Chapter 2: Welcome to 1960

If he could choose his life again, Lin Ran would never choose to spend the last day of 2019 stargazing at Cherry Spring National Park.

He had merely stepped away from his tent to find a spot to relieve himself, when he stumbled upon a strange glowing portal; overcome by curiosity, he approached to see what it was.

Then? Then there was no then.

When he regained consciousness, everything around him was pitch black.

Lin Ran did not suspect he had gone blind, because losing sight was less terrifying than losing hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

No matter how hard he tried to open his eyes, he could not feel their presence.

Around him was only empty darkness; silence and emptiness slowly rose in his heart.

No! There was light—he could sense a flame-like glow in the distance, steadily devouring the darkness.

Though he did not know what the light was, his intuition told him that once it consumed all the darkness, his consciousness would be consumed with it.

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind: “Did I stargaze, and now the stars are stargazing back at me? Have I been abducted by aliens?”

Lin Ran already regretted it; had he known, he would have rather spent the final day of the 2010s bored in his rented apartment or reading papers in the library than endure this.

Loss of consciousness could mean anything from a vegetative state to death.

From the initial flood of chaotic thoughts, over time his mind’s noise rapidly faded, leaving only endless pain and torment. Lin Ran fully understood why solitary confinement in a dark room was the ultimate torture.

Both his environment and the imminent loss of consciousness pushed him to the edge of collapse.

“No! I can’t die like this—if I’m gone, my mother won’t survive either.” As the only child in a single-parent household, Lin Ran knew exactly what he meant to his mother.

“No—consciousness cannot stop the fire’s spread!”

“Thinking won’t help either!”

“How can I possibly stop the fire from spreading?”

Lin Ran’s inner terror was so great that he didn’t even need to wait for the fire to consume his consciousness—his own negative emotions were enough to swallow him whole.

“I need to find something to do, or I’ll go mad—or worse, stupid,” Lin Ran thought.

As an outstanding graduate of the Aerospace Engineering program at Jiaotong University and a current Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Stony Brook University, New York State, his idea of “finding something to do” was to review the knowledge stored in his mind.

“Using GraphAI to solve various problems—including partial differential equations, bioinformatics, quantum physics, materials science...” Computer science was a vast field, and GraphAI was a new branch within it.

Lin Ran had always held a deep passion for aerospace, but he chose otherwise because Chinese citizens could never apply for American aerospace projects, let alone secure a Ph.D. with a scholarship.

So in the end, he abandoned his ideals and distant dreams for the sake of survival—whether staying in America or returning home, the prospects and income of a computer science Ph.D. far surpassed those of working in aerospace within China.

But GraphAI turned out to be a black hole—he hadn’t expected that.

“Design and Manufacturing, Principles of Automatic Control, Aerodynamics, Engineering Thermodynamics, Comprehensive Russian, Aircraft Design...” These were all his required major courses.

Yes, even Russian—English was only taught in his first year, while Russian spanned his entire first through third years.

From textbooks to lecture content to solved exercises, everything surfaced in his mind; compared to his current research topic, revisiting aerospace-related knowledge calmed his heart and eased some of the fear brought by the darkness.

“Functions, limits, derivatives, integrals, multivariable calculus...”

“Mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, optics, modern physics...”

“History of Aerospace Development, Types of Aircraft, Principles of Aerospace Technology...”

One by one, his courses unfolded in his consciousness; forgotten details were reawakened. Lin Ran realized that if he had studied this seriously back then, his GPA wouldn’t have just ranked him in the top five—he would have been number one.

The once tedious, dull Russian classes now felt fascinating—even if he had to sit in the front row and be splattered with the professor’s spittle, he would have welcomed it.

“All I can hope is that this is Всякаябеда–клучшемуприводит.”

This Russian phrase means: Misfortune may be a blessing in disguise.

After reviewing every university course from beginning to end, Lin Ran noticed strange changes occurring within him.

More and more forgotten details—fragments he had never noticed in class—were being revived; his brain’s computational power grew stronger.

As the fire devoured the darkness, it seemed to be tempering his mind.

Yet the fire’s advance showed no sign of slowing—he could even feel its heat, proving how close it was.

“If my life truly ends like this, dissolving into the ocean of knowledge doesn’t seem so bad.”

If his past mind had been an X86 computer, now it was supercomputer-tier—he could solve complex linear algebra problems—high-order determinants, large-scale linear systems, parametric linear equations—entirely by mental calculation.

Time cycled endlessly through pain, thought, and memory.

Lin Ran realized not only had his mental capacity improved dramatically, but his focus—once eroded by smartphones—had undergone a quantum leap; he could sustain deep thought for longer periods and enter flow states more easily.

“If I could return to the real world, I’d be an absolute top-tier genius!” Lin Ran thought—assuming he could return.

After reorganizing his past knowledge, Lin Ran finally redirected his focus to his current research: “Using artificial intelligence to solve the Navier-Stokes equations.”

Earlier, he called GraphAI a black hole because it was so new—everything could be done, yet nothing could be definitively done.

After Professor Samuel’s team at the University of Washington published their 2017 paper, “Data-driven discovery of partial differential equations,” AI-based equation solving entered public awareness.

Lin Ran had jumped into this pit.

Professor Samuel had worked on AI for partial differential equations; so had Lin Ran—but Navier-Stokes equations were the pinnacle.

The Navier-Stokes equations, one of the most profound problems in mathematics, stood alongside the Riemann Hypothesis and Goldbach’s Conjecture.

If a general analytical solution to the Navier-Stokes equations were found, aircraft design could determine optimal shapes under all conditions; wind power would no longer be “junk energy”—it could rival photovoltaics and nuclear power; car aerodynamics could achieve perfect efficiency...

In short, a general solution to the Navier-Stokes equations would provide optimal solutions to every real-world problem involving fluid flow—air, liquid, or solid.

Even if the Nobel or Fields Prize refused to award him, global scientists would protest en masse.

It was among the top mathematical problems, rare in that its solution would immediately and profoundly impact the real world.

But what Lin Ran was doing sounded impressive—using AI to solve the Navier-Stokes equations—yet in reality, he wasn’t seeking a general solution at all; he was merely performing minor work, finding solutions under specific conditions, a difficulty level reduced from finding a needle in a haystack to finding one in a bowl.

“But now I only have my mind—no computer?”

Lin Ran used his limited advanced mathematics to derive formulas in computational fluid dynamics.

From textbook numerical methods like finite difference, he derived higher-order finite difference, compact finite difference, and adaptive finite difference methods.

From finite element methods, he derived mixed finite element, discontinuous finite element, and isogeometric analysis finite element methods.

The instant he completed the derivation, he felt the fire’s advance slow—“Could it be that expanding the boundaries of knowledge is how I halt the fire?”

What conditions would be needed to completely extinguish it?

Could it really be that solving the Navier-Stokes equations entirely would do it?

From finite volume methods, he derived higher-order finite volume, unstructured finite volume, and dual-time-step finite volume methods.

In the absence of the five senses, mathematics became the sole source of beauty.

Step by step, he advanced toward the Navier-Stokes equations:

“If I assume an ideal flow on a two-dimensional plane, I can determine exact velocity and pressure fields by adding certain boundary conditions...”

“For viscous laminar flow in a circular pipe or between parallel plates, an exact parabolic velocity profile solution can be derived...”

The fire was being pushed back.

From plane Couette flow to Poiseuille flow, from circular pipe Hagen-Poiseuille flow to Taylor flow between rotating concentric cylinders...

Sudden startup of a plate or pipe, oscillating plate or rotating disk flows, two-dimensional or axisymmetric stagnation flow toward a plate...

When inertial forces vastly exceed viscous forces, the Navier-Stokes equations can be split into two regions: the outer region as uniform flow, and the inner region by neglecting the viscous term’s horizontal derivative, yielding a similarity solution...

The intricate mathematical edifice built by predecessors—once Lin Ran could only glimpse a corner—now he saw the whole structure, and even saw what other mathematicians had missed. He realized he might truly add a new layer to the entire mathematical edifice: the Navier-Stokes equations.

Lin Ran was inching closer to the general solution of the Navier-Stokes equations.

“How long has it been? I think I’ve found the general exact analytical solution to the Navier-Stokes equations!”

After verifying the general solution with various Navier-Stokes cases, Lin Ran felt he had truly done it—solving the Navier-Stokes equations with nothing but a basic fluid mechanics textbook was far more astonishing than achieving immortality through martial arts.

Though no great masters had verified it, no crowds witnessed it, no human world cheered, and no Nobel laurels crowned him—he knew he had endured endless time by contemplating the ultimate question, never lost his mind, never become a fool. His soul cheered for him; his spirit clapped for him.

“Professor Wang, who taught me calculus, would have no regrets if he knew he’d mentored a student who solved the Navier-Stokes equations.”

Before he could rejoice, the spreading fire was swallowed by darkness, and the blackness began to crumble bit by bit—colors slowly emerged before his eyes.

“Where the hell have they brought me?”

Whether the cars roaring past on the street, the clothing of passersby, or the giant “1960” on the crystal ball before him—

All told Lin Ran one precise message: Welcome to 1960.

“The neon ball marked ‘1960’ is 46.2 meters away; the air temperature here is about 15% higher than at Cherry Spring National Park; judging from the sun’s angle, the approximate time, and the surroundings, I’m likely still within New York State...”

The classic red design and the word “TELEPHONE” on the glass behind him confirmed it was a phone booth.

The vehicles passing by moved in slow motion; every license plate number was etched into his mind.

Lin Ran felt that if a bullet were fired at him now, he could perceive its trajectory and dodge it.

Countless pieces of information exploded like fireworks in his mind; his brain and body’s evolution were secondary—he realized his greatest gain was: “the door.”

“More precisely, I can now traverse between any door I’ve passed through—all doors are my anchors, and that white ring created a door to a 1960 parallel timeline: this phone booth behind me.”

“I have only one door in 1960, but countless doors in 2020?”

Doors he had passed through in the past surfaced one by one in his mind.

In the biting New York wind, Lin Ran stood outside the newsstand, stealing a copy of the New York Times, trying to understand his situation.

“In 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial Earth satellite, marking humanity’s entry into the space age...”

“On January 1, 1958, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community were officially established...”

“In 1958, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit...”

“Sir, ten cents for the New York Times New Year’s special edition.”

Putting down the paper, he stood on the snow beside the newsstand; an advertisement nearby showed a blonde woman smoking, with the slogan “Camel cigarettes—doctors love them!” half-obscured by snow.

Inside the public phone booth behind him, a young man in a tweed suit shouted into the receiver: “Houston’s country bumpkins don’t understand orbital calibration!”

Lin Ran turned and saw the man’s chest bore a silver NASA badge; the glass was fogged with condensation.

When Lin Ran came to his senses, he was inside a café lobby beside the phone booth; a cup of hot water sat on the table; a blonde, blue-eyed waitress behind the counter smiled warmly at him, and across from him sat the young man from the phone booth.

“Sir, you mentioned orbital calibration—I believe I might be able to assist you.”