Chapter 30 - The Power Of No

This was a summon by the Subject Leader, even if the old crone was unwilling to cut the dressing down of Mo Li short, she had no choice. She looked at the other students, and announced, "This period will be for self revision then!"

The old crone then led Mo Li to find the professor. They walked into Tao Ren's office and noticed the senior professor was in the middle of calculating something. Just as the old crone wanted to say something, Mo Li stopped her. There were many formulas and equations on the white board and they piqued Mo Li's interest.

Field Cricket: TF = 50 + [(N-40)/4] ..

"Prof. Tao, are we interrupting?" Miss Sun was like a little mouse when Prof Tao was around, after all, Tao Wen was her superior. She didn't dare to be rude with him lest she lost her job.

"I believe Prof. Tao is calculating the frequency of a cricket's chirps." Mo Li reached that conclusion based on the formulas on the board as well as the sound of cricket chirping inside the office. Mo Li found the old professor to be quite interesting.

Hearing Mo Li's voice, Tao Wen put down the pen and guffawed, "Girl, you continue to amaze me! Ha ha!

"I've told my friend that this cricket I bought is an Oecanthus fultoni but they refuse to believe me. So we made a bet to see who was correct. And I'm trying to prove them wrong through calculations!"

After hearing that, Miss Sun's face turned away with disgust. She made sure that the old man didn't see her face. The school truly has wasted a good office to accommodate this old man. Who would be so free to do something like this?

"Prof. Tao sure likes to joke, how can one possibly use math to prove the identity of a cricket?"

This old man really is as weird as they come. Rumors say that he has a driver's license but he never drives; the temperature inside his office has to be fixed to a certain degree; and he would decide the menu for his whole week on every Mondays. Perhaps the rumors are true after all. Creepy old men and their strange habits!

If he's not truly capable, the school would have fired him a long time ago.

Mo Li gave the old crone a sideways glance and said, "Prof. Tao is not joking, there is scientific basis behind what is he doing. The physicist, Professor Dobel has once proved the relationship between environment temperature and chirping frequency of crickets. In fact, the famed physicist published the formula to calculate that particular relationship for Oecanthus fultoni in 1897."

Mo Li professed the fact matter-of-factly.

No one inside Prof. Tao's office realized that Mo Li's voice also was being broadcasted all over school. This was the work of the school's News Department. They had tailed Mo Li and Miss Sun to Professor Tao's office. They pasted a chip to the office door. The chip could transmit sounds live and it was connected to the school's speakers. In other words, everything that was said inside the office would be heard all over the school.

When Qiao Qing heard Mo Li say these things, she was stunned. When has she studied on these things?

Seeing the confusion on Miss Sun's face, Mo Li continued to explain, "Different cricket species has different chirping frequency. So using the correlation of temperature and their chirping frequency to determine the species of a cricket is entirely possible."

"But..." Tao Wen said with a frown, "The formula shows that this is just a normal field cricket and not Oecanthus fultoni!"

But how is that possible? The calculations are correct, the room temperature is something the Prof has personally set, but the result was not the one he had wished for.

Mo Li walked towards the temperature control panel and pressed on it twice. "If I have to guess, Prof. Tao, someone has been meddling with your office's temperature panel," she turned to Prof. Tao and said with a smile.

The old professor studied Mo Li and then asked a random question, "What is your favorite number?"

"73."

"Why?"

"73 is a prime number, and it's the 21st prime number. Incidentally, 37 is the 12th prime number, they form an interesting palindrom."

"If you're tasked to prank someone who is a physicist, mathematician and chemist, how would you do it?"

"I will make a cocktail of hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide and dish washing agent. I'll wait for it to release heat before I throw it into his office. The chemical process would produce oxygen, creating a large amount of bubbly foam."

"What is your childhood hobby?"

"I used to like to mix 3 parts corn starch and 1 part water to make non-newtonian fluid and place them on a speaker to watch it dance."

Tao Wen nodded with satisfaction. He found the girl to be quite interesting.

"Are you willing to represent the school to participate in the IMO competition?"

"No." Mo Li answered decisively, leaving no room for negotiation.