Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou’s glass seemed neverending at the dinner. At the end of the dinner, he started to get really drunk.
Thankfully, his tolerance was pretty good, so he did not black-out.
When Lu Zhou returned to his hotel, he immediately took his clothes off and went in the shower.
Once he blow-dried his hair and laid in bed, he took out his phone and just as he was about to check his email, he accidentally clicked on Weibo. He then saw that his name was on trending again.
Even though it was not the ultimate top in trending, but it was still in the Top 10.
He looked at his personal messages and saw the “99+” notification.
[Master, are you still doing giveaways? Please help my thesis.]
[… All bow down to this genius student!]
[Master, are you taking in students? I’m Luo Li Yin~~]
[Foreign mathematics professors are getting paid a million a year, check it out!]
[Hello, Mr. Lu. Here’s the situation, I proved Goldbach’s conjecture, but the Chinese Academy of Sciences wouldn’t let me submit. I cannot take this shame. I want to go to Harvard University, I want to meet Qiu Chengtong, but I don’t have the money. Please send me a 100k and I will write your name in as a co-author of the thesis!]
[…]
Lu Zhou was humored.
He was amused by the persistence of his fans.
Lu Zhou felt like he had not been on Weibo for a long time. No wonder his fans were so persistence. Maybe he should interact with them?
He sent out a blog post.
[I’m graduating next year, and I’m really flattered to suddenly win this medal. I hope I have no regrets this year!]
Lu Zhou then attached a photo of his gold medal before he sent it.
After he went to get some water, he refreshed the page and dozens of comments came rolling in.
[Wait a minute, didn’t you just graduate this year???]
[Bow to genius student…]
[I’m still writing my thesis, I’m about to cry.]
[My master’s career is full of regrets.]
[As a undergraduate student, I’m in despair.]
[…]
When Lu Zhou saw the negative comments, he buried his head in the pillow and could not hold back his laughter.
…
He still had to do the report.
Thankfully his report was in the afternoon, otherwise, he would still be hungover.
Lu Zhou ate some lunch and cleaned up his room. He then stood in front of the mirror and tried a couple of hairstyles. Then Yan Xinjue called him to come downstairs. He drove Lu Zhou to Beijing Normal University.
Lu Zhou stood on the podium and started the PowerPoint.
He glanced across the stage and saw that there were quite a lot of people. The seats were all filled, but people were still entering.
Lu Zhou was a bit shocked.
He thought that the seats would be half full at most. After all, there were quite a lot of reports going on, and his report was nothing special. It was only a little group theory method.
When he saw the crowd, he started to think.
Is this the celebrity effect?
A Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award is influential!
Shook!
Once the ten-minute preparation time was over, the report officially began.
Lu Zhou flipped to the first page of the PowerPoint and started to give a brief overview of the content of his report.
“While studying the Polignac’s conjecture, I studied Mr. Hilbert’s proof of the infiniteness of prime numbers, which greatly inspired me. Especially the study of using group theory to solve the number theory problem. I made a lot of interesting and improved changes to Mr. Hilbert’s paper.”
“… I’ll call my version the “Group Structure Method”.
“When it comes to infinite prime numbers, this approach can simplify many complex problems…”
Lu Zhou started to go in depth of his thesis. He spent twenty minutes to talk about the core ideas and concepts of the Group Structure Method.
In order to save time, he spoke very quickly. The crowd was also paying attention.
What surprised him was that he saw an old man taking notes.
He felt even more motivated to give a good report.
Finally, the presentation ended. The next session was the most important questioning session.
A random 40-year-old guy raised his hand and asked a question, “I have a question, line 47 in your thesis. The n=(2n,m) is abruptly mentioned in Wilson’s theorem. The even-order cyclic group G has a unique second-order element a^ n. Isn’t this somewhat less rigorous?”
When Lu Zhou heard this question, he laughed before he answered it with ease.
“Maybe not so, I wanted to save space and omitted some of the unrelated steps.
He picked up a marker and wrote the steps on a whiteboard.
[
…
From a^n∈G, and |a^n|=2, a^m∈G, and |a^m|=2, the order of a^m is 2n/(2n,m), which gives 2n/( 2n,m)=2.
Then n divides m, a^m∈ <a^n> …
Therefore, it can be proven that the even-order cyclic group G has a unique second-order element a^n
]
It was well-founded and convincing.
The questioner looked at the steps on the whiteboard and nodded, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Lu Zhou nodded his head and went to the next question.
Only people who were interested would stay, and anyone that was uninterested would have left after the presentation.
Lu Zhou was surprised to see a lot of people interested in his method.
As such, he answered every question in detail.
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from the venue.
“I have a question.”
When Lu Zhou saw the person standing up, he was stunned.
Isn’t this…
Professor Ma?
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Please ask.”
He was curious as to what Professor Ma would say.
Professor Ma Changan smiled politely as he acted like a kind old man.
However, when he opened his mouth, he was not so kind anymore.
“Whether it’s Wilson’s theorem or the infinite problem of prime numbers, both have been proven by group theory. Especially the latter, Hilbert has given a fairly complete group theory proof. And the method you proposed seems to me, redundant.”
This question was easy to answer.
Lu Zhou smiled and he was about to answer the question. However, Professor Ma Changan did not allow him to speak. Instead, Professor Ma Changan continued to ask.
“Of course, I’m not doubting the value of your research. But I question if this small research project deserves to be discussed here… ”
“… I noticed that you have answered the questions in detail. But you didn’t answer your own research topic, which is Polignac’s conjecture. I can’t help but ask, did you actually come up with this method while researching the Polignac’s conjecture? If so, how is it used to solve Polignac’s conjecture?”
Ma Changan had a smirk on his face as he continued to attack, “… I think we all know that you chose Polignac’s conjecture for your research topic for the Ten Thousand People Initiative, which probably got a million in grants. I think we’re all looking forward to your research results, but is this all you came up with?”