Confidence interval
The design drawing, quickly hidden away, was like a wedge driven into Jiang Mo's understanding of Shen Zhiyan. It didn't belong to the laboratory, nor to data; it carried a strange, almost soft quality, incompatible with his hardened rationality. This made her realize for the first time that the Shen Zhiyan she saw might only be the tip of a vast iceberg, used to cope with the outside world (including her as a "sample").
This realization subtly changed her perspective on him during the subsequent recordings. She was no longer merely a passive recipient of "observation," but began to try to interpret the "observer" himself. She noticed that when he was truly immersed in the core of an algorithm, his fingertips would unconsciously tap lightly on the table, with a steady rhythm, like tapping a beat; she discovered that he always drank coffee at 10:15 AM, with precise measurements, and never refilled his cup; she also caught a glimpse of him gazing blankly at the construction cranes in the distance outside the window during a brief pause when the director called "cut." In that instant, his profile, devoid of all academic sharpness, revealed a faint weariness that seemed out of place for his age.
These details, though they cannot be quantified into data, gradually sketched a more three-dimensional outline in her mind.
The recording task for that afternoon was for the guests to use what they had recently learned to complete a small data analysis project and present their results. Jiang Mo's task was to analyze a set of noise monitoring data from different areas of a city and find patterns.
Faced with the massive stream of data on the screen, she felt a chill run down her spine. The slight advantage of switching to the Spanish interface was utterly insignificant in the face of true complexity. She gritted her teeth and tried focusing on different charts, but the results were either a chaotic mess or meaningless, smooth curves.
Shen Zhiyan was making his rounds in the lab when he paused behind her. He didn't point out the mistakes directly as he had before, but stood silently for a few seconds. Jiang Mo could feel his gaze on her cluttered screen, and her back involuntarily tensed.
"The choice of coordinate system determines what you can see," he finally spoke, his voice low, as if he were talking to himself. After saying this, he walked away to check on the progress of the next guest.
Jiang Mo was stunned. This sentence didn't sound like guidance; it was more like a hint. She looked at the standard Cartesian coordinate system she had chosen, then at the obvious timestamp field in the data, and suddenly an idea struck her. She tried importing the data into a professional module that could draw polar graphs. After some clumsy operations, when the final image appeared, she almost gasped in amazement.
The originally chaotic points, when viewed in polar coordinates, clearly reveal a petal-like distribution structure—the types and intensities of noise in different areas are arranged regularly according to time cycles, resembling a slowly rotating "rose" of urban sounds.
During the demonstration, when Jiang Mo presented the "Noise Rose" image, even the production team showed expressions of surprise. She tried to explain it in simple terms, but her gaze involuntarily drifted towards Shen Zhiyan. He sat in the corner, arms crossed, listening quietly. When her gaze swept over him, he nodded almost imperceptibly.
There was no praise, just a simple gesture of confirmation. Confirmation that she had received and understood his cryptic hint. A small, unfamiliar warmth quietly flowed through Jiang Mo's heart. This wasn't the sense of accomplishment from being recognized by data, but rather a degree of...acknowledgment from someone she considered an "opponent," in an extremely subtle way.
The recording ended, and everyone dispersed. Jiang Mo stayed in the lounge for a while, waiting for Linda to discuss the follow-up schedule. Holding her water glass, she casually strolled to the notice board at the end of the corridor. It displayed some recent notices and photos of activities from the center.
Her gaze was drawn to a slightly worn group photo. The photo seemed to be a souvenir from an academic conference a few years ago. Among a group of researchers in formal attire, she spotted Shen Zhiyan immediately. He stood at the edge, his figure thinner than it was now, wearing black-rimmed glasses (not the frameless lenses he wore now), and his expression held the youthful naiveté and sharpness that belonged to a young scholar, not yet completely worn down.
What caught her attention was a badge pinned to his chest. Upon closer inspection of the enlarged image, it was not the logo of any academic institution, but rather an exquisitely crafted swallow design composed of geometric lines. The swallow's wings displayed a dynamic, asymmetrical arc, possessing a distinct architectural or design aesthetic.
swallow… …
She suddenly remembered the design sketch she had glimpsed on his screen yesterday—those smooth, non-functional lines seemed to subtly echo the style of the badge.
"Looking at photos?" a calm voice sounded from behind.
Jiang Mo was startled and almost dropped her water glass. She turned around and saw Shen Zhiyan standing behind her, his gaze also fixed on the group photo on the bulletin board.
"Just looking around." Jiang Mo composed herself and pointed to him in the photo. "Did Teacher Shen wear black-rimmed glasses before?"
"Hmm." He responded, but his gaze seemed to penetrate the photograph, landing on a distant point. "Back then... we were still making some different attempts."
A different approach? Does it refer to research directions, or... what does that swallow badge represent?
He didn't give her a chance to ask further questions. He shifted his gaze from the photo back to her face, and the topic changed abruptly but naturally: "Your 'noise rose diagram' utilizes the salient effect of the periodic characteristics of data in polar coordinates. Although there are redundant steps in the process, the directional judgment is correct." He paused, as if making a summary statement, "This shows that you have a certain potential for pattern recognition and are not a complete 'data insulator' in the strictest sense."
This was probably the closest he could come to affirming her. Words like potential, correct judgment, and not a complete insulator wrapped around a core message—he acknowledged her.
As they left the center, dusk was approaching. Jiang Mo got into the car but didn't immediately tell the driver to start. She looked out the window at the building that gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen in the setting sun, while Shen Zhiyan's words echoed repeatedly in her mind.
"The choice of coordinate system determines what you can see."
He was talking about data analysis, but it seemed to go beyond that. He chose to use data and probability as his primary coordinate system to observe the world, and thus saw patterns, risks, and confidence intervals. And she, perhaps unintentionally, also chose a new coordinate system that belonged to him, and thus saw the meticulousness beneath his sharp tongue, the clumsiness beneath his rationality, and that unknown realm hidden beneath the iceberg, possibly related to a geometric swallow.
She took out her phone and opened her chat with Linda. Inside was a draft plan Linda had sent earlier, outlining how to use the unexpectedly brilliant "noise rose" image to market her "academic genius" persona.
Jiang Mo's finger hovered over the screen for a moment, then slowly typed a line of text:
"Linda, let's put that plan on hold for now."
She pressed send, put her phone back in her bag, leaned back in her chair, and gently closed her eyes.
The car merged into the evening rush hour traffic. Jiang Mo's phone screen lit up again; it was a new WeChat message from a profile picture with almost no chat history—the number she had saved as "Data Science Center - Shen Zhiyan," contacted by Xiao Chen.
The message remained concise, without any pleasantries:
"For advanced applications of the polar coordinate system, relevant literature can be found in Section 13 of the central database. Access has been temporarily granted and is valid until 8 PM tomorrow."
This message, like a precise key, was quietly handed to her. But why did he suddenly give her resources beyond what the program needed? Was it out of academic support for someone with "potential," or did it mean that the confidence interval for her "sample" had been redefined in his constantly updated observation model?
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