical Contest in Modeling from July. The famous scene of Chen Lin instantly solving a difficult problem on stage, publicly schooling the student from Jiangcheng University, Yang Han, in the process, went viral once more.
When these two videos were placed alongside the paper from JAMS that was destined to go down in history and Jask’s million-dollar offer, all the necessary materials were in place.
Countless media outlets and independent content creators, like sharks that had smelled blood, swarmed in. Within a few short hours, they had completely swept the entire Chinese internet with videos and articles from every possible angle.
Some self-proclaimed academic science communicators, wearing black-framed glasses and trying to suppress their excitement, faced the camera and attempted to explain to their audience in the simplest terms what "Differential Manifold" and "hallucination control" from the paper’s abstract meant. Although they stumbled and stammered, they still received tons of likes and donations.
Other media outlets, aware of their limited mathematical knowledge, gave up on interpreting the paper altogether and instead churned out content from a different angle, with headlines each more bombastic than the last:
"Huaxia’s Brilliance Shines on the World! 20-Year-Old Undergraduate Solves Global Problem!"
"Who Says Our Education Is Lacking? The Homegrown Genius from Yannan University Puts Foreign Ivy Leagues to Shame!"
These articles, in every line, emphasized that in recent years, more and more local scholars and students were producing world-class, impactful results in the field of basic science, powerfully proving that Huaxia’s educational and scientific research system was catching up, and had even surpassed others in certain areas.