Appointment Letter

A Ph. D. in physics is an achievement, and Shen Qi earned 500,000 academic points. He submitted his paper, "On Complexity," to Physical Review Letters to boost his reputation in the Physics Community.

Good things come in pairs.

A message from China greatly excited Shen Qi.

Yenching University's Big Mathematics Department sent Shen Qi a letter of appointment, seeking to appoint Shen Qi as Visiting Professor at the Big Mathematics Department.

Yenching Big Mathematics Department has only ever hired six Visiting Professor in its history, two of whom are still alive today: Qiu Chengtong and Griffiths.

Mr. Qiu is a Fields Medal winner, Griffiths is Wolf Prize winner; both are giants in the Mathematics Community.

Visiting Professor at Yenching University are what people usually call Lecturing Professor. The term "Visiting Professor" was used to distinguish them from the 11 Changjiang Lecturing Professor currently serving in the School of the Big Mathematics Department.

Visiting Professor is an extremely prestigious title and honor. Only those who have achieved outstanding results in a certain field are qualified to be invited to serve as Visiting Professor by top domestic research institutions such as the School of the Big Mathematics Department.

In the history of Yenching University's Big Mathematics Department, only two people held a higher status than the six Visiting Professor: Chen Shen and Fan Tuji.

Mr. Chen's illustrious history needs no further elaboration. Mr. Fan, a graduate of the Mathematics Department of Yenching University, was a contemporary of Su Buqing and Hua Luogeng, and was one of the founders of modern mathematics in China.

Mr. Chen and Mr. Fan were Honorary Professor of Yenching University. Although these two outstanding mathematicians have left us, their names will forever be engraved in the hearts of Yenching University and all Chinese mathematicians.

After Visiting Professor Yenching University for several years, Qiu Chengtong has long since stepped down. He is now a tenured professor at Harvard University, a Distinguished Lecturing Professor and Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Director of the Qiu Chengtong Mathematical Sciences Center at Shuimu University.

P. Griffiths, this old man is at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Shen Qi often runs into him.

Visiting Professor at Yenching University is more of an honorary title. There are no mandatory research or teaching tasks. The job duties of Visiting Professor are to spend one to two months each year giving lectures at Yenching University and mentoring Outstanding Youth mathematicians.

You can think of Visiting Professor as part-time, perhaps one of the most prestigious part-time positions in the world.

P. Griffiths' term as Visiting Professor at Yenching Big Mathematics Department has expired. He did not renew his contract with Yenching University because he is too old and can no longer keep up with the pace.

Yenching Big Mathematics Department needs to hire a new Visiting Professor who is outstanding in his achievements, renowned worldwide, and in his prime. Fields Medal winner Shen Qi, who graduated from Yenching University's Big Mathematics Department, is the most suitable candidate.

Shen Qi gladly accepted the appointment letter Visiting Professor at his alma mater, Yenching University, and will soon return to China to accept the formal appointment.

Shen Qi was in a great mood tonight. It was a clear night, so he drove Ou Ye to a remote mountain area 5 kilometers south of Princeton to observe the stars.

The 381mm Schmidt- Green telescope is quite large; to operate such a device, you must own a large vehicle, as the best astronomical observation locations are usually in the field where light pollution is less.

Streetlights, billboards, office buildings, and private residences all contribute to light pollution, which is one of the things that astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts hate the most.

Princeton University is already considered a tranquil paradise, but even at night, the lights in the student dormitories and library remain on.

The desolate mountains 5 kilometers south of Princeton were the perfect stargazing spot for Shen Qi. He had been there alone a few times before, but tonight was the first time he had brought Ou Ye with him.

Until July of this year, Shen Qi had never used a telescope before. He spent several weeks studying the instruction manual for the 381mm Schmidt- Green telescope and practiced it for several months. Now he's really good at it.

Shen Qi's astronomical telescope is worth $30,000, which is considered high-end for an amateur enthusiast.

If you want to experience something a bit more advanced, you should go to an observatory, where there are more sophisticated Astronomical Observation Equipment.

Telescopes costing $2,000 or more typically come equipped with equatorial and positioning devices. Through Computer Science- guided system, the telescope can automatically lock onto the celestial object the observer wants to observe.

You might not be able to tell which is Sirius and which is Procyon, but that's okay. A high-end telescope will help you find the brightest star in the night sky.

"Come on, Little Yezi, put your eyes on the eyepiece, OK, very good, keep this posture, and you will see the most amazing scene next." Shen Qi taught Ou Ye the correct posture for looking at the stars.

"Little Yezi, what do you see now?"

Wow, cool!

"Let me describe it to you. The planet you see is hidden beneath a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide, mixed with sulfuric acid rain. The surface there is so hot that lead, with a melting point of 328 degrees Celsius, instantly liquefies. What is hell? This is hell. Yes, Little Yezi, the star you are observing is our neighbor— Venus."

"Wow, cool!" That's all Ou Ye could say.

Shen Qi adjusted the equatorial device and instructed Ou Ye to continue looking at the stars.

"Let's look further ahead, leave the Solar System, and enter the Milky Way. Little Yezi, can you see two bright little balls very close together?"

"Yes!"

"They are two stars, forming a binary system. Under the powerful pull of gravity, the two stars are waltzing together, with millions of tons of gaseous stellar matter flowing between them every second. This tug-of-war will end with the explosion of one of the stars, a massive explosion that will instantly reduce all nearby planets to ashes. Yes, Little Yezi, the two stars you are observing are Lyra Beta."

"How terrifying..."

"In reality, most stars in the universe move according to the binary or multi-star model. The Sun is so lonely; it is one of the few single stars in the universe, a truly isolated individual."

"My understanding is, if the single Sun gets a partner, will our Earth be doomed?"

"I suspect so."

"This is terrifying... It's better to be single..."

"Little Yezi, do you still remember Poincare's Three-Body Problem model?"

"Yeah, I studied topology in undergrad, it was really hard."

"Studying textbooks blindly will make it difficult to understand. Go outside and look at the stars, and the problems will be solved. Come on, I'll teach you Poincare's three-body model."

"Hmm... this is the wilderness!"

"Then let's go to the car."

With the rear seats folded down and the panoramic sunroof opened, Shen Qi and Ou Ye, lying in the seven-seater Mercedes-Benz GLS, enjoyed stargazing in a different way.

"Little Yezi, look, the brightest star in the night sky is Sirius. Its magnitude is -1. As long as you leave a heavily polluted big city, humans can easily spot Sirius with the naked eye." Shen Qi put one arm around Ou Ye and pointed to the brilliant starry sky with the other.

"I wish I could just keep looking at it forever, it's so beautiful."

"Then let's keep watching like this."

"But Qi, you're leaving tomorrow."

"Whether it's China or the United States, the stars we see are the same."

"Hmm, studying stars is better than studying earthquakes..."

The two lingered under the starry sky. After dawn, Shen Qi left Princeton for New York Airport, where he boarded a flight to the Chinese Capital, where he was about to take up an important part-time position.