Only by Being an Eager Simp Could He...

The last time Qi Hao had studied Russian, the system had also crammed a heap of related proverbs into his head. As a result, the moment he opened his mouth, a famous Soviet Union proverb slipped out.

Professor Wang was taken aback when Qi Hao suddenly spoke up.

He had observed that Qi Hao was always somewhat polite when talking to his classmates. He had never seen Qi Hao rebut someone so mercilessly.

Today, Qi Hao's little mouth was as sharp as a poisoned blade.

Professor Wang's first reaction was surprise. His second was delight.

He had taken a dislike to that kid Zheng Qiang long ago.

He had seen it when they met yesterday: Zheng Qiang thought extremely highly of himself, dismissing one thing after another at every turn. But Zheng Qiang wasn't from the math department, so even when Professor Wang lost his temper, he couldn't very well curse him out directly.

Now someone had said it for him.

Qi Hao wasn't afraid of trouble. Professor Wang liked that about him.

Qi Hao's words left Zheng Qiang choking, his face alternating between pale and livid.

He held back for a few seconds, his chest heaving once. Forcing down his anger, he said, "You need to write code to get a drone flying, not derive formulas on a blackboard."

"You're a freshman. What good is publishing one SCI paper?"

Professor Wang snorted coldly, giving him no chance to rebut Qi Hao.

Professor Wang said, "Is that so? Then tell me: in three-dimensional space, a drone's rigid-body rotation group is the special orthogonal group. Over an extremely short interval, how do we use the exponential map to update the current rotation matrix R precisely with that angular velocity? What is the algebraic essence behind it?"

Zheng Qiang opened and closed his mouth. His face was as red as a cooked crab, but he couldn't force out a single word.

"Can't answer? You think those are just useless abstract formulas on a blackboard, with nothing to do with writing code to make it fly?"

"Qi Hao, you can explain."

When they met with Dafei's CEO Wang before, they had briefly touched on a similar question. Qi Hao had been there too, so Professor Wang was confident that he knew the answer.

Qi Hao understood what Professor Wang meant and smoothly picked up the thread. "A drone's attitude is essentially a rotation matrix R, which belongs to the special orthogonal group."

"When you write the code, the IMU gives you an angular velocity ω every few milliseconds. It's a three-dimensional vector. So here's the question: how do you put this little three-dimensional thing into a 3×3 rotation matrix?"

"You can't just add it directly. If you do, it won't be a rotation matrix anymore. Its orthogonality will be gone, and the drone will promptly show you what flying crooked looks like."

"So you use the exponential map. First turn ω into a skew-symmetric matrix ω̂, which belongs to a Lie algebra. Then R is updated as R(t+Δt) = R(t) · exp(ω̂Δt)."

"The exp step ensures the result remains in the group. In other words, the aircraft won't suddenly go haywire."

"In actual engineering, that's what's running behind those few lines of C++ for attitude estimation."

"Rather than writing code, you're essentially calculating a Lie algebra. Someone else has just packaged up the math, and you import it."

Professor Wang was quite surprised by the answer.

He had only wanted Qi Hao to repeat CEO Wang's explanation, but Qi Hao had actually explained it from the perspective of Lie algebra.

Wait, when had Qi Hao encountered Lie algebra?

Had the kid been quietly grinding away again lately?

Zheng Qiang refused to concede. "But..."

Professor Zhou's expression darkened slightly. Seeing that Zheng Qiang still wanted to argue, he had no choice but to speak. "Zheng Qiang, Professor Wang and I actually chose the drone project together."

"I proposed this project because I wanted you students to get your hands on the most cutting-edge technology in the country and see what it's like. Flight control, PCBs, electronic speed controllers, sensor fusion-you won't be able to avoid any of them, whether you go into academia or industry."

"Taking part in the competition is just a vehicle for you. It gives us a reason to push you to chew on hard bones, to tackle fields you wouldn't normally seek out on your own, and to encounter cutting-edge technology."

He paused and looked at Zheng Qiang. "Xiao Zheng, you want to make a Windows Mobile office suite. I won't deny that it's a safe choice, and the chances of winning a prize are indeed fairly high."

"But you could go out and find almost any internship now, and after six months you'd know that stuff even better. For you, the competition would amount to nothing more than an award certificate."

Professor Zhou changed tack. "But since you insist, let's do this."

"The four of you will split into two teams."

"Xiao Zheng, you'll lead the first team. You pick the project and find the other teammates, and make your Windows Mobile office suite."

"Qi Hao will lead the second team and work on drones."

Now it was Zheng Qiang's turn to be stunned.

He hadn't expected the drone project to be Professor Zhou's idea too.

Worried that he had offended Professor Zhou, he said in a panic, "Professor Zhou, I think we can discuss this and find a compromise."

Qi Hao was speechless.

This guy had gone and offended Professor Zhou. He really was something else.

Zheng Qiang was a second-year graduate student. The work he usually took on was most likely bank reporting systems, corporate purchasing, sales, and inventory databases, and the like.

You couldn't say his tech stack wasn't solid. It was certainly enough for ordinary jobs, and if he behaved himself and didn't stir up trouble, he had prospects.

The problem was that this guy took the little bit of work he knew for the whole of computer science.

From what Qi Hao had just seen, Zheng Qiang's ability to think across fields was extremely weak.

Qi Hao could tolerate low emotional intelligence.

He could even tolerate low intelligence if the person looked like Marina Aleksandrova and knew how to act coquettish and cute.

But if his brain wasn't working and he looked like a brown bear, who would indulge him?

Qi Hao said nothing, and his expression didn't change. He maintained the aloof academic-god persona he had adopted today.

Seeing Professor Zhou's displeased expression, Zheng Qiang hurried to explain. "Professor Zhou, I didn't mean anything else. I was just thinking about the pressure to win a prize this year..."

Professor Zhou raised a hand. "Enough. It's settled."

Ever since Zheng Qiang had opposed the drone project, Professor Zhou had felt that he was losing face.

Only yesterday, he had boasted to Dean Hu and Old Wang that every student from the Experimental College for Exceptional Talents was outstanding and exceptionally capable at hands-on work, and that the students he had picked were especially reliable.

Yet today, as soon as they sat down at the table, this second-year graduate student in whom he had placed such high hopes was confronted with a completely new frontier field. His first reaction wasn't excitement or a thirst for knowledge, but to pull out a pile of excuses with practiced ease and try to muddle through with a Windows Mobile system that offered nothing new.

That was an ugly display, and it showed an utter lack of academic backbone!

Qi Hao, sitting beside him, was a freshman. Yet when faced with entirely unfamiliar drone flight control and complex spatial attitude estimation, he showed not the slightest fear. Instead, he had even used his head to work out the relationship between Lie algebra and code.

The contrast was too stark!

A second-year graduate student who prided himself on his extensive engineering experience had been utterly crushed by a freshman in drive, courage, and even the ability to teach himself across fields, with not a scrap left!

Professor Zhou would have been lying if he said he wasn't angry.

He looked at Qi Hao and envied Professor Wang immensely.

Alas, why wasn't Qi Hao a student at his college?

Then he might lose a little less hair.

From Professor Zhou's words, Professor Wang understood where he stood. He deliberately sighed and said, "Alas, publishing just one math SCI paper isn't much use. It only surprised Huaji's CEO a little and caused a sensation on Weibo and Tieba."

"And brought our math department a project while he was at it, that's all."

Zheng Qiang looked up in surprise.

Wasn't Qi Hao just a participant?

He had actually brought the math department a project?

Zheng Qiang felt his face begin to burn. His palms, hidden inside his sweater sleeves, were covered in sticky cold sweat.

It suddenly dawned on Zheng Qiang that he seemed to have kicked an iron plate!

Meanwhile, Zhao Ping had long since made up his mind. He hadn't been wrong: Qi Hao was the real academic god!

Who would be stupid enough to go up against an academic god?

Only by being an eager simp could he cling to the academic god's thigh!