In a sense, question b and question a are at different levels of difficulty.
After half an hour of lunch, there is no more free time.
The three of them sat back in front of their computers and began to work intensively.
This is how modeling competitions work. Different teams will have different ideas for solving the same problem. Not to mention the differences in the methods they choose during the process, the results will be even more different.
Lin Chaoxi was also very clear that the method they chose meant that their journey would not be easy.
In the afternoon, the weather gradually became hot and humid, and it looked like it was going to rain, so the air conditioner in the classroom was turned on. Everyone had piles of manuscripts and reference books in their hands. The sounds of keyboards and mouse clicks rose and fell, and the sound of discussion gradually became quieter.
Compared with other groups, their progress seemed slow.
After all, the model design is obviously more complicated when it comes to actual traffic problems. And the cities given by the organizing committee are real, and reality means more variables.
What to consider and what to ignore in the valuation process is a question that needs to be carefully weighed.
Lin Chaoxi had read a lot of papers in related fields, but that was seven years ago, and there was no telling how many new studies there were in the past seven years. Fortunately, she did not give up after she came back and roughly re-examined them.
Without causing any suspicion to Lao Wang and A Guang, she quickly found the relevant key papers. They divided the work and studied together. By the time they saw this, it was already evening.
When he looked up again, it was almost dark outside the window. Lin Chaoxi rubbed his brows and forced himself to stop.
The biggest advantage of this group of people is their focus, but sometimes they are so focused that they easily lose sight of time.
"Haven't you started writing yet?" a classmate passed by her and asked in a low voice when he saw the blank document.
"It's still early, don't rush."
Grandpa and Lao Wang were both immersed in their papers and had no time to reply, so Lin Chaoxi said.
"Wow, don't you check the group? Lao Zhang and his team have almost finished writing the rough draft of the paper, but you haven't started yet?"
"So fast." Lin Zhaoxi said.
"Oh my god, you actually chose B." The classmate looked at Lao Wang's screen again and said in shock.
"Yes." Lin Chaoxi replied.
"You are so talented and bold, right? Is A more reliable? Lao Zhang and his team chose A. It is said that they used this question to do a simulation before, so the paper was completed very quickly."
"Oh, no wonder."
Perhaps because her attitude was neither salty nor cold, the classmate felt bored, shrugged, and walked away.
Lao Wang came back to his senses and frowned: "Are we slow?"
Lin Chaoxi opened a form with a timetable set according to project management. She pointed to the deadline for reading the data and said, "It's actually not that bad. Anyway, I just need to shorten my sleep time."
"That's fine, let's go at our own pace." Teacher Wang said casually.
Lin Zhaoxi nodded. Ah Guang did not participate in the discussion from beginning to end. He just kept reading papers and materials, taking notes and excerpts.
72 hours is a very short time. If we calculate it by percentage, they may have completed less than 15% of their mission, but 12 or 13% of the time has already passed.
Even so, they decided to put a lot of energy into the early preparation. The more prepared they were, the clearer the direction, the fewer times they would need to adjust and revise in the later stages, and they could complete the entire paper in one go. This was their idea.
Although he said he wanted to shorten his sleep time, at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, Lin Chaoxi still asked Lao Wang and A Guang to stop.
One-third of the people were missing from the computer room. The air conditioner was turned off, and the windows on both sides were open. The night wind blew through the classroom, making some books and plastic bags on the table rustle.
According to experience, few people stayed up late on the first and second days of the competition, but no one would sleep on the third night. However, they were bound to spend more time than other teams because of the selection of questions, so they had to use the wheel method and take turns to rest.
"You guys go back and sleep for a while, and take over for me tomorrow morning." Lin Chaoxi said.
Lao Wang: "Girls can't stay up late."
Lin Zhaoxi: "I'm not a girl."
Ah Guang yawned loudly, tears streaming down his face. "If we want to sleep, we can go together. If we want to work, we can go together."
Ah Guang became stubborn and it was very difficult to deal with. Lin Chaoxi rubbed his brows.
"What's the problem?"
Pei Zhi's voice rang out.
Lin Zhaoxi pursed her lips, and heard Ah Guang say, "Lin Zhaoxi refused to sleep with us and wanted to stay up late alone."
Although what he said was correct, it sounded weird anyway. Lin Chaoxi held his forehead and sighed weakly.
Pei Zhi: "Too much unity is not a good thing. For a competition, winning is the only goal. Only the efforts and sacrifices made for winning are meaningful."
Lin Chaoxi didn't know how Pei Zhi looked like. Why did he see these issues so clearly, sometimes almost coldly, but he was right.
She stood up and said to Lao Wang and A Guang, "Now it's your turn to start modeling. I'm going to sleep for a while. Tomorrow night, I'll stay up late to write the program and the paper."
She packed her things, took out the small blanket she had prepared from her schoolbag, and went downstairs.
"You are not a day student, so where are you going to sleep?" asked Lao Wang.
"To be honest with you, I've been eyeing the sofa on the first floor of the library for a long time."
"How long have you not been downstairs?" A Guang also asked.
"You forgot that we were the ones who brought him his midnight snack," said Lao Wang.
Lin Chaoxi didn't understand.
At this time, Pei Zhi took out his mobile phone and opened a picture in the WeChat group.
That is a real-time picture of the sofas in the library, all of which have been occupied by contestants.
In the darkness, there is a bulge in each part, which looks quite comical.
Lin Chaoxi was both angry and amused, so he simply took the quilt and went to other classrooms on the same floor next door.
She found an empty classroom, put a few chairs together, lay on them, and slept there for the night.
In fact, after a whole day of intense mental activity, it was impossible for her to fall asleep, so she could only close her eyes and rest.
In a daze, she would always come up with some new ideas, and would take out her mobile phone to write down the key points.
She rested for six hours, waking up and sleeping.
At 7 o'clock in the morning, the alarm bell rang. Lin Chaoxi had just gotten up, and before he had time to put away the blanket and desks and chairs, he bumped into a classmate who was walking into the classroom.
The chairs in the classroom were pushed together with a blanket on top, and the boy was standing at the door in a daze.
Lin Chaoxi quickly put the tables and chairs back, folded the blanket, tidied her hair with her hands, and quickly ran out of the classroom.
When she passed by a boy, she heard him ask, "Are you participating in the modeling competition?"
"yes."
"That's not easy. I want to participate next year too. Come on."
"Ah...thank you!" Lin Chaoxi said.
——
It was past 7 in the morning and the sky was already bright.
Lao Wang and A Guang were still holding on in the computer room, but they were basically in a dying state.
Lin Chaoxi was surprised to find that both of them had completed the problem analysis and model assumptions, including clearly listing all the formulas and general algorithms used.
Lin Chaoxi sat down next to them and watched the result of their overnight collaboration from beginning to end.
She discussed a few issues with them and finally said, "I think I understand. Leave it to me. You guys go to bed first and set an alarm for 12 o'clock."
"OK."
Lao Guang and Lao Wang didn't say anything else, they just stood up and left.
Lin Chaoxi carefully read through the work done by Lao Wang and A Guang. They were obviously more knowledgeable about models and algorithms than she was, so Lin Chaoxi began to write a summary of the thesis.
Another morning passed, and Lin Chaoxi realized it was noon because a classmate was about to go into the computer room with instant noodles to eat, but was immediately coaxed out by other hungry classmates.
Time is short and everyone knows it.
Lin Chaoxi's train of thought was interrupted, and she finally remembered to pick up her phone. She sent a WeChat message to A Guang and Lao Wang, asking them to bring sandwiches over.
At 12:30, the two arrived at the computer room on time. Lin Chaoxi handed each of them a copy of the work she had finished. While they were reading the rough draft of the paper, she picked up a sandwich and ran to the corridor outside the classroom to eat it in big mouthfuls.
The campus was shrouded in the rain of late spring. Looking around, the entire campus was covered by colorful umbrellas.
When she came back, they had almost finished watching.
In the word document, the outline of the thesis topic has been formed and the summary has been written. At this point, the solution to the whole problem has a clear framework. Next, it is time to move from theory to specific practice.
It was only a day and a half, but there was not much time left in the 72-hour competition. Looking at the situation in the classroom, some groups had already finished their papers and started to revise and polish them, but they had not even started writing the program.
Lin Zhaoxi and Guang talked about Python. Guangshen was very straightforward and directly opened the online tutorial, saying "You write first, I'll learn first", and started to learn by himself while following the tutorial.
At about dusk, he closed all the tutorials and said, "The ancients were not deceiving me."
"Which ancient person?" Lin Chaoxi asked casually.
"Zhou Aping said that as long as you study hard, you can always learn any software within a day. And I am smarter, so I finished it in half a day."
Lin Zhaoxi: "Who is Zhou Aping?"
"The author of one of the award-winning articles you forced us to read."
Lin Chaoxi was speechless for a while, then turned over the computer screen and started studying programming with A Guang.
Due to the complexity of the problem, he and Guang spent the entire evening writing programs and adjusting parameters.
Although they hadn't even finished answering the first question, Lin Chaoxi already felt that their efficiency was amazing. After all, if she were to do the same question alone, it would probably take her a week or two, but with A Guang and Lao Wang, the process was significantly accelerated.
The role of these two masters is not limited to this. They are indeed very knowledgeable in mathematics. After their analysis, Lin Chaoxi even had a clearer idea about Lao Lin's car accident.
She also secretly noted down a number of key points, preparing to perfect her accident prediction model after the race.
Time passed by unknowingly.
After running the program formally, Lin Chaoxi rubbed his sore and swollen eyes. A Guang had fallen asleep on the table, and Lao Wang was still in a state of unconsciousness.
Lin Chaoxi pushed them and said, "Go to sleep."
The two walked out of the classroom like mummies. The number of people left in the classroom became fewer and fewer. Some students even fell asleep on the desks, snoring loudly that could be heard throughout the classroom.
But Lin Chaoxi didn't think it was noisy, instead he felt a sense of peace.
She opened a can of Red Bull and took a sip. Now she had a functional drink to drink, which was much better than when she and Bao Xiaomeng stayed up all night in the garage.
But after drinking the cold drink, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach, followed by a strong feeling of hunger. She rubbed her stomach, thinking that she had eaten dinner, but why was she hungry again?
Like my stomach, the room was also cold. It rained during the day, but when the rain stopped at night, the temperature dropped.
She put down the Red Bull and took out a blanket from her bag, and the letter written by Lao Lin fell out.
Lin Chaoxi bent down. This letter was just like Comrade Lin himself. He always kept it under his schoolbag, pretending to keep it a secret, but it would suddenly jump up, as if he cared about her and wanted to help her.
Actually, it does help.
After Lao Wang and A Guang's analysis and reconstruction, Lin Chaoxi finally understood more about what Lao Lin wrote in the letter.
The world is vast and complex.
Her biggest concern before was whether she had considered enough factors when predicting car accidents and how to deal with many unexpected situations.
But Lao Wang and A Guang's thinking is simple, because they are facing a question, not a real life-and-death problem. So what should be considered and what should be ignored, their choices will be more rational and concise.
Lao Lin wrote: We are just trying to understand the world and trying to get closer to the truth. This is actually very similar to the famous saying of statistician Box: "All models are wrong, but some are useful."
She doesn't need to take into account all the problems in car accident prediction; the best models are sometimes the most simple ones. This seems to be true in mathematics and almost all sciences.
In the computer room, some students were opening snack bags, and the packaging made a rustling sound. Lin Chaoxi, wrapped in a small blanket, walked to the lounge next door.
Against the backdrop of darkness, the lounge appears brightly lit.
She stood at the door, stunned.
In the lounge, Pei Zhizheng had his back to her, facing the mountain of instant noodles, and seemed to be struggling over which one to choose.
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