"Mr. Hook, there's no need to refer your question to the teacher. Just give me five days, and I can solve it!"
Little Niu's words were clearly heard by Hook, causing him to stop in his tracks.
He saw the slightly hunched middle-aged man straighten up slightly, turn around, and look at Little Niu with a 'Are you kidding me?' expression:
"Newton, do you understand what this question represents? It involves a set of equations near the equilibrium position of an unknown magnitude. Forget you—it's a field that even your teacher hasn't touched!"
He glanced at the Holy Book in Little Niu's hand with a smirk and said:
"For a small student like you to say such things, if I were you, I'd be ashamed to hold that Holy Book anymore."
As he spoke, a sense of impending triumph over a long-standing rival unexpectedly arose in Hook's heart.
That year's math finals were Cambridge against Oxford, with a final score of 4-3. Barrow came on at a desperate 1-3 and completed a stunning comeback.
Back then, Hook watched his beloved Ilo Bliss sitting in a chair sobbing uncontrollably. It was then he thought, if I could challenge Barrow, I must win it all.
Now the opportunity was right before him, and Hook had to consider if this would be his only chance in life.
He believed Oxford's past dominance was largely thanks to Ilo Bliss.
Recasting Oxford's glory is our duty!
The problem Hook came up with this time covered both mathematics and physics, the product of three years' deduction, and he was confident Barrow would be completely stumped by it!
Unfortunately, however, due to the Black Plague, he had temporarily lost contact with Barrow and could only wait for London to restore order to go back to Cambridge to have his reckoning.
Unexpectedly, on the way to the printing shop, he ran into Little Niu, a student at Trinity College, which both pleased and annoyed him.
He was pleased because as a student at the Divinity School, Little Niu must have Barrow's contact information, and he wouldn't need to wait until the plague was over to find Barrow.
Annoyed because.....
This young man seemed to have become a bit too ambitious, daring to involve himself in such a high-level academic debate?
Has he always been this bold?
On the other hand, Little Niu's brows furrowed even more, his heart evidently extremely displeased.
But since the opponent's ire was directed at Barrow, his remaining reason kept his hands in check. At this point, this notorious critic, rarely, showed a side of emotional intelligence:
"Mr. Hook, since you are paying attention to Trinity College, you must know about the reduced-fee student they admitted four years ago, right?"
Hook glanced at him curiously and nodded:
"Correct, I've heard about it. That was the first reduced-fee student admitted by the four divinity schools at the University of Cambridge in fifteen years. I heard he even received First-class honours in mathematics..."
As he spoke, Hook suddenly realized:
"Wait, are you saying that reduced-fee student is you?"
Little Niu pointed to William's family next to him and said calmly:
"You can ask my uncle and aunt. By the way, just up ahead is Grantham, and the headmaster of the King's School in town knows me, too."
Hearing these words, a slight look of astonishment finally appeared on Hook's face.
As the top college on the British Peninsula, in addition to regular admitted students, the University of Cambridge annually admits some reduced-fee students.
But aside from having high required examinations, most reduced-fee students belong to ordinary colleges. In this era, most universities comprise ordinary colleges plus a few divinity schools.
For instance, the University of Cambridge has 31 ordinary colleges and four church-managed divinity schools that are administratively independent of the University of Cambridge.
Don't be misled by the 'Divinity School' label into thinking they engage in daily prayer and mass; in reality, divinity schools at this time equate to the local Yao Class or Young Talents Class!
Trinity College is an example, producing graduates like Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, and even Nehru.
However, the essence of divinity schools is total devotion to service—studying knowledge is service, sleeping and praying are service, but working to earn tuition is considered self-serving.
Therefore, work-study students like reduced-fee students are extremely unwelcome in divinity schools, and the examination requirements are simply inhumane.
Before Little Niu became a reduced-fee student at Trinity College, Cambridge hadn't admitted a reduced-fee student for fifteen years—incidentally, due to the Protestant-Catholic strife in 1680, Trinity College abolished reduced-fee students for over a century.
Thus, Little Niu was the last reduced-fee student of the seventeenth century at Trinity, and the reduced-fee student following Little Niu was named—
James Clerk Maxwell.
Indeed, the man who proposed the greatest formula in human history.
So sometimes you can't help but marvel at how remarkable some things truly are....
In summary.
Reduced-fee students from Trinity College, in terms of web novels, are akin to the Supreme temple accepting an apprentice, promising at least Supreme status, and maybe one day producing an Emperor Huang, dazzlingly exceptional.
As a Royal Society member and an 'enemy' tracking Barrow's movements, Hook naturally wouldn't overlook such news.
Upon learning that Little Niu was the rumored Emperor Huang...cough cough, reduced-fee student, Hook's expression immediately became more solemn—four years ago's reduced-fee student should be graduating this year; clearly, his capabilities far surpass those of ordinary students.
And it is precisely due to this assured mindset that a quirky sense of taking down the master and apprentice seized Hook's heart. With a change of thought, he said:
"Newton, as you can see, this is an academic discussion between your teacher and me, but as a university professor, I'd be happy to see a junior having the resolve to challenge predecessors.
Five days, right? No problem, I'll be in Lincolnshire for a week. Solve it, and you can come find me anytime. The address is Yage Hotel, southwest of Lincoln, about forty kilometers from Grantham."
Patting Little Niu's shoulder with a subtle significance, Hook said:
"I hope to see you again before I leave Lincolnshire. Good luck, Isaac Newton."
With that, he tidied his collar and left without looking back.
Clop clop clop—
Soon, two horses began to move forward in a fragmented trot, slowly pulling the carriage away.
When the carriage gradually disappeared from view, William, who hadn't spoken a word throughout, stepped forward, frowned, and said:
"Little Isaac, how did you get involved in all this?"
As a graduate of the University of Cambridge, William naturally understood what Professor Lucas represented—obviously, it was a sharp academic confrontation.
Academic confrontations may not involve blades clashing, but sometimes the outcome can be nearly as dire, perhaps even worse.
An ordinary scholar like Little Niu getting involved is evidently unwise.
But Little Niu merely shook his head at William, offering little explanation, then turned to Xu Yun:
"Fat Fish, I need your help."
Xu Yun, taken aback, blinked in confusion:
"Huh?"
Originally, hearing Little Niu's resolute tone, Xu Yun thought he could enjoy the excitement as a spectator—how did it suddenly involve him?
Then, Little Niu handed Hook's piece of paper to him, saying:
"Take a look at this."
After taking the paper, Xu Yun glanced at it, and his pupils slightly contracted.
F=k·x.
This is a formula any high school student knows, known as the famous Hooke's law.
This law was proposed by Hook as a mechanical elasticity theory in 1678, and the current year is 1665. Though Hook hasn't fully derived this formula, he has evidently begun part of the research.
The paper recorded problems concerning the computation of the space occupied by un-deformed continuous media.
Explaining this problem is complicated, but in layman's terms...cough cough, put simply, it involves....
The second-order Taylor expansion.
But for Little Niu, it's the second-order Han Li expansion.
That is...
Calculus.
Yet Little Niu hasn't completely derived the entire framework of calculus, and rigorously speaking, the definition of the strain tensor would have to wait until William Rowan Hamilton introduced it in 1846—yes, the very Hamilton who invented quaternions.
So to solve Hook's problem, Little Niu could only seek assistance from outside at this time.
Upon reviewing the problem description on the paper, Xu Yun quickly came up with seventeen or eighteen solutions, but considering the current situation, his face still showed a hint of difficulty:
"This problem seems solvable, but it would take some time to calculate. But Mr. Newton, since we're still on the road, why don't we discuss it after we return?"
Hearing this, Little Niu glanced at William's family, then looked up at the sky, and nodded:
"Okay."
......