Top minds inspire student

Have you ever dreamed of meeting top scientists in person? If so, what would you want to ask them?
你是否梦想着和顶尖科学家面对面交流？如果有机会的话，你会问他们些什么呢？

For Tan Fanglin, a 15-year-old girl from No 2 High School of East China Normal University in Shanghai, her dream of meeting top scientists has already come true.
对于来自上海华东师大二附中的15岁女孩谈方琳而言，她和顶尖科学家见面的梦想已经实现了。

In October, she attended the World Laureates Forum for a second time, which had attracted 44 Nobel Prize laureates and 21 other world-class award winners.
今年10月，她第二次参加世界顶尖科学家论坛，该论坛吸引了44位诺奖得主以及21位获得世界级奖项的科学家参加。

Tan was by far the youngest participant among the scientists invited to be at the meeting of the world’s sharpest minds. Her discovery about the relationship between the Fibonacci sequence and Bézout numbers has won her many prizes in youth innovation competitions both in Shanghai and elsewhere in China.
在这场全球顶级的科学盛会上，谈方琳是受邀科学家中年纪最小的一位。她的研究成果是菲波那契数列与贝祖数的估计，这项发现令她在上海乃至全国的青少年创新大赛上多次获奖。

Her research is not just related to some complex concepts, but rather she made a breakthrough for estimating the upper and lower bounds of Bézout numbers. This finding has been praised by the famous Canadian mathematician, Professor Rankin, who provided an estimator in his issue published in American Mathematical Monthly in 2013. According to Guangming Daily, Rankin has been studying the same theme for five years but with no conclusions.
她的研究不仅仅是一些复杂概念，还在贝祖数的最佳上界和下界的估计问题上有所突破。这项发现获得了加拿大著名数学家兰金教授的盛赞，2013年，他在《美国数学月刊》上发表的文章中给出了一个估计式。据《光明日报》报道，兰金研究该课题5年却毫无头绪。

From a very young age, Tan has always been fascinated by mathematics. This is largely because of the influence of her father, who teaches mathematics in East China Normal University. But she had not participated in any Mathematics Olympiad exams before, which she finds will be very time consuming.
谈方琳从小就对数学着迷。这点很大程度上受其父亲的影响，她的父亲是华东师范大学的一位数学老师。但她先前并未参加任何数学奥林匹克竞赛，她觉得这些比赛很费时间。

According to Xu Jun, Tan’s head teacher from her middle and high school, she doesn’t take after-school classes or too many extra exercises either. Her mastering of Further Mathematics and her good grades in school are thanks to the right study method. Her mother told Guangming Daily that Tan always treats studying and life with a positive mindset so she can feel happy while studying.
据谈方琳初中及高中校长许军介绍，谈方琳从来不在外补课，也不刷题。她对高等数学的掌握和在学校里取得的优秀成绩都源于正确的学习方法。谈方琳的母亲在接受《光明日报》采访时表示，孩子一直都是以积极的心态来面对学习和生活，所以学习的时候很快乐。

Attending this forum enabled Tan to get more inspiration from top scientists. She even got the opportunity to talk with Gero Miesenbock, the 2019 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize winner and the founder of optogenetics.
参加此次论坛让谈方琳从顶尖科学家的身上获得了更多启发。她甚至还获得了与世界光遗传学创始人、2019年沃伦阿尔珀特奖获得者吉罗·麦森伯克交谈的机会。

She asked Professor Miesenbock what he considered were the best personal qualities for conducting scientific research.
她向麦森伯克请教科学研究最重要的个人品质是什么。

Miesenbock encouraged her not to lose her passion and love for what she does. He said that accepting failures is crucial for researchers. He stressed that people all knew that even Thomas Edison went through hundreds of unsuccessful attempts before finally inventing the light bulb.
麦森伯克鼓励她不要失去对所做之事的激情与热爱。他表示，对于一个科学工作者而言，接受失败至关重要。他还强调，大家都知道，爱迪生发明灯泡还经历了数百次失败呢。

Tan has met many barriers in her research and often feels upset. The words made Tan feel inspired. “I will keep my curiosity and interests in mathematics and overcome any obstacles in my research,” she told Chinese Business View.
谈方琳在研究中曾遇到过许多困难，常常觉得沮丧。麦森伯克的这番话让谈方琳备受鼓舞。“我会继续保持对数学的好奇心和兴趣，克服研究中遇到的任何困难，”她在接受《华商报》采访时如此表示。

以上文章内容选自《21世纪学生英文报高中版》，详情请见《21世纪学生英文报高中版》高三697期