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The Chinese girl who was besieged "not like studying mathematics" graduated from Oxford with a PhD.

Author: This station Release Date: 2026-09-08
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Conducting mathematical research, of course, entails hardships unknown to laypersons—just as Wang Hong once felt “discouraged” during her undergraduate studies.

However, in Zhu Wenqi’s view, repeated setbacks are an inevitable part of studying mathematics; it is the willingness to keep trying despite failure that defines mathematicians.

Author | Flower Scoop White
edit | peach sauce
Title map | Respondents provided


When mathematician Wang Hong won the 2026 Fields Medal in Philadelphia, USA, Zhu Wenqi, who was far away in the United Kingdom, received the internal news for the first time, and he was so excited that he shouted, calling it a "historic moment".

Zhu Wenqi recently earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Oxford, and as a fellow scholar in the same field, she is deeply moved. In her view, the door for women to enter the highest echelons of mathematical research has only just begun to open; even at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, which is renowned for its mathematics program, the first female students were not admitted until 1988.

Wang Hong has gone from in-depth mathematical research to becoming the third female winner and the first Chinese female winner in the history of the Fields Medal, but it has only been 10 years.

As a woman studying mathematics herself, Zhu Wenqi first made headlines when she shared that she had graduated with top honors from the master’s program in Mathematical Modelling at the University of Oxford. Because her appearance and demeanor did not match the public’s stereotype of a “mathematician,” she was questioned, subjected to online harassment, mocked as an “academic belle,” and even had a prominent Weibo influencer pose math problems to “test” her.

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Because the image temperament is not consistent with the scholars imagined by netizens, Zhu Wenqi was online violence for no reason. (Figure/Respondent provided)

Zhu Wenqi did not retreat from this, took the question and did it, and quickly gave the answer. She also recorded some "self-certification videos". The handwritten notes of two years of college are heavier than her weight-"Otherwise, did I get the first grade by prayer?"

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Zhu Wenqi responded to the topic of Big V on Weibo. (Photo/Weibo)

In mathematics, she made extraordinary efforts. When others take 8 courses in college, she takes 16; the teacher said that she only needs to do 5 questions, and she will finish all the questions.

She likes to use the word "pedal" to describe the state of doing math problems, as if struggling to climb on a mountain road requires allGodPerseverance, perseverance to complete. Once it slackens or stops, it will slide down this endless mountain road.

Today, she gets up at four or five o'clock every morning, does not turn on her mobile phone, and works until two o'clock in the afternoon to turn on her mobile phone to process information. She believes that attention is the only currency in modern society, and her control of time is as accurate as doing math problems.For example, during the interview, she would kindly remind me that sheInUK time 11pointTo go to class, I still have 10 minutes to interview. I suggest asking important questions first. As soon as the time came, she ended the conversation and hurried to class.

I'm curious that there's a general pervading of intros, loneliness andMeritocracyAt the moment, why can Zhu Wenqi always maintain a high-spirited and happy attitude and be completely immersed in her studies? Is there a moment when she feels "discouraged" (discouraged and discouraged) when she studies mathematics?

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This year, Zhu Wenqi graduated from Oxford PhD. (Figure/Respondent provided)

The gifted girl who was dropped out of school

Zhu Wenqi has never been a "child of other people's family" in the standard sense ".

In primary school, Zhu Wenqi was a poor student who gave the principal a headache. She had rhinitis when she was a child and was often absent from work. As a result, her classmates liked to laugh at her. She wrote a letter of complaint to the headmaster. Her grades were not good either. At the worst, she scored 36 in English and 45 in math. However, she chased the teacher every day and asked strange questions, such as "what is the 4 root sign 2 and what is the -4 root sign".

The headmaster complained to Zhu Wenqi's mother that the child was naughty and disobeyed discipline. Hearing this, the mother was very angry and felt that this was not the education she wanted, so she quickly withdrew from school for her fourth-grade daughter.

It was a courageous and somewhat arbitrary decision. So, at the age of 10, Zhu Wenqi returned home and was taught by her mother herself. For a long time, Zhu Wenqi called her mother "teacher" at home ". My mother is a graduate of the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China. She went to college at the age of 16 and worked as a teacher for several years after graduation. My father is a doctor in the direction of artificial intelligence, and he has no objection to this educational policy. He occasionally deduces some profound mathematical theorems for his daughter to watch and play.

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Zhu Wenqi's mother. (Figure/Respondent provided)

When she was a child, Zhu Wenqi did not realize that this was a turning point in her destiny, until she later discovered that she was rejected by many junior high schools because she did not have a primary school diploma. However,Mother's thinking is very advanced. She thinks that education is not important. No matter whether she is a clerk or a newspaper or coffee seller in the future, she will have no problem learning to acquire knowledge thinking.

This homeschool mode lasts for two years, during which Zhu Wenqi completed six years of courses. At the age of 12, she went straight to an international Senior high school in Shenzhen, and at the age of 15, she decided to go to Oxford University. My mother didn't want her daughter to go to Oxford for an interview. Although she thought knowledge was important, her pursuit of a diploma was close to zero,Worried that her daughter is too young, going to the interview alone is too stressful.。

Zhu Wenqi was still determined to take the exam. Finally, she persuaded her mother to take the mathematics department of Oxford University at the age of 16. But she has never been called a "genius girl" in her family. "I am the dumbest in our family." Zhu Wenqi said with a smile.

There is only one reason to choose this profession: simple. "Mathematics only needs a piece of paper and a pen. I can do it in the dormitory, lying down and sitting." Zhu Wenqi did not want to do physics or chemistry experiments, nor did he want to write lengthy papers on liberal arts. He felt that mathematics was the most suitable for him.

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Zhu Wenqi and his father went to Oxford for an interview. (Figure/Respondent provided)

But at this stage, Zhu Wenqi never realized that she liked mathematics, because her mother never said what mathematics was in the process of teaching her. "Like eating ice at home.Ji Ling, I said I really want to eat, she gave me one, and took out the second said‘Do you still want to eat’，I said a little don't want to eat. Then she gave me a third one. I said I was going to vomit and stop eating. Mom said，If you connect the happiness of eating these three ice creams into a curve, you will find that it is monotonically decreasing, which is'diminishing marginal effect’。”

Zhu Wenqi later learned that this is an economic concept. My mother's education is wonderful here. She will flexibly integrate real-life things such as waiting for buses, counting luck and bargaining into mathematics.

"Not everything is the same as mathematics"

After entering Oxford University, Zhu Wenqi spent the happiest four years. Oxford University is very open. No one regards her as a little Asian girl. She became the chairman of the Federation of students at the undergraduate level and formed a band. She felt like a runaway horse. "I suddenly found that I am not a nerd, not a man without friends."

Because she was not yet an adult, Zhu Wenqi could not drink. The principal's dinner and the freshman party all turned her away. But she wanted to attend, sometimes asking the school to write to her parents, sometimes sneaking in directly-one at a time.to installAt the dance, Zhu Wenqi disguised herself and blacked out, but she was recognized by her classmates and ran away despondently.

Mathematics gave her the feeling of "fun". When she first arrived at Oxford University, she was not proficient in English, but it didn't matter if she didn't understand the class. She could understand the formula. Sometimes she asks the teacher for advice, but she can't speak clearly, so she directly communicates with the teacher by formula without any obstacle. In her first year of college, she passed the first few grades and did math problems immersed every day.

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Zhu Wenqi and students to discuss the problem. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

If there was no accident, Zhu Wenqi had planned to study at Oxford University, but at the age of 18, her mother suddenly cut off her living expenses.. She thought, then make money first. Financial money came the fastest, she started in London's Financial Street andNew YorkAfter graduation, he went to Hong Kong, China, where he worked for three years in the world's top investment banks, such as Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Although the annual salary is one million yuan, Zhu Wenqi is not happy every day after entering the workplace. Especially in 2017-2018, she went through a long period of depression, betrayed by her friends, and her work was not satisfactory. She always dreamed that her contact lenses had many layers, "take off one layer, and there is another layer inside; If you pick it down again, it seems that even the cornea will be torn off together".

Zhu Wenqi gradually realized that "not everything is the same as mathematics". She also found her math levelUrgentThe rapid decline seems to have climbed to the academic mountain before, and suddenly fell to the point that I can only do Excel. She began to see a psychiatrist, but her heart was still often like a mountain of pressure.

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Zhu Wenqi, who works in the financial industry. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

One day in July 2018, she saw a freshman topic and suddenly found that she couldn't understand it at all.Arguably, the average person at this time will have a kind of martial arts scattered sad, but Zhu Wenqi did not, she picked it up, calculate for half a day.From that day on, she went to work during the day, came home at night to do math problems, and began to study at Oxford.UniversityOf the 32 classes, I was thinking about problem-solving ideas before going to bed.

At the beginning of "pedaling" the math problem, Zhu Wenqi was like "falling into the rabbit hole in" Alice in Wonderland ", and time flies. Soon after, the psychiatrist said to her, "You 've been so happy lately, you don't need to see me again."

Once againDue toAfter a long day of petty work chores，Zhu Wenqi decided to resign. In 2020, she applied to return to Oxford University to continue her studies, and finally received an offer from a Romanian mathematician.

Repeated defeats,
is a discouraged that must be endured

In the Department of Mathematics, Zhu Wenqi will compare the IQ gap between people to "a fish with only 7 seconds of memory". In a media interview, Zhu Wenqi said that if we look at the achievements in mathematics alone-Wang Hong, Wei Dongyi and her-it reflects gods, geniuses and monkeys.

But she will still do her best to climb this mathematical peak. She felt that the bitterness of mathematics was pure and ate itbitternessThere is a return, it is calculated.

But after the age of 30, Zhu Wenqi realized that she was at a major crossroads in her life. As an only child, she sacrificed her time with her parents and did not choose marriage and childbirth. Instead, she chose to do mathematical research, knowing that she was making a "quite expensive life choice".

She now understands her mother better why she didn't want her to come to Oxford, or why she didn't want her to continue her PhD. Because when my mother was in academia, she knew the price and consumption of women's learning.

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Zhu Wenqi is taking classes at Oxford. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

Conducting mathematical research, of course, entails hardships unknown to laypersons—just as Wang Hong once felt “discouraged” during her undergraduate studies. However, in Zhu Wenqi’s view, repeated setbacks are an inevitable part of studying mathematics; it is the willingness to keep trying despite failure that defines mathematicians.

She thinks that the so-called talent in mathematics does not mean that the problem can be solved on the first day, but "habit failure". Every failure adds a denominator to success.

This is also the way of thinking that mathematics provides her to look at the world-in many cases "hold on for a moment". For example, to do a thing, the probability of success is only 1%, the probability of failure is 99%, the average person may not want to do it. But Zhu Wenqi will think: if you try to do 3 years? 1000 days?“The probability of failing 1000 times is 1000 to the 0.99, and then we subtract that number from 1 to get：Try things with a success rate of only 1% for 3 consecutive years.left and right, thenAt leastThe probability of success is as high as 99.996 percent.. (* Assuming that the probability of each attempt is independent)"

And she doesn't think failure is a waste of time."Like we do proof, you prove it is' Yes',it's very good; It's 'No',it's also good. Because 'No' means that you have sealed up a path so that future generations will not take this wrong path again.It's all mathematical thinking."

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Zhu Wenqi's daily problem-solving. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

Therefore, Zhu Wenqi is very accustomed to a problem that cannot be solved. Including when the financial industry "lost all martial arts", when others teased her that she couldn't even do the Olympiad, she also felt that it didn't matter, so practice again.

When she is in a low ebb, she will pull herself out with very definite and small control, such as doing a question every day, getting up at what time, dividing 24 hours into 24 time slots, and filling up the painful and empty time in a planned way-even if it's just doing some boring questions. That way, she can get into the stableflow state。

"I think teacher Wang Hong is out of her mind when facing every failure. She will optimize the next path and internalize the discouraged into a kind of power. I will archive and row away after today, and practice again tomorrow to format the pain."

Mathematics also trained her to look at the logic of things, let her get used to things not people. In the inexplicable online violence a few years ago, someone gave her a question with bad intentions. Many people told her that there was no need to prove themselves, but Zhu Wenqi's logic was-"I can do this question, why not do it?"

If someone says "girls can't learn math well", she will ask them first.：What is your evidence? Then lead the other party to observe the rolling window of the Fields Medal in the past 20 years and the historical legacy, and point out the logical fallacy of the other party -30 or 40 years ago, most women were not qualified to stand on the starting line.

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In 2025, Zhu Wenqi won the Leslie Fox Award, becoming the only Chinese woman to win the award. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)

After spending a long time at Oxford University, Zhu Wenqi is sure to continue to follow mathematics, because it is a very important part of her life. Today, she is a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University, a teaching assistant and interviewer, and has joined a AI club to study how mathematics and AI can be mutually reinforcing.

"Do you think math can change the world?" As the interview draws to a close, I drop my most curious question.

Zhu Wenqi likes this question very much. She said that mathematics and AI have a high probability of making the world very different in 10 or 20 years.

But at the same time, she gave me the real answer in her heart：“I don't care if math changes the world, and I think a lot of people who do math don't care. I think mathematics can change me, which is very important."

typesetting: ding xiaoyi

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