Wu Tongxiong's Perspective: The Revelation of Keigo Higashino – Unscientific Narratives Attract Attention Easily, but True Science Requires a Little Patience

Keigo Higashino has passed away. The greatest revelation he leaves us is not his massive box office success, but the behavioral significance of his vast following. Observations include the following.

First, he attracted hundreds of millions of readers and viewers across Japan, South Korea, mainland China, and Taiwan. His top work, 'The Devotion of Suspect X,' created the legendary 'genius mathematician.' While this genius may excel at memorizing formulas and calculations—fitting the common image of a mathematician—he lacks almost any 'scientific or mathematical thinking method.' This proves that 'unscientific narratives,' high in surface tension but lacking mathematical logic, are particularly attention-grabbing. According to the author’s research, such behavior is common among humans regardless of region, reaching 40–75%. Additionally, the subconscious class consciousness expressed in his work—'killing a homeless person doesn’t matter'—also exists in many people’s minds.

Second, in the past two years, at gatherings focused on public affairs, I often introduce an experiment: explaining calculus in 'three sentences within ten minutes' using only junior high school-level math knowledge. Last week, Professor Lin Baochun from the Chinese Literature Department at Taiwan Normal University hosted such a gathering, attended by literary, film, and drama writers, including an Asian film star. This group is generally considered far removed from 'mathematics and calculus.' Professor Lin admitted he had disliked math since high school, but after allowing me to complete the experiment, he said, 'I completely understand now!' All attendees grasped why I promote this experiment.

Professor Lin’s bestseller is titled 'The Whole People Dismantle the Corrupt Group.' He often criticized my writing as 'too peaceful.' But after the experiment, he realized that public affairs not only involve identifying problems but also solving them. If a problem has long existed, why has it never been solved? Science and mathematics at least provide a 'thinking method' that can truly resolve issues.

The thinking method is this: if multiplication fails, then perhaps division should be tried.

Third, the starting point of calculus is to solve a problem that has existed for thousands of years: how to measure the area under an asymmetric curve? Everyone knows 'area = length × width,' but the length of an asymmetric curve constantly changes. How can you multiply it?

When Newton faced this problem, his 'thinking method' differed from others. For thousands of years, many brilliant minds failed to solve it through multiplication—so he changed direction, even thinking inversely: if multiplication doesn’t work, can division?

What is 'length divided by width'? It’s the 'slope' taught in junior high: 'length / width = slope.' From elementary school, we learned 'transposition,' so 'length = slope × width.' Once the length at each point is known, summing them all gives the area under the asymmetric curve. With knowledge up to junior high level, in at most three sentences and under ten minutes, the problem is solved!

Educational systems and social shaping cause people to flee at the mention of calculus. Why, as Professor Lin points out, do many abandon math early? Because our education system, like the society Higashino portrays, brands math lovers as 'nerds' who are good at calculation and obsessed with strange symbols. Almost no one explains what 'thinking methods' are, or that such 'nerds' may even deviate from math’s true purpose: solving problems.

Thus, many people, upon hearing the word 'calculus,' refuse to listen—not for ten minutes, not even for one. I’ve witnessed this at several gatherings I’ve attended.

Any public issue is thousands of times more complex than 'finding the area under a curve,' yet how can people confidently discuss difficult problems while having no idea how to solve small ones? This logical contradiction is, however, human nature: 40–75% of people rely on 'belief' rather than the scientific and mathematical 'thinking method.' For most, science is just a vague term, not a practical process of modeling, parameters, and experimentation.

Fortunately, Professor Lin’s gathering also proves another data point: 15% of people 'are willing to understand thinking methods and solutions if given the opportunity.' Looking back at world history, human progress has been driven by this 15%, plus another 10% who actively seek 'divisional problem-solving' approaches.

The Taiwan-U.S.-China impasse also stems from not understanding calculus. Today, cross-strait relations are reduced to unification vs. independence; Taiwan-U.S. relations focus on allying with the U.S. to counter China, starting from a position of inferiority—trapped entirely in 'multiplication.'

Why not develop 'division'? Why not coordinate with the U.S. and China to establish in Taiwan a 'wealth-justice-based economic and trade cooperation financial center,' serving as the implementation site for joint declarations from a 'Xi-Biden summit,' and as a place for the U.S. and China to 'experimentally improve' their growing wealth gap due to unequal financial profit distribution—while transforming Taiwan into the world’s safest and most prosperous region?

Currently, political parties, officials, media, and affiliated groups constantly propagate 'Chinese military harassment of Taiwan,' while ignoring foreign encroachments on our territorial waters and resources, and the oppression of Taiwanese fishermen—clinging to 'multiplication.' Why not conceive of 'joint ROC-PLA patrols in the South China Sea to safeguard international freedom of navigation' as exercises, even elevating them to concrete military confidence-building measures?

These ideas are science fiction to those who 'only know and blindly believe in multiplication,' but they are the true 'division' that can resolve long-standing, entangled problems.

Of course, to understand advanced calculus, one must be willing to invest more time; to grasp the above proposals, one must invest more time to understand the massive data and analytical models behind them.

Solving big problems requires a little patience!

Washington, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Deng Xiaoping’s偶然—Can It Be Expanded?

In public affairs, Washington, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Deng Xiaoping once abandoned the deeply rooted human tendency of 'multiplication': becoming emperors, lifelong family rule. Today, we may not feel it strongly, but in their era and environment, their choices were astonishing—beyond mere fantasy.

However, their choice of 'division' may have stemmed from genius, inspiration, and profound life experiences, rather than scientific thinking—making it an extremely rare historical 'accident.'

Therefore, we now promote 'thinking methods' to slightly increase the chance of truly solving public affairs through 'division.'

Lack of Mathematical Thinking Makes Crimes Obvious

In Higashino’s 'The Devotion of Suspect X,' a single mother accidentally kills her abusive ex-husband. A neighbor, a 'genius mathematician,' kills a homeless man to protect her, disguising the body as the ex-husband’s, and designs an extremely convoluted crime cover-up.

Higashino’s portrayal of this character is merely a 'nerd' good at memorizing formulas—completely lacking 'mathematical thinking.'

The core purpose of mathematics is prediction; criminal investigation is a form of broad prediction. Anyone with even a bit of mathematical thinking knows that predictive power is proportional to sample size (evidence). Without samples, prediction is impossible.

Even with 'ordinary' thinking, disposing of the body would suffice. There’s no need to kill another person, let alone dramatically display a fake corpse.

Killing the ex-husband is 'one murder'; killing a homeless man adds a second. In statistics, each additional victim or crime scene multiplies exposure clues geometrically. In game theory, this is a 'blind impulse' with extremely low expected value and extremely high risk.

Higashino’s plot assumes police never find the real ex-husband’s body. Thus, this so-called genius mathematician turns a perfectly hidden crime into one that, mathematically, is bound to be exposed.

Higashino Accidentally Exposes Lai Qingde’s 'Three-Person Group'—Proclaiming Democracy While Acting Against It

Higashino inadvertently reveals that in the real world, many 'self-proclaimed math geniuses' act contrary to their claims—such as Lai Qingde, Liang Wun-jie, and Shen Bo-yang, the 'three-person group.' They claim to 'want democracy' and thus oppose communism and resist China, yet their methods include discriminating against specific Taiwanese groups, suppressing free speech, mass arrests, detentions, and imposing severe sentences for minor crimes.

If their ideology were truly democratic, they should pursue democracy that both sides of the Taiwan Strait, both shores of the Pacific, and people worldwide can enjoy together. Instead, this 'three-person group' enforces extreme oppression, depriving specific Taiwanese people of democracy and human rights, even risking the class stratification of Taiwan.

In countless photos of Liang Wun-jie’s fierce expressions, I see in his eyes the true denial of human rights and dignity for first-generation mainlanders in Taiwan (though his own parents were among them). He believes he has entered the ruling class and must sever ties with his origins. Now he is an elite, and others are disposable homeless-class people.

True Mathematician’s Assistance: Building Models and Experiments

What would a mathematician with 'thinking methods' do to help the single mother?

First, build a 'self-defense and sentencing' model: assess whether the ex-husband’s violent intrusion into the ex-wife’s home constitutes justifiable self-defense, and determine sentencing ranges if needed.

Second, build a 'crime prevention' model: under what conditions can potential victims apply for protection in advance? This protection should be bilateral—warning potential perpetrators that committing a crime grants the victim the right to resist without liability. Many vulnerable victims don’t know how to apply, so proactive protection mechanisms must also be established.

Finally, conduct 'mathematical experiments': use on-site information to 'reconstruct' the incident and verify if it truly fits the self-defense model, ensuring legal protection isn’t exploited to expand criminal acts.

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