Chapter 17: Five Divisions? No, It’s Five Hundred!

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“It really is a thousand dollars—4v is quite generous, having transported a large amount of gold and cultural relics from the mainland. Their efforts to attract talented Chinese in America are truly relentless.” After Zhou Shukai left, Lin Ran took the US dollars out of the envelope, thinking to himself.

A thousand dollars in 1960 had a real purchasing power equivalent to about twelve thousand dollars in 2020.

Besides the cash, the envelope also contained an appointment letter, inviting him to serve as a distinguished professor at Tsinghua University’s 4v campus.

It was like being handed a pillow just when he was about to fall asleep.

If he didn’t go to the island, Lin Ran couldn’t imagine how he could establish any connection with China in this era.

At the time in 1960, China and America had not yet established formal diplomatic relations; there wasn’t even an office here.

To forge ties with China, there was only one way: to find a chamber of commerce close to China.

Chinese communities in America had many chambers of commerce, and surely some were close to China.

But the problem was, if he took the initiative to contact these chambers, although they were friendly to China, there was no guarantee that all their staff would keep secrets.

Even if Lin Ran merely solved an equation for China, he could be investigated.

At that moment, establishing contact with China was no easy task.

But with 4v as a springboard, the situation was entirely different.

China certainly had far more personnel in 4v than America did.

More importantly, Lin Ran was going to 4v as a distinguished professor—to teach.

Teaching there meant students would ask questions, and it was only natural for a professor to answer them.

If the students asked about equations related to ballistics, how would he know?

What? You say that while teaching at 4v’s Tsinghua University, students came to consult me, then passed what I taught back to mainland China to use in intercontinental missile design?

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This relates to perturbation theory for intercontinental missile launches and a simplified Navier-Stokes equation model for aerodynamic heating. Using finite difference method optimization for ballistic simulation could save eighty percent of the time.

At the time, I thought it was just a simple partial differential equation.

When investigators asked if it was simple, Lin Ran, as the prover of Fermat’s Last Theorem and the youngest Fields Medalist, naturally said it was nothing but simple.

As for precisely selecting which students in the many at 4v would relay information back to China, this would naturally depend on future information declassification.

Lin Ran earnestly hoped to provide a “small” amount of help to China in this era while ensuring his own safety.

“To have intercontinental missiles that can directly threaten the American mainland is quite something.

The Dongfeng-1’s range was only a few hundred kilometers, and the Dongfeng-5 with over ten thousand kilometers range wasn’t developed until the 1980s.

With my help, it could probably be accomplished in the 1960s.

As for being investigated, as long as I can fully prove my value and have strong ties to the Jewish community, it shouldn’t be a big problem.

I might even drag the Jewish community into it.

If things really go south, I have the ‘Gate’—I won’t be trapped.”

After securing a professorship at Columbia University and receiving a thousand dollars in startup funds from Zhou Shukai, Lin Ran rented a place next to the Horkheimer residence and moved in.

With a place of his own, Lin Ran finally felt some security and a sense of belonging in this era.

“The next step is to make a name in the mathematical community through Fermat’s Last Theorem and the extended Langlands program, then wait for Kennedy to be elected at the end of this year, and after the Soviets achieve manned spaceflight next year, find a chance to get into NASA,” Lin Ran thought.

After carefully studying the capabilities of the “Gate,” Lin Ran deeply realized that his greatest asset in timeline jumping was technical data.

An 18-gram flash drive could carry over a hundred gigabytes of technical data, a value beyond measure in money—far surpassing the worth of 18 grams of gold.

The most valuable thing he could bring back from 1960 to 2020 was precisely technical data.

Who says that technological paths abandoned or ignored in the past must be wrong or incapable of producing valuable technology?

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The range-extended engines popular in new energy vehicles trace back to 1900, but were long relegated to forgotten archives, waiting for Chinese automakers to revive them and give them new life.

Technological evolution has never been a simple process of “obsolescence to progress,” but rather a spiral ascent. Many previously discarded technological routes have been revitalized by new materials, new demands, or interdisciplinary fusion.

The reason for choosing NASA as a starting point is partly due to Lin Ran’s personal interest in aerospace, but more importantly because NASA controlled the largest share of current research resources. Each year, NASA consumes about 2% of America’s GDP in research funding. Controlling such a behemoth would serve his purposes well.

And these new technological pathways he reignites in 1960—who says they can’t flourish again in 2020?

The technology Lin Ran most wants to reactivate is probably the ternary computing route.

Although ternary computing was historically abandoned, in today’s booming era of artificial intelligence, who can guarantee this technology won’t be resurrected? Who can say it won’t find new life in the AI age?

The so-called advantages of ternary computing include higher logarithmic efficiency compared to binary in representing numbers—for example, expressing the decimal number 10 requires only three ternary digits (101), versus four binary digits (1010), reducing information redundancy by about 25%.

As chip fabrication processes become increasingly difficult to advance, ternary computing might be a promising technological path.

More critically, in simulating neuromorphic computing, three-state logic can naturally model the activation, inhibition, and resting states of biological neurons, making synaptic models in brain-like chips more accurate.

There are many similar technological routes. Starting with leveraging NASA’s resources, then expanding to utilize global resources—mobilizing capital, organizations, talent, and business to operate according to his will. The resulting technologies can then feed back into 2020. Just thinking about it excites Lin Ran.

As for such a technological empire, it certainly cannot be established in America.

Choosing a neutral ground would be a wise choice.

Over this period, Lin Ran has fully formulated his plan: leveraging the influence of the Jewish community and rescuing them during Kennedy’s assassination, earning their gratitude, combined with his own abilities, to convince the White House to hand over the highest control of the rocket command console to him.

Eight years later, when the Democratic Party steps down and the Republican Party takes power, he will use the Gate to enter Hong Kong and launch his technological empire.

Because of this, at that time, Lin Ran’s value won’t be just five divisions—it will be fifty. If China doesn’t have some real assets, they wouldn’t be able to protect him.

So, when one wants to sleep, Zhou Shukai timely handed over the pillow—just when Lin Ran was worried about how to establish contact with China.