allonlinenovel Chapter 199 The Pirate Ship Sailing Towards the Abyss
Chapter 199 The Pirate Ship Sailing Towards the Abyss
"Shut up, because Boston doesn't have any damn city planners at all."
It's the only city in the entire United States that was completely unplanned and allowed to grow wildly like a malignant tumor!
Not far away, Ellie, a top student who always gets perfect scores in American history, rubbed her frozen hands and pulled up her coat collar to ward off the cold wind, explaining through gritted teeth:
"The city's road network was built on the foundation of those crooked carriage roads from the 17th century, and was gradually and rigidly expanded outwards."
Therefore, its signal system can only be pieced together, like patches on a beggar's clothes, taking it one step at a time...
In short, it's a hopeless mess.
The truth is even more terrifying than Ellie described.
Looking around, the irregular roundabouts and the outrageous one-way streets are intertwined in a complex and tangled manner, like wildly growing vines.
What's worse is that each intersection has its own independent traffic light rules, completely disregarding the lives of those nearby.
In some places, the left turn signal turns on first as if by magic, while in other places the straight and left turn signals turn on simultaneously without any logic, forcing drivers to play a thrilling urban bumper car game.
Even on the same street, the signal switching patterns in the morning and afternoon can be completely different, as if the system itself has schizophrenia.
In short, this is a chaotic system with so many variables that it could drive any supercomputer crazy.
To complete this project, the three of them tried to follow the proper procedures of all top university elites and apply to the Boston Department of Transportation for some internal operational data.
However, the other party arrogantly rejected the offer with the high-sounding reason of "involving city safety."
Ultimately, they searched the entire internet and found very little publicly available information, only four items:
Daily traffic flow, average vehicle speed on each road segment, macro congestion index, and a "signal optimization project" proposal that the city government is still struggling to push forward and that seems to be never going to be completed.
Among a pile of data that looked like scraps of paper, Su Hao showed great interest in the last one, a proposal that seemed to be used to scam funding.
It was a massive project spearheaded by the city hall with a budget of up to two hundred million US dollars.
Ironically, this project, which cost a fortune and brought together numerous so-called experts...
To this day, it continues to devour taxpayers' money like a black hole, failing to produce any substantial improvements, not even a 1% reduction in congestion.
Two hundred million dollars vanished in a flash.
"Taking over and completing this stalled 'signal optimization project,' doesn't that sound like a really cool thing?"
At the discussion that day, Su Hao made this suggestion with shining eyes.
At that moment, the other two people almost reflexively and frantically shook their heads like rattles!
"I don't think so! I don't think so at all!" Jason exclaimed in horror.
"That's not cool at all, that's suicide," Ellie rejected categorically.
Su Hao, however, seemed not to hear their protests and excitedly continued speaking to himself:
"Think about it, what if we could use this $200 million unfinished project as a starting point and use our model to completely open it up?"
This could absolutely produce an outstanding paper that would cause a sensation in academia and even have great engineering application value!
Using pure mathematics, we can forcefully optimize the chaotic system of the world's worst city in terms of traffic!
Just imagining the scene of algorithms analyzing millions of traffic flows is exhilarating!
"I don't feel excited at all, I just feel like I'm having a heart attack!" Ellie rolled her eyes.
"Me too, I don't want to fail my course and I don't want to die suddenly!" Jason echoed, his voice trembling with tears.
That being said, reality is harsh.
When the cold morning wind blew again, the two men resigned themselves to their fate and stood at the crossroads, enduring the northwest wind.
In this team built around Su Hao's brain as the absolute core engine, the vast difference in intelligence and ability leaves them with no room for rebuttal.
In the end, they were forcibly bound to this pirate ship heading towards the abyss by Su Hao's unstoppable, fervent academic impulse.
"My God! I'm just a freshman, I don't have the brains to reconstruct that slime-like, disgusting signal system of this megacity!"
Standing in the cold wind, watching the traffic lights malfunction once again, Jason let out a desperate scream from the depths of his soul.
"Save your breath. Nobody expected you to have the brains to refactor the system anyway." Ellie glared at him.
"You just need to be a mindless tool and record the time data accurately, down to the second."
Actually, Su Hao originally planned to personally take the stopwatch and stand in the wind to record these tedious initial data.
But as soon as he expressed this idea, Ellie sternly pushed him back into his seat.
"Sit down! You're responsible for using your brain."
Ellie pointed at Su Hao's nose, her tone domineering yet carrying a strange undercurrent of submission.
"This kind of manual labor that requires no skill and only involves hard work is perfect for the two of us. Good steel should be used where it's needed most!"
At that moment, Su Hao, deprived of the joy of recording data, showed a frustrated expression similar to that of someone who hadn't gotten their favorite toy, and could only stay quietly in the back.
A gust of cold wind blew by, pulling Ellie back to reality from her memories.
Standing in the gray morning light of Boston, looking at the densely filled data table in her hand, she suddenly fell into deep self-doubt.
She rubbed her cold cheeks and asked herself what terrible things her mother had done.
With only a college course assignment, a team project worth just a few credits, and a mere three people, they dared to try to improve the traffic signal network of the entire city of Boston.
This kind of thing, no matter which rational scholar on Earth sees it, is an act of utter madness!
Keep in mind that this is a tough nut to crack – titanium alloy – that even the Boston Transportation Authority, which brings together top transportation experts from across the United States and even the world, couldn't crack even after spending two hundred million dollars!
Those three freshmen, how are they supposed to eat that?!
Even though it was so absurd, she inexplicably accepted this almost impossible project without any real resistance!
In the biting cold wind, Ellie delved into her own heart, trying to find a reasonable explanation.
Suddenly, she realized a fact that shocked even herself:
After witnessing Su Hao casually sketch the word "life" on the blackboard...
All her academic pride, which belonged to top geniuses, had been completely crushed and subdued by that unfathomable intelligence without her even realizing it!
Subconsciously, she harbored an inexplicable, even blind, expectation that this peer, who was even younger than her, could absolutely create miracles!
I hope that the boy who can see through the laws governing the workings of everything can truly use a mortal's pen to trace the path of the gods in this world!
They were able to easily smash this deadly situation that had trapped countless top figures to pieces!