It is often said that success depends on 99% sweat and 1% talent. This sentence has inspired countless people to strive for progress, but there are also those who always believe that innate wisdom is beyond the reach of ordinary people. In fact, no matter which one is said, it is still inseparable from hard work and countless efforts.
In Shanghai, there is a post-00s genius girl who solved the world's mathematical problems in one fell swoop and won the "youngest scientist" for the second time. On the Internet, words of envy and admiration such as "young people are strong and the country is strong", "big god, please accept my knees", "don't let my mother see" and so on continue to emerge.
Faced with overwhelming interview invitations, even CCTV's special interview invitations, the little scientist and her parents politely declined. Asked why, 15-year-old Tan Fanglin said: "My mother taught me not to be bound by fame and fortune since I was a child. The family always hopes that their daughter can immerse herself in learning, guard against arrogance and impatience, focus only on her own research, and be indifferent to fame and fortune.
Perhaps this is the spiritual background that countless young people who are pursuing exposure and fame in today's traffic era are missing.
【Born Talent】
In October 2020, on the banks of Dishui Lake in Lingang, Shanghai, the second World Laureates Forum was held as scheduled. At the end of October every year, the conference invites a number of winners of the world's top scientist awards such as the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, wolf prize and so on, and is praised by the media as "the world's strongest brain".
A total of 44 nobel laureates and 21 other top science award winners attended the conference, and China also selected the top 100 outstanding scientists and academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to participate in the discussion of innovative thinking and great ambitions for the future development of science in the world.
Among these participants, the most special one is a post-15-year-old post-00s high school girl, who is Tan Fanglin from the Second Affiliated Middle School of East China Normal University in Shanghai, and she is the youngest participant in this conference.
Neatly dressed, with a clean ponytail, this ordinary-looking high school girl sat in the corner of the venue where the big coffee gathered. Unlike the wise and calm faces of young scientists, the 15-year-old girl's childish face is full of heroic hair, with a little nervousness, but not cowardly.
Tan Fanglin was born in Shanghai in 2004 to high-level intellectual family, whose parents were educators. Her father taught in the Mathematics Department of East China Normal University, often studying various mathematical formulas at home, and Fang Lin was interested in the world of mathematics from an early age.
Unlike most parents, In her education, Fang Lin's parents did not adopt the strategy of "rain and dew" that allowed her to try different interests and disciplines from an early age, but seized her strengths and interests to fully support and cultivate. Fang Lin's parents firmly believe that interest and awareness are the driving force behind learning.
Unlike many children who are playful by nature, Tan Fanglin seems to be born with a preference for learning. The learning atmosphere at home is very strong, and Tan Fanglin, who likes to study mathematics with her father, has given full play to her mathematical talents in such a family atmosphere.
The father was very pleased to see that his daughter not only had a very high talent, but also loved to think and study, and he also did his best to guide and help. In this background of growth, Tan Fanglin became a math prodigy in school.
Fang Lin's father thought that he could always be a guiding light on his daughter's mathematical road, to answer all the children's questions, they explored and talked freely in the ocean of mathematics, and Fang Lin's logical and imaginative deduction method often amazed his father.
By the first year of junior high school, the father found it difficult for him to easily discuss the topic of "mathematical theory" with his daughter. By chance, Tan Fanglin read books on number theory and was immediately fascinated by them, which was beyond her father's research field.
Interest is the best teacher, and talent is not to be disappointed. Although her daughter's field of interest is beyond her familiar scope, her father is still very supportive of Fang Lin's research, and through his own academic resources, he helped her introduce professors in the field of single-digit theory and guided her to continue to delve deeper.
Tan Fanglin's ability to grasp new knowledge is far superior to others, and when children of the same age are frantically brushing questions for test scores, she never needs this extra make-up lesson.
Out of interest, Tan Fanglin also participated in several mathematical competition training courses, but never signed up for any mathematical competitions. She believes that the time spent on participating in competitions is not spent on digesting and absorbing new knowledge, and the so-called reward is only a kind of illusory thing for her, far from learning new knowledge.
However, the fanatical obsession with mathematics has not unexpectedly led to Fang Lin's partiality. Faced with her unsatisfactory final exam results, she felt angry and regretful. However, for the daughter who was afraid of being criticized and did not dare to enter the house, Tan Fanglin's parents did not reprimand her at all, but instead gave comfort, hoping that she would learn a lesson and continue to work hard.
It is precisely because of her parents' attitude that Tan Fanglin did not give up on herself because of the failure of this exam, which affected her motivation to learn. Under the understanding and encouragement of her parents, she quickly came out of the haze and immediately continued to devote herself to learning with full enthusiasm, and even the enthusiasm for learning only increased.
The enlightened family style and wise parents gave Tan Fanglin the best pillar and backing, and with the full support and encouragement of her parents, Tan Fanglin worked harder to study mathematics. By the time she was in junior high school, she had already become involved in a worldwide research project called "Estimation of Fiboratchi Sequences and Bezou Numbers."
Since 1202, this mathematical problem has been proposed, and it has been a very difficult problem that has plagued the mathematical community all over the world. For a junior high school girl who is only a teenager, although she is recognized as a "genius" and "prodigy", this is definitely not an easy task.
At the suggestion of her mentor, Tan Fanglin began to read the American Mathematical Monthly, which in addition to a large number of the most professional academic theories, there are countless professional words that make people confused. But these prohibitive reading difficulties do not seem to be difficult to talk about Fang Lin here.
Soon, Tan Fanglin found her own direction in academic journals. She invested a lot of time in research that she forgot to eat and sleep. Countless calculus papers and many racking nights, finally in the inspiration and cycle of repetition, Tan Fang Lin gave the answer that countless scientists dreamed of.
At the end of the research project, Tan Fanglin was only in the third grade of junior high school.
【Olive Branch on top of the world】
Soon, Tan Fanglin won the first prize and chairman award of the 33rd "Shanghai Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition" with her research results, which caused quite a stir in the entire scientific community, and she became a rising star of scientists.
Tan Fanglin did not have much interest in winning awards and fame, let alone being proud and complacent, and she still put a lot of energy into further research.
After half a year, Tan Fanglin studied the intrinsic relationship between the Fibonacci sequence and the Bezou number, which is the first time in the history of mathematics. Not only that, but she also successfully won the estimation problem of the best upper and lower bounds of the Bezou number, and improved a relatively imperfect estimate given by the Polish mathematician Professor Rankin in the American Mathematical Monthly a few years ago.
At this time, Tan Fanglin is even more famous in the entire mathematical community, a 14-year-old girl solved the problem that the original author had been thinking hard for 5 years, and Professor Rankin himself was full of curiosity about this little rising star in the scientific community, wanting to see how her clever little brain thought about these problems.
Not only Professor Lan Jin, as Tan Fanglin's fame increased day by day, more and more academic leaders who had achieved fame began to set their sights on this little girl. It didn't take long for Tan FangLin to be very fortunate to be with the famous Nobel Laureate Frank. Frank Wilczek had a face-to-face meeting.
"Professor Frank told me that it is important to maintain curiosity and interest in science in research, and at the same time, to have courage and fearlessness in the face of scientific problems." Tan Fanglin deeply agrees with this, and she believes that the face-to-face communication with these great scientists has further stimulated her enthusiasm for scientific research.
For a time, Talking about Fang Lin was in the limelight.
In 2020, because of the great success of Tan Fanglin's project, the "World Top Scientists Forum Conference" issued an invitation letter to her. Unlike previous editions, the forum invited many young people under the age of 20 to participate in the discussion. But even so, Tan Fanglin was still the youngest invitee in the audience.
Previously, Tan Fanglin had also participated in this academic conference, but only followed his father, who was a mathematician, and only as a bystander audience. This time, she was an invitee guest at the world's top scientist conference.
Although his father was very proud of this, Tan Fang Lin himself was a little hesitant. First, the time spent attending academic conferences will affect her daily studies, and secondly, as a 15-year-old girl who is about to face so many foreign scientists with yellow hair and high noses, Tan Fanglin still feels restrained and nervous.
Thinking about it, such an opportunity is really rare, and Tan Fang Lin also feels that it is a rare opportunity to have the opportunity to learn and ask questions from so many titans in the scientific community. With the encouragement of her family mentors, she adjusted her small tension and study arrangements, and balanced the time between her studies and attending the conference.
The conference showcased the world's most cutting-edge scientific research results, and the participants were all "mountains" in academia. A 15-year-old girl who has just entered the first year of high school, sitting in the venue of the scientific community conference, Tan Fang lin feels very excited, and she can't restrain her nervousness.
Sitting next to Tan Fang Lin was Jerro. Gero Miesenbock, the kind white-haired old man, was the founder of the world's optogenetics. In the face of this heavyweight giant next to her, Tan Fang Lin asked with a slight nervousness, "What do you think are the three most important qualities of people who do research projects?" ”
Professor Jerro kindly replied, "For a scientist, the most important trick is the three 'no', that is, not discouraged, not slack, not losing self-confidence in the face of various problems and failures that are inevitable encountered in research, and learning to adjust the mentality at any time to start over." ”
As the conversation progressed, Tan Fang lin also met Professor Rankin, who had always been curious about her. It is Tan Fanglin who has improved Professor Rankin's articles published in the journal to have today's research results. After a pleasant exchange, they were pleasantly surprised to find that this achievement was based on the mutual achievements between the two.
These discussions and exchanges with her predecessors greatly inspired Tan Fanglin, who understood that the road to scientific research is always full of thorns, and in the face of all the problems, all she needs to do is to cut through the thorns and never be discouraged.
In the face of the swarming reporters, Tan Fanglin was not overwhelmed by the praise and applause that poured in, but always kept in mind the teachings of her parents and was not willing to expose and accept too much interview. Facing the reporter's camera, she smiled mischievously and said with a "shhh" gesture: Be careful not to let your mother see.
Until 2021, the young scientist still refused all media interviews, closed the door and immersed himself in the kingdom of mathematics, building a castle of exploration and research brick by brick.
As mentioned by people around her, Fang Lin often said that the satisfaction of insisting on doing various mathematical research is as happy as buying new toys and eating McDonald's. After becoming world-famous, she still followed behind her number theory tutor and actively participated in various new research topics.
She spends her time shopping after class, snacking and playing games on solving tedious and complex mathematical problems, and even if she is called a world-renowned mathematical genius by her classmates, she always thinks that her current self is far from enough. The so-called "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers", Tan Fang Lin is always challenging the various research that the predecessors of mathematics have a headache.
Now in 2022, Tan Fanglin is still reluctant to spend time participating in various math competitions. She prefers to stay by the shelves and immerse herself in the sea of knowledge of various number theory books. While her classmates were still studying relatively rudimentary mathematical formulas and theories, she could already rely on her ingenious algorithms and ideas to gain the admiration and guidance of the most cutting-edge mathematicians, and even study public affairs.
Even though she has become famous and even has a foothold in the entire academic community, Tan Fanglin has never forgotten her original intention. She is now a member of the "Secondary School Student Talent Program" and continues to make continuous efforts for her academic research and even the national research program, and has gained great satisfaction and happiness from it.
【Conclusion】
Someone asked her what she thought of the "star chasing" behavior that is now popular among young people. Talking about Fang Lin said that the star-chasing behavior of some peers is something she can't quite understand, she thinks that this is something meaningless and a waste of time, "If I want to chase the stars, I am chasing a scientific superstar" Tan Fang Lin often says so.
If you have talent and don't make an effort, presumably even if you talk about Fang Lin, you will soon disappear after a flash in the pan. It is precisely because of her attitude of never being affected by external voices and wind directions that she can dive into the pursuit of scientific research that she likes, persevere and achieve good results.
Although the ancients Yun "strict teachers out of high disciples", a large part of the achievements of Fang Lin are also her enlightened and sober parents. The advanced educational concept of encouraging children to pursue interests, as well as the "family training" that is not obsessed with the outside world, have always allowed this young girl to always maintain a passion for learning and a rational mind, believing that with the support of her own efforts and family atmosphere, Fang Lin can look forward to the future.
Resources:
"Science Girl" talks about Fang Lin: a young genius scientist recognized by the world, by Han Xiaorong, modern youth
Talking about Fang Lin: A 15-year-old scientist who loves mathematics, by Dong Qing, inside and outside the classroom
New idol Talk Fang Linwan refused to interview thought-provoking, by Xiao Zhu, composition and examination