On the live broadcast platform.
"What's going on? Is there anyone knowledgeable who can explain what the Collats conjecture is?"
"You can find it by searching online."
"Let me summarize it. Simply put, if you take any positive integer, divide it by 2 if it's even, and multiply it by 3 and add 1 if it's odd. Then, repeat this process, and the final result will always converge to 1."
"That's it? How boring."
"Holy cow, I searched it up. This conjecture is indeed a very famous mathematical conjecture. No one has been able to completely prove it to this day."
"There's a person named Tao in our country who is said to have made the most progress in proving it. However, it hasn't been fully proven yet, reportedly because the computational load is too massive. It would require a supercomputer like Sunway TaihuLight to calculate it."
"I don't care how difficult this conjecture is, I only care what Chen Feng is thinking? He's just acting, and he's doing this on stage? The key is, is his math that good?"
"Same question. All-knowing netizens, there must be some good at math, right? Is Chen Feng really deriving the Collats conjecture?"
"I am a math professor. I can say with great certainty that what Chen Feng is deriving is indeed the Collats conjecture. However, he has also encountered a bottleneck. Putting aside his acting skills, I personally think Chen Feng should be a genius in the field of mathematics."
"Holy cow!"
"Holy cow, holy cow!"
"See? I told you not to study Chinese well when you were in school, and now when you're surprised, all you can say is 'holy cow,' right? How embarrassing."
"The person upstairs, say something less embarrassing."
"To the person upstairs, holy cow, a big holy cow!"
...
Live broadcast scene.
On stage.
At some point, Chen Feng had already returned to normal.
He stood upright in the center.
The host's CPU was almost burned out.
He even wondered if the chief director had also kept him in the dark and set up a scheme with Chen Feng?
Had they fooled all the audience?
Otherwise, how could an old math professor from Tsinghua University call the scene?
And say that those scribbles Chen Feng wrote were actually a proof of a mathematical conjecture?
Was it to prove that Chen Feng was a genius?
Finally.
The chief director personally stepped in.
He walked up to Chen Feng, looked at him, and tentatively asked, "Chen Feng, was what I just said true? Is what you wrote really the Collats conjecture in the field of mathematics?"
"Yes."
Chen Feng nodded calmly.
As a result, a buzzing sound immediately rose from the audience.
They were going crazy.
You're just acting, and to prove that a mentally challenged person is a genius, you actually went to prove the Collats conjecture?
The chief director had a strange expression.
He thought, you really are a talent.
With you joining this show, how much exposure have we gained?
You, you played an Addict and summoned Yao Yao Ling (110).
You played a cancer patient and scared your opponent into screaming non-stop, directly causing a live broadcast incident.
And that's not all.
You played a police officer and actually found a fugitive who had been at large for seven years.
Now you're playing a mentally challenged genius, and you actually went to prove the Collats conjecture?
Are you even human?
Can a normal person do these things?
Are you acting or is this your true self?
So, you know everything?
At this moment, the audience below began to clamor.
They wanted Chen Feng to explain the Collats conjecture.
If he didn't explain it himself, the audience wouldn't believe it.
They always felt that the director was also an accomplice, and this was just a stunt, right?
So.
The chief director simply handed the microphone to Chen Feng: "Chen Feng, come on. At the audience's request, why don't you first explain this Collats conjecture so that everyone knows that you really understand this."
"Okay."
Chen Feng nodded calmly.
He took the microphone and said lightly, "The Collats conjecture is indeed a very famous conjecture in the field of mathematics."
"It's very simple to state, but extremely difficult to prove."
"I'll keep it brief because time is running out."
"The content of the Collats conjecture is that for any positive integer, if it's even, divide it by 2; if it's odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. Repeatedly apply this process, and the final result will always become 1."
"Foreign mathematicians call this conjecture a 'toxic unsolved mystery,' and they even gave it a rather sinister name: 'Siren's Song.'"
"Actually, this proof is very simple."
"It's just that the natural numbers you know will iterate infinitely, and eventually they will always converge to the infinite loop of 1, 4, 2, 1."
"However, completely proving it is almost impossible."
"Why is it impossible? I'll briefly explain the process I just wrote."
"First, I divided the Collats conjecture into two parts: an even term part and an odd term part. This is easy to understand, right?"
"We use 2k to represent the even terms. This doesn't need proof; it will definitely be divisible by 2 and eventually converge to 1."
"We use the two sequences 4k+1 and 4k+3 to represent the odd terms."
"Among these, 4k+1, after a few iteration steps, becomes 12k+4, 6k+2, 3k+1, successfully iterating into even terms, which can be divided by 2 and eventually converge to 1. Do you understand this?"
"Now, here's the crucial part."
At this point, Chen Feng's expression became unusually serious. He pointed to the 4k+3 sequence on the blackboard and said, "Everyone, the situation with the 4k+3 sequence is strange."
"After iteration, it becomes 12k+10, 6k+5, 18k+16, 9k+8..."
"Do you see?"
"This sequence, if iterated infinitely, you can never eliminate its odd/even terms, and its value will even increase infinitely."
"Why is this?"
"Even if we use our country's fastest supercomputer to calculate it, we might not reach its end. Therefore, it's always impossible to prove whether this conjecture holds true."
"Actually, I also stopped my proof here."
"Because I found that continuing to try infinite positive integers is meaningless."
"The specific reason for the strange loop in the 4k+3 sequence of this conjecture is that when k = 0 and 1, that is, between 3 and 4, there is actually an additional non-existent positive integer."
"It is this positive integer that causes the 4k+3 sequence to be unable to iterate and eliminate, eventually converging to 1."
"If the positive integer between 3 and 4 cannot be found, then the Collats conjecture will ultimately be false. After 2 to the power of the speed of light, there will definitely be positive integers that cannot converge to 1."
"This is my conclusion."
After Chen Feng finished speaking, there was a dead silence in the venue.
Everyone was embarrassed.
What did he say?
It was too awkward, they could only say they were bad students.
Even the chief director was embarrassed.
Better not ask.
He had just re-explained it, and he still didn't understand.
Forget it.
Let's end this quickly.
If it didn't end soon, he'd really be fined.
So, the chief director simply didn't pick up the conversation, and directly said, "Let's applaud Chen Feng's wonderful explanation."
Below, there was a burst of applause.
Whether they understood or not, they all had to applaud now.
To show that they understood.
So, the chief director handed the microphone to the host next to him and gave him a look.
Meaning, end the battle quickly.
Then he stepped off the stage.
Host: "..."
There's a saying, 'MMP,' that I don't know whether to say or not.