Chapter 91

When Zhuochuan was talking, he naturally wouldn’t miss this good opportunity to give his company and software services a free advertisement.

"Mr. Zhuo, could you demonstrate your extraordinary memory and computational abilities? As you mentioned earlier, these are the reasons for your great discoveries at such a young age, but it might be hard for the average person to intuitively understand how they work," the beautiful CCTV journalist pressed, somewhat probing. Times had changed, and she was now more open, not needing to pursue serious and dull topics for everything. She believed that this interlude would better engage the audience and draw attention to this discovery.

"Of course, it might just waste some interview time. I’ll recite a segment of pi first, as this is the most common way to test memory and is also the easiest to verify," Zhuochuan replied.

"Of course, we’re all ears," the CCTV journalist had already started recording, and this could be quickly proven.

"3141592……"

When Zhuochuan reached the fifth minute, the female journalist had to interrupt him. In her view, this recitation was too time-consuming and not very convincing. After all, many people had memorized pi, some even up to tens of thousands of digits, but few of them were famous scientists. It would be better to test his computational abilities.

"Mr. Zhuo, we have limited time. Your memory is already evident, but could you demonstrate your computational abilities? Good computational skills are undoubtedly very helpful in scientific research, at least in mastering many mathematical tools," she said. Unlike rote memorization, computational skills are hard to fake. Some quick calculation techniques also require good computational skills as a foundation to be applied effectively.

"That’s simple. Your assistant has a tablet, right? Just give me some large number multiplications, any number of digits. This is the simplest way to demonstrate computational skills," Zhuochuan said nonchalantly.

The CCTV journalist, who had been somewhat skeptical, was taken aback. She knew that even in international speed calculation competitions, there were set limits for the number of digits in the multiplicand and multiplier, and there was no such thing as "any" number of digits. She had never seen anyone as confident as Zhuochuan.

Her assistant glanced at her, thinking it would be best not to make the problem too difficult at first. Although it wasn’t a live broadcast, if this young scientist made a fool of himself on the show, he might not want to be interviewed again. Moreover, for scientists, inspiration is often the most important, and memory and computational skills are just the foundation.

The female journalist nodded and had her assistant start the problem.

"What is the result of 97244 * 22434?"

Zhuochuan smiled inwardly. This journalist was shrewd; no matter what, she wouldn’t let him lose face. This five-digit multiplication was a piece of cake for human speed calculation experts.

He shook his head and blurted out, "2181571896. This is too simple. Why don’t you give me a multiplication problem with over a hundred digits? Otherwise, this level is just on par with some speed calculation experts."

The female journalist was amazed. Speed calculation experts had their own methods, and the process of competing involved mentally calculating multi-digit multiplications in a few seconds, which looked very impressive on the show. But a hundred-digit multiplication was another story. Not only could it not be calculated, but it was impossible for an average person to even remember the multiplicand and multiplier. Zhuochuan’s confidence suggested he had a special talent.

The assistant was also sweating. To come up with a hundred-digit multiplication problem, the calculator on his tablet couldn’t even input the full multiplicand, as it had limitations.

"I need to download a professional calculation software," the assistant, who hadn’t expected this, quickly went online to download the software.

Taking this opportunity, the female journalist also became interested. She took another tablet and dictated some ten-digit and twenty-digit multiplication problems. No matter which one, Zhuochuan could start giving the answer in a second. However, the answers were so long that it took about ten seconds to say them, allowing them to verify the results.

All the answers were correct.

The assistant finally downloaded the software and started the problem, "243424298341214541414…… * 79234……"

He only said some of the digits, not all, and showed the content on the tablet to the camera first, then to Zhuochuan, to avoid any suspicion of cheating.

After reading it, Zhuochuan immediately visualized a set of over two hundred digits in his mind. He started dictating the answer, but since no one could remember it, he found a piece of paper to write it down. He didn’t type it on the computer to avoid the suspicion that it was the computer doing the calculation.

When Zhuochuan finished writing the over two hundred-digit answer, it had been more than a minute. The assistant took the paper and read it aloud, comparing it with the results from the tablet’s specialized software. Indeed, not a single digit was wrong.

When he finished reading, the young assistant was flushed with excitement. Even the world’s top speed calculation expert couldn’t do this in a second. An average person’s brain simply couldn’t handle such a long calculation, and it was impossible to have cheated, as the problem was randomly inputted, and even he couldn’t remember it.

"Truly, truly unbelievable. If this wasn’t recorded live, it would be hard