Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The Cole Prize?!
Lu Zhou was astonished.
Soon after, he realized a problem.
“Wait a minute, isn’t the Cole Prize only awarded to members of the Federal Mathematics Society?”
Professor Qiu knew that Lu Zhou would ask this question. So, he smiled and said, “The Princeton conference was hosted by the Federal Mathematics Society. With the Best Young Speaker Award also came the membership status. Therefore, you’re in full compliance with the award rules.”
Lu Zhou had never applied to join an association, but generally, associations would grant membership to award winners, so this was common practice. The same thing happened to his Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award.
Professor Qiu paused for a second before he smiled and continued.
“… The nomination award was completed in September, and the selection was done in October. The official documents will be sent to your school in December. The award conference will be held 2 days after Christmas. I think it’s at the University of California. The organizer will send you more details, so just check your email. Also, take this time to prepare your acceptance speech!”
Lu Zhou smiled.
He was a little embarrassed.
The official documents haven’t arrived yet, but you’re already telling me. Isn’t this a bit strange?
He also wanted to ask how much was the Cole prize money, but then he thought that academics should not care too much about money.
Therefore, he did not ask.
“I will prepare!”
“Just remember not to miss the award ceremony,” said Professor Qiu as he nodded. He then changed the subject when he casually said, “The end of the year conference is pretty high level. Once you presented your Group Structure Method there, a lot more people would know about your research.”
“There’s a presentation after the awards ceremony?” asked Lu Zhou.
“Of course, this is the convention. The awards are actually the second part of the conference. It would be very beneficial for you to report at that conference,” said Professor Qiu. He smiled and said, “But there are only two months left. I’m guessing you won’t have much else to publish. Just take this time to rest, and maybe go to California for a vacation. Also, take this opportunity to think about where you want to develop next… Do you have a general idea?”
Lu Zhou said, “I want to dive deeper in prime numbers. I still haven’t found a goal yet. Do you have any good suggestions?”
The Polignac’s conjecture and Twin prime conjecture took him almost a year to complete. His mind was still in the space of prime numbers.
He wanted to choose a problem that would fill in the gap about prime numbers, but he did not know what to chose.
The 100-year-old Jebof Conjecture sounded interesting, it was similar to Polignac’s conjecture. However, while one was the study of the difference between prime numbers, the other was the study on the existence of prime numbers between squares.
There was also the Brocar proposition where it proposed that there were at least four prime numbers between the squares of two prime numbers. This also had a high research value.
Although neither of these conjectures was as famous as Polignac’s conjecture or twin prime conjecture, it had a higher position in the mathematics world.
These were only some of his options.
“Prime number research is a good area and it is highly respected in the field of number theory. The distribution of prime numbers applies to many fields, such as cryptography and information technology,” said Professor Qiu as he nodded. He then added, “Although I don’t do much research on number theory, from my understanding, most people think the sieve theory has been pushed to its limit. However, I think that there is room for development.”
The old man suddenly looked at Lu Zhou and proposed a bold idea.
“How about you challenge Goldbach’s conjecture?”
Goldbach’s conjecture?!
Lu Zhou was stunned.
This…
This jump is too big!
Lu Zhou cautiously replied, “I think… This conjecture is a bit too hard for me. Maybe I’ll try to attack it when the timing is right.”
His mathematics level was at Level 4 now. This meant expanded system database access and enhanced mathematics understanding and analysis ability.
The Goldbach’s conjecture was one of the three major modern mathematics problems.
Even though people had nearly solved it, laying down that last brick was not easy.
Otherwise, this conjecture would have been solved long ago.
“You have misunderstood me,” said Professor Qiu as he shook his head. He said, “I’m not asking you to solve it immediately. I’m just saying, try to hack at it for a bit…”
“… A lot of mathematics conjectures don’t have to be proved in order to gain significant research results. For example, when we studied Riemann’s conjecture, we unexpectedly proved a prime number theorem.”
“Similarly, the sieve theory is only a sophisticated mathematical tool. Since you polished the twin prime conjecture, you might as well try the Goldbach’s conjecture. I think you could be inspired by it,” said Professor Qiu. He suddenly smiled and said, “Professor Qiu, this is only my suggestion. The decision is still yours.”
After hearing Professor Qiu’s answer, Lu Zhou started to give it a consideration.
The old man’s logic was reasonable. In addition, Goldbach’s conjecture had the potential of receiving high experience points.
Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he solemnly said, “I will take your suggestions into consideration!”