When I was young, I went to a foreign land and opened the way to study. The road to study is long. With his clever brain and hard working spirit, he achieved excellent results again and again and solved the "century problem" that has plagued the scientific community for nearly 30 years. He is China mathematician-Huang Hao.
Walk to Peking University and go to the United States to study for a doctorate.
Huang Hao, a native of Shantou, is a fellow countryman with another famous mathematician, Qiu Chengtong. At the age of fourteen, he left his hometown and went to Guangzhou to study alone. He was eager for progress, studied hard and made progress, and finally achieved excellent results. He was sent to Peking University to study mathematics.
While studying at Peking University, he participated in the first Jiang Zehan Cup Mathematical Modeling and Computer Application Competition held by the school, and won the third prize with his own efforts, which is really admirable. Some people may say that the third prize is just like that, but even the third prize is beyond the reach of many people. Because of this award, Huang Hao's name was added to the list of centennial students of mathematics in Peking University.
Four years later, in 2007, he graduated from Peking University, but he did not stop studying and went to the United States to study for a doctorate. Benny Sudakov, a world famous mathematician, is his teacher. In the United States, after five years of study, he received a doctorate from UCLA. Because of his excellence, Huang Hao was invited to visit the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton in the following two years.
Huang Hao's Encounter with Sensitivity Conjecture
Huang Hao just came into contact with Boolean function sensitivity conjecture when he was invited to visit Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies. It was sunny that day, and Huang Hao was having lunch with mathematician Michael Sacks. When chatting, Michael Sacks mentioned the Boolean function sensitivity conjecture, and he immediately became interested in such a simple but exciting conjecture. At that moment, Huang Hao, who was extremely curious, immediately became interested in this conjecture. Since then, Huang Hao has been studying and looking for the answer to prove the sensitivity conjecture of Boolean function.
Whenever he learns new knowledge and encounters new problems, Huang Hao will combine them with the sensitivity guess of Boolean function to see if there is any correlation between them and whether they can help the sensitivity guess. He also said that every time a new paper is published, it will come back to this issue. Not only that, after a period of time, he will choose to give up and solve some more realistic problems first. However, the weather is bad, and Huang Hao has not made progress for five years.
Solve world mathematical problems
Repeated failures did not crush Huang Hao. Finally, progress was made on 20 18. After he discovered Cauchy's interleaving theorem, Huang Hao realized that this method could be popularized by changing some number symbols in the matrix. After trying, Huang Hao proved the "century puzzle" that puzzled the scientific community for 30 years-Boolean function sensitivity conjecture.
When Huang Hao published his six-page paper on the sensitivity conjecture of Boolean functions, the proof process was reduced to four lines, which caused a sensation in academic circles. When part of Huang Hao's proof process was made public on the Internet, many netizens said that they could not understand it. A computer science professor once said that this conjecture has been proved and many people can have a good sleep.
What is Boolean function sensitivity?
What kind of concept is thirty years? Thirty years is enough for a person from birth to adulthood to marriage to having children; Thirty years can make a person achieve something for his dream; Thirty years is enough for a person to struggle from an unknown intern to a president who can monopolize power ... but this problem has forcibly trapped many great gods in the scientific community.
1992 put forward the Boolean function sensitivity conjecture. With the putting forward of Boolean function sensitivity conjecture, a group of mathematicians worked hard and cooperated to solve this problem. People who have never been involved in this field may ask, what is a Boolean function? Simply put, Boolean function can solve some complex theoretical problems and is an essential basic link in computer design. In addition, in cryptography, Boolean functions play a key role and are important tools in cryptography.
For a long time, scientists have been looking for methods to measure the complexity of known Boolean functions, and have also developed some methods. In this process, scientists also found that there is a unified framework for measuring the complexity of Boolean functions. However, things are not satisfactory, and indicators such as "sensitivity" are not suitable for a unified framework. Sensitivity is also a way to measure the complexity of Boolean functions. )
In the same year, it was suggested that "sensitivity" should be applied to a unified framework. However, this speculation is only put forward, but no one has been able to confirm it. For thirty years, this conjecture has not been solved. Presumably, some people will ask, what's the use of this sensitivity guess? Perhaps in literature, art, film and television, sensitivity conjecture has no effect, but in mathematics, computer science and other fields, the proof of sensitivity conjecture can greatly promote their development.
Sensitivity conjecture can be applied to many examples, which can help people to reduce many unnecessary steps and processes to a certain extent. Give some simple and easy-to-understand examples, for example, before diagnosing patients, you can minimize the examination of doctors and patients; Before classifying algorithms, machine scientists can check the features of objects to reduce them as much as possible, and so on.
Caleb once said that Huang Hao's proof excited countless people. He not only solved people's confusion, but also brought a novel method. Perhaps this method can bring more and more important discoveries to mathematics and other academic fields.
A young man from the coastal city of China, with his spirit of research, has solved the difficult problem that has puzzled the scientific community for 30 years, which is really impressive and admirable. Huang Hao's experience also tells us that in the face of insurmountable problems, don't dwell on them all the time, try to solve more realistic problems first, and maybe we can get inspiration from them.