Who is this person?

Ye Fan felt nothing but disdain in his heart, deciding to return to his office to write an article and properly criticize this kind of unhealthy phenomenon.

If he could spark a topic and stir up enough buzz, he could even boost his own popularity in the process!

He had even thought of the title—"The 'Phubbers' on the Subway—Starting from a Discussion on Public Culture."

Thinking of this, he quietly aimed his phone at Zhang Yuan, preparing to use the counterexample he was capturing as an illustration for his article.

He glanced at Zhang Yuan's phone screen again and frowned.

"Huh, he's not flirting with some anime girl. Turns out he's doing Super Brain."

"Well, I can't use this for the article anymore..."

Of course, he had watched this TV show that was sweeping the nation. The Super Brain app was specifically developed to screen contestants.

Contestants confident in their intelligence could solve problems on their phones, and those who ranked in the top one thousand each season would earn a spot in the preliminary selection. After the preliminaries, they would be able to showcase their skills on the actual stage.

Because it was an online selection, many people would use computers to cheat, making the overall results somewhat unreliable. However, during the preliminary rounds, these cheaters would inevitably show their true colors.

"Mental math, huh? I can do that too!"

Ye Fan peeked with curiosity, feeling eager to try. He had learned mental arithmetic as a child and subconsciously wanted to compare himself to Zhang Yuan.

"88.8*8+88.88*8-8.99/8.88=...(keep 4 significant figures)"

Zhang Yuan thought for a few seconds and wrote down the answer directly.

"1420"

"That fast?" Ye Fan was surprised. "Although since I only need to keep 4 significant figures, the decimals just happened to be omitted... this problem is kind of interesting."

However, he didn't pay much attention to it, assuming Zhang Yuan had been calculating for a long time.

For the next question, Zhang Yuan tapped his finger on the screen.

"ln(40)(keep 3 significant figures)"

This time, both of them were on the same starting line.

Ye Fan put in all his effort, racking his brain to think.

"Wait, how do you calculate a logarithmic function again? What was the change-of-base formula?"

For a moment, his head felt a bit muddled.

He tried hard: "ln(40)=ln(4)+ln(10), then... ugh, no, I still can't calculate it. Do I need to memorize some kind of logarithm table?"

Zhang Yuan wrote the answer on the screen again.

"3.69"

"Answer correct!"

Ye Fan widened his eyes as if he had seen a ghost.

He still hadn't figured out how to calculate logarithms; he had no idea at all.

At this moment, the other person started the next question.

"sin(24°)(keep 3 significant figures)"

What is this again? How do you calculate trigonometric functions? The double-angle formula? That's not it either.

sin(24°), it's impossible to calculate that by hand!

He watched as this person wrote the answer on the screen again: "0.407"

"Answer correct!"

"..."

Having suffered continuous invisible blows, Ye Fan felt completely defeated and had no choice but to give up.

He was too embarrassed to ask, so he searched for the answer he wanted on his phone.

"So that's it. To calculate logarithms or trigonometric functions by hand, you need a Taylor series expansion... sigh, it's normal not to be able to out-calculate people who have trained for so long!"

He couldn't help but curl his lip, thinking defiantly: What's so great about being able to do mental math? This skill is completely useless. No matter how fast a person can calculate, can they compare to a computer?

Perhaps he could write another article criticizing those educational institutions that teach mental arithmetic; there was no need to increase the burden on children to learn things that were irrelevant.

Just as he was thinking this, he quietly took out his phone, opened the calculator app, and thought: With the speed I can use a calculator, surely I can keep up with your mental math speed?

Zhang Yuan vaguely felt a prickling sensation on his back, as if someone were watching him. He looked left and right but didn't discover anything.

However, he didn't pay much attention to it.

A thief? Haha, he didn't carry a single cent in cash, and his only valuable item was his phone, which was in his hand.

And what was on his phone screen wasn't anything particularly private; he wouldn't lose a piece of flesh just from being glanced at.

After burying his head and finishing the entire set of problems, the final score popped up on the screen: "Congratulations! Final time: 312.42 seconds, SSS, today's rank: 28!"

"Please keep up the good work!"

An admiring expression from an anime girl popped up on the screen.

Only 28th place.

It seemed a bit worse than expected.

There are still many geniuses in this world, Zhang Yuan thought to himself. Ranking this result is quite normal.

If he trained for a while longer, his score might improve again. However, there was no need for that; he wasn't participating in any competitions, and his arithmetic ability was good enough as it was.

He casually clicked on the leaderboard.

"First place, Final Eternity, time taken 0.01 seconds."

"Second place, Writing Novels Makes Me Eat Dirt, time taken 0.07 seconds."

"Third place, Can You Support The Official Release, time taken 0.11 seconds."

"Fourth place, When Can I Take A Leave, time taken 0.12 seconds."

Zhang Yuan smiled. It was impossible for a human to finish 20 problems in 0.01 seconds. These results were inevitably achieved by using screen-reading software to scrape the information and then processing it with a program.

Some people just liked to act cool with cheats, as if it made them look capable.

A human's calculation speed could never compete with cheaters, so he extinguished any thoughts of pursuing that.

"Longdaqiao Station has arrived, please disembark. Yuanda Industrial and Commercial Bank reminds you: please be careful when going out and watch your step..."

Watching Zhang Yuan leave, Ye Fan remained in a daze.

For longer equations, his speed using a calculator really couldn't compare to the other person's mental math!

Who the hell was this guy? A calculation champion?

Ye Fan tried hard to recall how long the previous champion of Super Brain took to finish 20 problems.

"How long was it again..."

300 seconds? 200 seconds? That didn't seem right.

He searched for it again, and ten thousand alpacas stampeded through his heart.

313.6 seconds!

It was exactly one second more than the number he had just seen.

The attribute of intelligence is composed of three factors: memory, reasoning ability, and linguistic ability. Being fast at arithmetic doesn't necessarily mean one has high intelligence, but it undoubtedly indicates that one's reasoning ability is higher than that of an ordinary person.

Throughout the training process, the exaggerated speed of his progress also made Zhang Yuan incredibly excited.

From a rusty brain to a flexible one, it had only taken a mere single night!

He even had a small guess in his heart: perhaps... his speed at learning other subjects would be just as fast!

Deep down, he also faintly felt that this was a pipe dream.

Becoming an all-around scientist like Newton was no longer possible in this era.

There had never been another Newton or Einstein in history because the knowledge system of the entire civilization had become too vast—so vast that the human brain could not contain it.

No, it couldn't even contain one ten-thousandth of that knowledge!

Too many brilliant figures had appeared in history, and these geniuses had laid the foundation for the entire civilization's knowledge system.

From the first Industrial Revolution to the present, over several hundred years, the entire world had undergone earth-shaking changes.

But the innate intelligence level of humans had not improved much; they were still using very primitive brains.

Universities 200 years ago taught calculus, and universities today still teach calculus. It wasn't that science hadn't progressed, but that the intelligence of ordinary people was just like that.

Therefore, modern humans were not smarter than people in the 21st century, yet they needed to master much more knowledge.

To create new knowledge, one must first climb onto the shoulders of these giants—how difficult that was!

"If it really is possible..."

Zhang Yuan hoped to find the point he was most interested in, and then add something useful to this mountain of knowledge; that would already be great enough.