Chapter 7: The Ultimate Mystery of Mohism: Mathematics
Jin Yao was really dumbfounded. As expected, none of the Baijia were simple. They all appeared to be timid and submissive on the outside. If someone really dared to cause trouble, they would tell you what a tough Barbie was.
"Three days later, we will go and see the internal strife of Confucianism. The division of Confucianism is really different from ours. They are really divided and really dare to kill each other!" Master Xiang smiled and left Jin Yao in the secret realm.
Jin Yao nodded. He was still waiting to find his current and future big brothers. If he didn't hug these two big brothers, he would be a fool. He also wanted to know what Han Fei's reverse scale was.
Master Xiang left, but Jin Yao stayed in the secret realm and studied the Mohist classics seriously. Through what he had just learned, he was very clear that his distorted interpretation of Mohist martial arts had great problems, and what he had to do now was to correct it.
Holding Lingxu in his hand, Jin Yao was able to quickly calm down and forget about food and sleep, diligently absorbing the Mohist heritage and knowledge.
"Gam~" Three days later, when Master Xiang reopened the door to the secret realm, he heard a curse.
"What's wrong?" Master Xiang was very curious. The Mohist scriptures should not make people angry.
"Why is it mathematics!" Jin Yao was confused!
Where were the mechanical arts and martial arts that were promised? Why did they all become mathematics in the end!
Master Xiang looked at the Mozi's note placed at the highest position in Jin Yao's hand, and his beard trembled unnaturally. It was an arithmetic problem. He had been dominated by that note before, and he still felt scared when he thought about it now.
"My question is, Hero Guo's sword is three feet three inches long, and the Xiongnu Golden Sword Barbarian's sword is three feet one inch long. Hero Guo and the Golden Sword Barbarian drew their swords and faced each other. How much did Hero Guo penetrate into the Golden Sword Barbarian's flesh?"
"Question: Hero Guo is chasing the Golden Blade Barbarian at a speed of three feet per breath. It is known that the Golden Blade Barbarian's speed is twenty-five feet per breath. The two sides are ten feet apart. When will Hero Guo be able to catch up with the Golden Blade Barbarian?"
"Question: Hero Guo severely injured the Golden Blade Barbarian. It is known that the Golden Blade Barbarian has a total of five liters of blood, and loses three millimeters of blood every breath. When did the Golden Blade Barbarian die from all the blood loss?"
…
Jin Yao never thought that there would be something like this left in Mozi's notes, it turned out to be mathematics!
It is like going through untold hardships to find the martial arts secret book left by the predecessors, waiting to learn martial arts, become invincible, and become famous, but when you open it, you find that it is actually "Mathematics"!
He originally thought that what was left in Mozi's notes would be some thoughts and legends, or even some advanced mechanical techniques and martial arts secrets, but who knew it would be mathematics!
There were many volumes of notebooks. At the beginning, they were about addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Later on, they involved quadratic equations, linear equations with two variables, and even the last one. Jin Yao couldn't understand it at all and couldn't do it anymore. Trajectory equations, dihedral angles, and space all came up.
The title is also very magical and martial arts-like.
"It is known that Hero Guo is facing four Golden Sword Barbarians. A, B, and Hero Guo are at the same distance from each other. Golden Sword Barbarian C stands in the middle of A and B. The Great Master of the Xiongnu stands in the middle above Hero Guo, Golden Sword Barbarian A and B. The question is, at what angle can Hero Guo strike out with his sword to block the attacks of the Great Master, Barbarian A, and Barbarian C at the same time and kill Barbarian B?"
Jin Yao really cried, tears flowed uncontrollably, and he regretted that he had not studied hard and had not learned how to calculate the angle of the dihedral.
This world is not peaceful. I am fine with you and me. These questions may become reality. If you can't figure them out, you will really die if you encounter them in the future!
It's just like the Olympics, there are always some amateurs who beat professional athletes, for example in shooting competitions, a guy whose main job is a doctor actually won the gold medal. In the end, when everyone looked at his nationality, they all calmed down because the other party came from a war-torn country. The athletes worked hard for honor, while the other amateur was really risking his life.
Now Jin Yao really understands that he used to learn mathematics to prepare for exams, but now he learns mathematics to save his life!
"Be good, let's not cry. This is not something that ordinary people can do!" Mr. Xiang took a look at the pictures and solutions on the floor and comforted him.
"Teacher, do you know how to do it?" Jin Yao pointed at the question and looked at his teacher expectantly.
Mr. Xiang glanced at the question and blurted out, "Just tilt it 30 degrees!"
"Wow~" Jin Yao cried, you said you didn't know how to do it, how could you figure it out just by looking at it!
"Ahem~" Mr. Xiang smiled awkwardly. He really didn't know how to calculate it. He just subconsciously put himself in the situation of Master Guo, and he could think of the most appropriate angle to draw the sword. As for how to calculate it, he really didn't know how to do it. It was all gained from experience.
Undeterred, Jin Yao took out those weird questions again, which involved space and trajectory equations. He looked at Mr. Xiang expectantly, hoping that he was not the only one who couldn't solve the problem.
However, he was destined to be disappointed, as Mr. Xiang always gave the answers within seconds, which completely broke him down and made him fall into self-doubt. Were these questions really that simple, or was he just a complete poor student and therefore couldn't do them?
"Be good, let's not cry. This thing is really not something that humans can solve. In the past three hundred years, no one in the entire Mohist school has ever achieved what you can do now!" Master Xiang said comfortingly. He was also shocked that Yu Jinyao could actually calculate those answers through arithmetic.
All the disciples and predecessors of Mohism originally thought that the questions in Mozi's notes were testing their martial arts and experience. It was not until they saw Jin Yao's scribbles on the ground that they were really shocked. It turned out that these things could not be obtained by experience, but could really be calculated.
"Can you tell me how you calculated it?" Mr. Xiang took out the simple questions from before and asked.
Jin Yao nodded, as if he was back to the time when the teacher was checking the homework, and explained the calculation process one by one.
The more Xiang Fuzi listened, the more his expression changed. He could understand it at the beginning, but he couldn't understand it later. However, looking at Jin Yao who was expecting praise, he was too embarrassed to say that he didn't understand. He could only pretend to be deep, stroke his beard and nod from time to time.
"You mean, set up a space with yourself as the center, place each enemy in different positions, and then no longer treat them as people, but as numbers. Finally, through arithmetic, simulate the opponent's movement direction and draw the sword!" Mr. Xiang was completely shocked when he heard the concept of spatial rectangular coordinate system mentioned by Jin Yao.
He thought of a treasure of Mohism, Tongfang!
Tongfang is just a square entity with grids of blocks that can rotate without any blind spots. If we substitute Jin Yao's idea into this, we can solve the mystery of Tongfang.
Thinking of this, Master Xiang's breathing became rapid. This treasure must be kept in the Mo family and brought back to the Mo family headquarters for protection.
Isn’t it just to make enemies with Wei State and Xinling Jun? Anyone who dares to come to Mohism to cause trouble will be killed.
Although the Mohists cannot destroy the State of Wei now, the King of Wei and Lord Xinling are different from the State of Wei. The Mohists can still kill the King of Wei and Lord Xinling if they put all their efforts!
