Deep Space Wandering Fleet

Chapter 71: Chapter 71: Interview

This day, a major event suddenly took place inside the spaceship: Academician Ding from the Wild Wolf Design Bureau, released an announcement to recruit one graduate student from among the undergraduate graduates, causing a sensation among all the candidates!

Academician Ding has always cultivated Ph.D. students, but this time he decided to recruit a master’s student, a rare opportunity.

Everyone clearly knew that getting in touch with these top experts early on could have a significant impact on their future academic careers.

Due to the large number of applicants, it was impossible to interview them all. The staff had to impose stricter eligibility requirements to reduce the number of candidates to fewer than fifty.

Zhang Yuan opened the registration interface, saw that he met the hard conditions and the exam results, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, Professor Wang Zhong sent a video.

“…That old fellow has already been convinced by me—now it’s all up to you. If someone more suitable than you comes along, and you are out-competed, don’t blame others. Are you confident about being selected from fifty experts?”

“Yes!”

“That’s good, I’m waiting for your good news!”

…

After brief preparations, the day of the interview finally arrived.

There were five interviewers; two of whom were former colleagues of his father, and seemed quite familiar, as they gave him kind looks.

Sitting in the center was Professor Ding Zhaodong, and on the far left was Captain Ma Tao, who also looked at Zhang Yuan kindly.

“Young man, don’t be nervous.”

Captain Ma glanced at the materials on the table and was the first to ask, “You are Old Zhang’s son, as we all know, so no need for an extended self-introduction. I have one question, what is the most important thing you have learned from him?”

Nervous but confident, Zhang Yuan didn’t feel nervous at all.

Zhang Yuan quickly replied, “His humble personal character, excellent studying habits, a lifestyle not confined by material possessions, and lofty goals and ideals!”

“Stop!”

Noticing the slightly amused smiles of the surrounding professors, Captain Ma asked, “Now tell me one of his faults. What is something about him that you cannot tolerate?”

Zhang Yuan was stunned—did this captain have some old grudge against his father?

Or, was he just making a joke to ease the tense and serious atmosphere?

Possibly.

Zhang Yuan thought for a moment and said, “He always demands too much of others based on his own intelligence, which I think is hard for ordinary people to tolerate. There are many things he finds simple, so he casually instructs others to do them, but the tasks he deems simple often take others half a day, or they might not be able to do them at all… That’s why he often gets inexplicably angry.”

Everyone smiled slightly.

Zhang Yuan couldn’t quite tell if his answer was good or bad.

Next came the serious questioning session, which obviously was not going to be ordinary questions.

One professor asked point-blank, “I once read your robotics kinematics paper, which is indeed an excellent article. However, have you considered the constraint computation problem of robots with fewer degrees of freedom?”

“In reality, many industrial robots don’t need large degrees of freedom, and the algorithms are different too… Do you have any knowledge about the 2-RPS-2-SPS four-degree-of-freedom parallel robot? Just share one idea, no need for a lengthy explanation.”

Zhang Yuan thought for a few seconds; actually, this question was relatively basic, “Parallel robots, in terms of structural complexity and production costs, fully symmetrical parallel mechanisms have a huge advantage… The motion support matrices for four degrees of freedom motion are 3T1R, 2T//2R, 2T⊥2R, 1T3R, 3T2R, 2T3R, 3T3R.”

“Let’s first discuss the mechanical primitives of these seven motion connections in single open-chain forms…”

Although he was told not to be verbose, he still spoke for over ten minutes.

The professor squinted his eyes, nodded, and said, “Not a bad answer.”

Just having that amount of clarity in such a short time was no small feat, showing that Zhang Yuan’s foundational knowledge was solid, and he was quick-thinking and sharp-minded.

“…Do you have any research on the latest optical chips? Why not vigorously develop more powerful quantum chips?”

Zhang Yuan thought for a few seconds and replied, “…Photon chips are based on photon circuit computing architectures, essentially using countless micro-optical switches on the chip, similar in function to the logic gates in semiconductor chips… Photon chips utilize combinations of light of different wavelengths, phases, and intensities, processed in complex arrays made of mirrors, filters, and prisms.”

“…Like microelectronics, they are based on semiconductor architectures using silicon materials, so they are essentially an extension of traditional chips. Their computing power is over ten thousand times that of ordinary silicon-based chips, and with current technology, there is still room for further development.”

“Although quantum computers can achieve computing power a million to a trillion times that of silicon-based chips, they require a related number of quantum entangled states. 40-50 entangled states is the current technological limit, and it is very difficult to increase. But the computing power of this number of entangled states is still less than traditional silicon-based chips…”

“Thus, although quantum chips are advantageous, without a major theoretical breakthrough, it’s difficult to further develop them, so they are not the current mainstream research focus.”

“Very good, quite accurate.” The professor nodded slightly. This response not only tested theoretical knowledge but also breadth of knowledge.

Many professors posed quite a few questions, and Zhang Yuan responded to each one calmly and confidently.

“I have a question too.” Academician Ding suddenly spoke.

“Please ask.”

Academician Ding Zhaodong spoke slowly, “What are your views on the industrial production of a new civilization? What do you think is the biggest factor restricting the development of a new civilization?”

Is this question that big?

Zhang Yuan cleared his throat and answered, “Indeed, we do have some decent industrial foundations, such as carrying the most advanced photolithography machine inside the spaceship, production facilities for certain nanomaterials, and some industrial mother machines, etc. We can produce some components, but many upstream industry chains are completely disconnected.”

“For example, basic chemical raw materials like trichloromethane, caprolactam, and acrylic acid—we only have small stockpiles, and once they are used up, we cannot produce them anymore. If we use BIOSYNTHESIS, the cost would be prohibitively high.”

“If we successfully reach the target planet and obtain an abundance of material resources, we must start from the development of basic raw materials. In my opinion, the biggest factor restricting the development of civilization is actually… population. Too few people hinder the development of the entire industrial system.”

“I once read a report that the minimum population required to sustain Earth’s industry is 1.6 billion. Although the quality of our population is high enough, the number is only five hundred thousand, which is far from sufficient.”

“That makes sense; it’s also a concern we share…” Before Academician Ding could reply, a professor quickly nodded in agreement.