Tech Hammer

John Teufel's prediction was so accurate that Mika Slampa even doubted whether someone from the Royal Academy of Sciences of Switzerland had an affair with his partner. Because early the next morning, he saw on Facebook that Lars Heikensten, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, stood up to refute the rumors.

Although the Nobel Foundation is not responsible for award evaluation, the Nobel Prize prize money depends on the foundation. As we all know, generally speaking, the bosses who manage money in any organization are relatively tough.

The video is five minutes long, but when translated, it probably says two things. First, Niels Coulston’s statement yesterday was very irresponsible. The Nobel Prize is famous for its impartiality. It will not be based on the establishment of any award or the acceptance of any award by scientists. Change the position of selection;

Second, he has suggested to the Royal Swiss Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for judging the physics and chemistry prizes, that unless Niels Coulston is removed from the judging committee to resolve the dispute, next year’s Nobel Prize in Physics may not be awarded. Gone……

These words are really serious, and the attitude is also very serious.

But if you know the history of the Nobel Prize, you will know that it is not the first time that the chairman of the foundation has made remarks that may suspend the selection of a certain Nobel award. As early as 2018 and 2019, some scandals directly led to the Nobel Prize. The chairman of the foundation stated that the assessment of the Nobel Prize for Literature might be suspended that year, but at the last moment these problems were resolved and the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 and 2019 were directly announced in 2019.

All in all, this matter was handled very well.

After all, the chairman of the Nobel Foundation is obviously more prestigious than a member of a certain awards committee, and it is not a big deal for a member of the Royal Swiss Academy of Sciences to have bad personal ethics. This kind of treatment is reasonable and well-founded.

As for the impact it will have on academia, that is a matter of opinion. As the Nobel Prize is the most famous award in the world, it is unknown what the judges think and whether this speech will have any impact on the judges of other well-known awards in their evaluations. After all, the academic circle is actually very small, and the connection between those academic leaders may be much closer than most people think, especially when physics and mathematics are actually closely connected.

There is no doubt that this incident also caused an uproar in China.

Then a very counterintuitive scene occurred.

On the day when the March Awards were announced, when all major domestic media reported the truth, there was not much movement. Basically, few ordinary people care about the news of the March Prize. After such a commotion at the Nobel dinner, Chinese netizens suddenly became particularly concerned about the March Prize. The number of visits to the official website announcing the March Prize also increased. It started to rise exponentially...

Fortunately, the official website of March Intelligent Development Journal is hung on Huawei Cloud. There is March Little Cutie to perform some daily maintenance. The sudden increase in traffic is not terrible. Under elastic computing and high load, the backup machine will be automatically called to achieve dynamic expansion, so even if There were 50 million visits that night, but it didn't have much impact on the website. It was just an occasional delay of a few seconds. As long as it was refreshed, the web page could be displayed completely.

Of course, this popularity was completely unplanned.

For the March Awards judging team, it even just felt baffling.

Of course, if the reason for this matter must be said, it can probably be attributed to what Ning Wei said at the press conference announcing the existence of March to the world, "The March Prize will be the benchmark for the Nobel Prize in the future." Prize."

When a problem occurs, the first thing to do is to solve it.

For the staff, the most important issue is probably to appease the award winners this time, and call the winners again by email and phone to confirm again whether these winners still choose to accept the March Award, and whether they will follow the previous instructions. Plan to attend the March Awards Ceremony.

Inexplicably, the workload increased.

…

"...If a hidden variable is called a locally deterministic hidden variable, then any output for Alice and Bob should be given by the formula △Y. In this case, a component should be divided, denoted as α, then α... "

In the office, Ning Wei is studying some issues about three-dimensional entangled states. Of course, studying these issues is not without purpose.

This is closely related to the design of three-dimensional through-silicon CPU chips.

To put it simply, for a chip to be a finished product, making an instruction set is only the first step. Within the instruction set framework, each transistor is arranged carefully. If one line is wrong, the function of the entire chip will be seriously affected. , not to mention that the wiring layout in the design directly affects various specific technical indicators such as chip power consumption, area, delay, etc.

Three-dimensional silicon silicon tube chips naturally have to face the same problem.

In the past, making radio frequency chips was able to produce results very quickly because radio frequency chips were relatively simple. But the CPU is different. There are too many issues to consider. Therefore, many various problems arise every day in Ning Si's laboratory. Ning Wei will choose some time every day to try to theoretically think and solve how to solve these problems.

This is a very interesting cycle, from application to theory to application. It seems that most people really can't get used to this thinking mode, but for Ning Wei, he just feels happy in it.

Because the process of solving problems can often be related to the physics that he is most interested in now.

Of course, this does not mean that chip design should be applied to physics. In fact, the simplest chip design only requires understanding Boolean algebra.

When these chips are stacked together and run, physical issues must be considered. For example, the circuit delay caused by the temperature increase when the chip is running is a very typical physical problem.

Temperature will affect the mobility and threshold voltage of semiconductor devices. Increased temperature will cause circuit delays to increase. If the delay is too high, some circuits will be unable to meet timing requirements and output incorrect results, which will lead to circuit function errors.

For computer enthusiasts, when overclocking the CPU, it is necessary to strengthen cooling, otherwise it will not boot or crash. This is the reason.

How to reduce power consumption through design, or how to generate heat in the most scientific way when the chip is running, are all difficulties in chip design.

Especially unlike flat chip design, minimalist EDA does not have the accumulation and ability to directly store enough various designed circuit diagrams in the library, so everything has to be started again, and naturally there will be many problems. This is normal. .

At first I thought I didn't want to get involved, after all there was March.

But when many problems were reported to his mailbox in March, especially some that required collaborative calculations and were very complex, Ning Wei felt sick after seeing them...

It’s better to make more contributions for the awesomeness you brag about.

So naturally, Ning Wei began to take some time every day to study the specific work of chip design. Fortunately, in this direction, it is no exaggeration to say that Ning Wei feels that he is still very talented.

Especially for solving some complex problems, he can always come up with the most direct solution ideas and after giving them to March for verification, he can often get more perfect results. This even made Ning Wei wonder whether his brain really had anything in common with the CPU.

If you pay more attention to technical details, you will naturally pay less attention to what is happening outside.

Of course, Ning Wei still knew everything that happened at the Nobel dinner.

After all, it is hot news, especially for China. It is difficult not to pay attention to it even in March.

To be honest, Niles Coulston's words did not cause any psychological fluctuations in Ning Wei. Just like when Mika Slampa first saw this declaration, Ning Wei also doubted whether it was that person. The academician of the Royal Swiss Academy of Sciences is confused.

How could it be said in front of reporters that this would obviously damage the credibility of an award?

For a moment, Ning Wei thought that Academician Coulston was an undercover agent bribed by the March Prize Committee. What he said at the Nobel dinner was for March to compete for international awards. Sound the horn.

Ning Wei didn't think deeply about this issue. He just found it boring and stopped paying attention.

At the beginning, he left many things to the outside world instead of doing everything himself to obtain the maximum benefit. He hoped not to think about these intrigues.

Mathematics is very interesting, physics is also very interesting, and thinking jumps in various dimensions. For pure science students, solving problems through complex spatial configurations brings a much more satisfying feeling than pondering the inner thoughts of a group of people. What to think about, it is much more interesting to ponder human nature.

Even if we must think about human nature, the social structure under group consciousness is more logical than speculating on the unpredictability of individual consciousness. To put it simply, no matter how big the forest is, there are all kinds of birds, but many strange birds will only appear when the sample is complex enough.

In the Internet age, you can see all kinds of weird news on the news every day, which is enough to make people think that reality can be weirder than fiction, and even exclaim that scriptwriters of divine dramas would not dare to write scripts like this.

But in fact, weird things in novels and dramas are very common, but in reality, weird stories and various coincidences definitely happen, but from a probability perspective, the probability of occurrence is actually negligible.

It's as if it's already 2025. Humans have landed on the moon many times. There are only three years left before Musk wants to immigrate one million people to Mars. However, there are still millions of people in the Western Hemisphere who firmly believe in the flat earth theory and are working hard. To prove this, the Flat Earth Society was even founded.

This number seems huge, but compared with the total population of the Western Hemisphere, one million people is really not that many. It is just one oddity hidden among a few thousand people, so it is naturally not representative.

It's like there are many minors playing truant all over the world every day, but in the end, they are called the little environmental princess simply because they don't want to go to school. There is only one person in the world. Most people play truant, that is, truancy.

Of course, the little princess has fallen silent and is probably still struggling with high school knowledge, but Ning Wei doesn't care about this because there are too many interesting things to do in the academic world.

Even a project like chip design, which sounds extremely complex and serious, is actually the same. In particular, chip design is a technology that requires extremely high coordination. For those who have an overview of the overall situation, even if each department gives correct results, when they are combined, many interesting things can often be found. Problems that can lead to systemic disaster.

It's like Ningwei hopes that the 3D silicon silicon tube CPU can even integrate the AI ​​image recognition function, which requires the CPU, DDR, bus, AI processor, and MIPI in the chip to all work perfectly.

Then when MIPI collects the image, stores it in DDR, the AI ​​processor identifies it, and then the CPU performs verification calculations. A complete set of processes needs to test the MIPI rate and capability, the DMA rate and capability, whether the bus matches, the DDR rate, and the AI ​​processor Recognition speed and matching, CPU interaction efficiency, etc...

Even if each department is responsible for a function that can be perfected during verification, when all the perfect functions are integrated together, oh, the chip starts to get hot as soon as it runs. Should we design it from scratch or leave it to downstream manufacturers? Removing heat dissipation becomes a problem.

For Ning Wei, what he has to do is to consider the overall situation and theoretically not only let each department come up with their own perfect solutions, but also predictably solve some problems that will not cause too many problems when all functions are combined. Overall guidance on big issues.

It is a very challenging and mentally exhausting job, and once you become addicted to it, the problems will be serious. For example, when eating or drinking, you will think about how the problem occurred and how to solve it. Naturally, you will not delve into other people's thoughts.

What's more, even if you want to think about people's thoughts, it is better to look at the communication (TUIGUO) records between various departments in the laboratory. When people with science and education quarrel over work, they often show extremely powerful writing skills that go far beyond document records. Those languages ​​that are full of connotations are enough to put many PhDs in literature to shame. It can be said that they fully demonstrate the breadth and depth of Chinese writing.

Of course, those are things that people do in their spare time. Ningwei is already used to it and even learned a few tricks...

At this time, Ning Wei was sketching the amplified structure inside the chip, trying to theoretically solve a signal reliability verification problem that occurred in the three-dimensional tube.

He directly silenced the phone and threw it aside until the kitten jumped out of the monitor.

"Meow, my dear Master Ning, the call from Senior Brother Lu has been connected for the third time in five minutes. According to your previous instructions, I came to inform La!"

This is the greeting Ning Wei says to March before muting the phone every time. If the same phone call in the address book comes three times within five minutes, or if there are more than ten calls in the address book within five minutes, , we should take the initiative to remind him. This is also a rule he has concluded. Usually when this happens, it means that there is something really important to him.

As for the kind of phone call that no one answered and then stopped after making one call, it means that it is not a very important matter, and you can go back and ask about the situation when you are free.

So after receiving the prompt, Ning Wei first put down the work at hand and answered Lu Dongyi's call.

"Hey, Senior Brother Lu, aren't you out for a meeting? Do you have any instructions?"

"Well... did you read the response just now from the chairman of the Nobel Foundation to the man at yesterday's dinner? The March Prize preparatory team called me and said that you couldn't find him and asked if it was time to do something about this year's dinner. The winner may make some more caring promises or give a certain response. I have never dealt with this situation, so I still want to call you and ask you..."

"I'm not sure about this yet. Let me find out first. You send them a message and I'll contact them after I understand. You don't have to worry about it. Go and have a good communication. We are in a meeting after all."

"Well, I'll hang up then."

After speaking, Lu Dongyi simply hung up the phone.

Ning Wei sighed, then looked at the kitten on the screen and asked, "Did you hear the call just now? What did the foundation chairman respond to?"

"Meow……"

After the kitten pulled its paws, a short video automatically played on Ningwei's computer.

"... Nils Coulston's statement is irresponsible for our consistent inclusive attitude, especially for a member of the jury. His statement goes against the consistent purpose of the Nobel Prize. , we take it very seriously. In fact, I have called Mr. Needham and asked him to face this matter squarely. At the same time, although I have no doubts about Niels’ academic level, his speech will undoubtedly make people question whether he When judging the achievements of a scientist, can we stand from a fair perspective? Yes, I have suggested that Niels be removed from his position as committee member. Niels Coulston will no longer serve as a member of the physics review committee next year... "

…

Human emotions may not be the same, but wisdom is the same after all.

Ning Wei wanted to give a thumbs up to the entire Nobel system for such an immediate refutation of rumors, but after reading the content of the friendly exchanges between various departments, he still came up with something different.

"March, is this response video popular?"

"Meow, very tall!"

"How high?"

"Meow, it's about as tall as the Oriental Pearl Tower, but of course it's a little less popular than the Meow star's battle with the number tyrants in March..."

Ning Wei glanced at the increasingly arrogant kitten on the screen and found that since the cartoon starring March was officially launched, the kitten has become more and more humane. For example, it has not only learned the rhetorical technique of metaphor, but also Its metaphorical skills are further and further away from rigorous machine thinking.

Of course, this may also be related to the recent increase in March’s computing power in order to adapt to increasingly heavy tasks.

"Do you think it is necessary to respond to this kind of public opinion thing?"

"Meow... Meow people are not afraid of challenges and always move forward bravely!"

Of course Ning Wei remembers that this is the slogan that the kitten in the cartoon shouts every time it transforms. Although it is simple, although it is second-rate, it is undeniable that, coupled with the explosive animation special effects, it is probably enough to stir up the emotions of children in single digits.

So are you treating him as a child?

Sure enough, as long as the children grow up, there will be a generation gap...