I Need Your Help

"Mr. Hooke, there's no need to pass your question on to my teacher. Just give me five days, and I'll solve it!"

Little Ox's words rang clearly in Hooke's ears, making him stop in his tracks.

The slightly stooped middle-aged man straightened his chest a little, turned around, and looked at Little Ox as if he were asking whether the boy had lost his mind.

"Newton, do you understand what this problem represents? It involves a system of equations of some unfathomable order near the equilibrium position. Forget you—even your teacher has never ventured into this field!"

As he spoke, he gave the Holy Book in Little Ox's hands a meaningful glance and sneered.

"You're just a student, yet you dare to say such things? If I were you, I'd be too ashamed to keep carrying that Holy Book around."

As he went on, a gleeful sense of impending revenge suddenly welled up in Hooke's heart.

That year's mathematics final had been Cambridge versus Oxford. The final score was 4–3. Barrow had entered when his team was on the brink of defeat, trailing 1–3, and then won three games in a row.

Back then, Hooke had seen the senior student he was infatuated with, Eloise Bryce, sitting in a chair, sobbing uncontrollably. In that moment, he had thought, If I ever get the chance to challenge Barrow, I'll win it all.

Now that chance was right in front of him. Hooke had to wonder if it might be the only one he'd ever get.

He believed Eloise Bryce had played no small part in Oxford's former dominance.

Restoring Oxford's glory is our generation's duty!

The problem Hooke had come up with this time covered both mathematics and physics. It was the product of three years of derivation, and he was certain Barrow would be stumped by it!

Unfortunately, because of the Black Death, he had temporarily lost contact with Barrow. Every day, all he could do was wait for order to return to London so he could go to Cambridge and settle the score.

He hadn't expected to run into Little Ox, a Trinity College student, on his way to the print shop. The encounter left him both delighted and annoyed.

He was delighted because, as a student at the Theology Department, Little Ox was bound to have Barrow's contact information. He wouldn't have to wait for the Black Death to end before he could find Barrow.

What annoyed him was—

This young fellow seemed to be getting a little carried away. He actually dared to meddle in an academic debate of this caliber?

Was he always this bold?

Opposite Hooke, Little Ox's brow furrowed more and more, his displeasure plainly mounting.

But since Hooke's barbs were aimed at Barrow, the last of Little Ox's reason restrained him from getting physical. At that moment, the famously sharp-tongued man showed an exceptionally rare display of tact.

"Mr. Hooke, since you've been keeping an eye on Trinity College, you must know that they admitted a fee-reduced student four years ago, right?"

Hooke looked at him with mild surprise and nodded.

"That's right, I've heard about it. It was the first time in fifteen years that one of Cambridge University's four great theology colleges had admitted a fee-reduced student. I heard he even earned First Class Honours in mathematics."

As he spoke, Hooke suddenly realized.

"Wait, are you that fee-reduced student?"

Little Ox pointed to William and his family beside him and calmly replied,

"You can ask my uncle and aunt. And Grantham's just ahead. The headmaster of King's School in town knows me too."

A trace of surprise finally appeared on Hooke's face.

As the leading institution on the British Isles, Cambridge University admitted not only its usual students each year, but also a number of fee-reduced students.

But aside from facing stricter entrance requirements, fee-reduced students generally belonged to ordinary colleges. In this era, most universities consisted of ordinary colleges alongside a few theology colleges.

Cambridge University, for example, had thirty-one ordinary colleges and four church-run theology colleges. Administratively, these theology colleges weren't part of Cambridge University.

Don't be fooled by the word "theology" into thinking they spent their days praying and attending Mass. In this era, theology colleges were essentially the equivalent of Yao Class or the Gifted Class!

For instance, Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, and even Nehru had all graduated from Trinity College.

But theology colleges demanded total devotion to service. Studying was service; sleeping and praying were service too. Working to earn tuition, however, meant pursuing one's own interests.

As a result, work-study students like fee-reduced students were extremely unwelcome at theology colleges, and their admission requirements were practically inhuman.

Before Little Ox became a fee-reduced student at Trinity College, Cambridge hadn't admitted one for fifteen years. As a side note, in 1680, amid the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism, Trinity College abolished its fee-reduced student program for a full century.

That made Little Ox Trinity College's last fee-reduced student of the seventeenth century. And because of his towering historical status, a hundred years later Trinity College even considered abolishing its fee-reduced student places altogether—until the arrival of another genius made the college break with convention once more. That genius was—

James Clerk Maxwell.

That's right, the man who proposed the greatest formula in human history.

Sometimes, you really couldn't help but marvel at how strange things could be.

In short—

In a web novel, a fee-reduced student at Trinity College was more or less like someone getting taken in by the Supreme Hall—guaranteed to start out at Supreme level, and liable to turn out to be the Desolate Heaven Emperor at any moment. Absolutely ridiculous.

As a member of the Royal Society and an "enemy" who kept tabs on Barrow, Hooke naturally wouldn't have overlooked news like that.

Once he learned that Little Ox was the legendary Desolate Heaven Emperor—cough, cough—a fee-reduced student, Hooke's expression immediately turned more serious. A fee-reduced student admitted four years ago would be graduating this year, so his abilities clearly couldn't be compared to those of a current student.

And it was precisely this confidence that suddenly stirred a mischievous desire in Hooke to take on both master and pupil. His thoughts shifted, and he said,

"Newton, as you can see, this is an academic discussion between me and your teacher. But as a university professor, I'm glad to see a younger scholar with the resolve to challenge those who came before him.

"Five days, was it? No problem. I'll be staying in Lincolnshire for a week. If you solve it, come find me whenever you like. My address is the Song of Songs Inn, southwest of Lincoln, about forty kilometers from Grantham."

He puffed out his chest and patted Little Ox on the shoulder with a meaningful look.

"I hope we'll meet again before I leave Lincolnshire. Good luck, Isaac Newton."

With that, he straightened his collar and left without looking back.

Clip-clop, clip-clop—

Soon, the two horses began taking uneven steps, pulling the carriage slowly away.

Only after the carriage had gradually disappeared from view did William, who had remained silent the whole time, come forward and ask with a frown,

"Little Isaac, why did you get mixed up in something like this?"

As a Cambridge University graduate, William naturally understood what Professor Lucasian represented. This was clearly a fierce academic confrontation.

Academic debates might not involve blades and bloodshed, but sometimes the consequences were almost as bad as death—perhaps even worse.

For an ordinary scholar like Little Ox to get involved was clearly unwise.

But Little Ox simply shook his head and didn't explain further. Then he turned to Xu Yun.

"Fat Fish, I need your help."

Xu Yun, standing nearby, blinked in confusion.

"Huh?"

Little Ox had sounded so certain that Xu Yun had thought he'd get to sit back and watch the drama unfold. How had this suddenly become about him?

Little Ox then held out Hooke's piece of paper to him.

"Take a look at this."

Xu Yun took the paper, opened it, and glanced over it. His pupils contracted slightly.

F = k.

It was a formula every high school student knew: the famous Hooke's Law.

Hooke had proposed this theory of mechanical elasticity in 1678. It was now 1665, and although he hadn't yet fully derived the formula, he had clearly begun working on it.

The note recorded a problem concerning the calculation of the space occupied by a continuous medium that had not yet been deformed.

The problem was complicated to explain, but in plain—cough, cough—in simple terms, it involved a

second-order Taylor Expansion.

Of course, to Little Ox, this was a second-order Han Li Expansion.

In other words—

Calculus.

But Little Ox hadn't yet fully developed the overall framework of calculus. Strictly speaking, the definition of the strain tensor wouldn't be introduced until William Rowan Hamilton did so in 1846—yes, the very Hamilton who invented quaternions.

So, to solve Hooke's problem, Little Ox could only ask for outside help.

Looking at the problem on the paper, Xu Yun quickly thought of seventeen or eighteen possible solutions. But given the circumstances, he still managed to put on a troubled expression.

"This problem looks solvable, but it'll take time to work through the calculations. But Mr. Newton, we're still on the road. Why don't we discuss it once we get back?"

Little Ox glanced at William's family, then looked up at the sky and nodded.

"Sure."