Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The second day after Christmas, near San Francisco International Airport.
When Tao Zhexuan dropped Lu Zhou off at the airport, he said, “Have a safe flight.”
Lu Zhou pulled his suitcase out of the trunk and said, “Thanks, come to China when you’re free.”
“For sure!”
The past two days, Lu Zhou had been exchanging mathematics problems with this genius. Even though they had a twenty years gap, they got along unexpectedly well. Tao Zhexuan was the one who offered to send Lu Zhou to the airport and Lu Zhou had swiftly agreed.
It was not boarding time yet, so Lu Zhou waited in the terminal and read a newspaper. It was the Daily Mail.
Suddenly, a headline attracted his attention.
[The mathematics problem that plagued the community for more than a century, the Riemann’s conjecture, was proved by Professor Enoch, from the University of Addo Ekiti, Nigeria!]
Lu Zhou: ? ? ?
The f*ck?
How come I don’t know anything about this?
Lu Zhou logged onto the arXiv website to check if it was still in the peer-review process.
He quickly found this thesis on arXiv.
Before Lu Zhou could even start reading the thesis, he had already lost his interest. This was because the thesis was classified as General Mathematics.
Arxiv gave the General Mathematics classification to common folks that wanted to get into mathematics. Theses thrown into this category were basically worthless.
Lu Zhou: “…”
He finally knew why Daily Mail was blocked on Baidu search.
Western journalists had to fact check their sources more vigorously.
Riemann’s conjecture was not only a million-dollar theorem. Proving it meant that thousands of other derivative theorems would also be proved.
For example, a Swede named Koch proposed a more accurate expression of the prime number theorem which was based on Riemann’s conjecture. His theorem was: π(x)=Lix+O(√ x·lnx).
If the Riemann’s conjecture was proven to be true, then so would his theorem.
If the Riemann’s conjecture was proven to be false, then thousands of other similar formulas would be buried with it.
The influence of this thing was unimaginable.
Lu Zhou skimmed through the thesis and closed the website.
The thesis used some elementary mathematics to “prove” Riemann’s conjecture, so it was a waste of Lu Zhou’s time.
Lu Zhou could probably guess why the Clay Institute ignored this guy.
Every country had a “politically righteous” problem.
Maybe one day he would also challenge the crown of mathematics; Riemann’s conjecture. Right now, there was one problem. The Goldbach’s conjecture and the collaboration with Professor Frank had taken all his time…
…
After flying for a dozen or so hours and after a transfer, Lu Zhou finally dragged his suitcase out of the airport.
This time, University of Jin Ling did not send a welcoming team. Perhaps Dean Lu saw the effects of what happened last time. However, the crowd at the airport was not small either.
There were a few Mercedes that were parked at the entrance. Lu Zhou did not know that the school was so rich.
When the pedestrians who were walking by saw the black Mercedes, they thought that there was a big celebrity coming. They then started to take pictures.
Dean Qin got off the car and shook Lu Zhou’s hand.
“Congratulations, Lu Zhou!”
Lu Zhou shook Dean Qin’s hand and said politely, “Dean Qin, you’re too kind.”
Dean Qin smiled and said, “What do you mean? You’re the number one person in domestic number theory! This treatment is necessary to take our hero home! Stop waiting outside and get in the car.”
Since the cars were already there, Lu Zhou did not refuse. He got on the same car as Dean Qin.
The school knew that Lu Zhou had moved out of his dorm, so they arranged a hotel nearby for him.
The school staff helped him with his luggage.
A science reporter from CCTV wanted to interview him.
Normally, Lu Zhou would refuse to do interviews. However, when he thought about that million yuan check, he accepted the interview.
University of Jin Ling’s reputation had always been good, but it was slightly behind Aurora University and Zhi University. The reason was that there were no famous alumni at the University of Jin Ling.
After Lu Zhou became famous, the number of people that applied to University of Jin Ling mathematics department doubled. Even the popularity of other majors increased, and the University of Jin Ling finally experienced the effects of fame.
It was foreseeable that in 2016, a lot of young students would enroll in this beautiful campus, and jump into the pool of mathematics.
With regard to this, Lu Zhou was pleased.
After all, he had lived here for three years. He hoped that his school would get better and better.
After the interview, Lu Zhou went back to his hotel and went to sleep straight away.
He slept until afternoon. When he woke up, he brushed his teeth before he went to the cafeteria for lunch. He then went to the school auditorium.
Dean Qin and Principal Xu were at the auditorium.
“Student Lu Zhou,” said Principal Xu Jian. He shook Lu Zhou’s hand and smiled, “You just got back from America, right? You must be tired!”
Lu Zhou had not graduated from the University of Jin Ling, so he still kind of counted as a student.
It was mainly because of this that Principal Xu did not know what else to call him.
Directly calling his name felt a bit serious since Lu Zhou had not started his PhD yet.
“No no, I’m not tired at all,” said Lu Zhou. He smiled and said, “If my school needs me, I would definitely come!”
Dean Qin said, “This time, our event for the Annual Person Award will go on CCTV! Have you thought of a speech?”
“It’s going on CCTV?” asked Lu Zhou. He was surprised.
He originally thought that at most, it would appear on local TV.
After all, University of Jin Ling was not Shuimu. Even though the annual awards were significant, there were way more universities stronger than the University of Jin Ling.
“Long story, it’s mainly because of you,” said Principal Xu. He smiled and said, “Our country is paying more and more attention to science. The investments are getting bigger. We need a young role model for all of the young scholars. Anyway, how is your speech? Do you need help?”
Lu Zhou did not prepare his speech at all.
After all, he did not feel any pressure from such a small prize. He just wanted to improvise it and he thought he could use his previous speech for the Cole Prize as a reference.
But now, it seemed that he was caught unprepared?
“I remembered it,” said Lu Zhou with a smile.
“Haha, okay then,” said Professor Xu. He smiled and looked at Lu Zhou seriously as he continued, “Have a good performance. All of this depends on you!”
To raise his morale, Lu Zhou said, “Yes, I’ll complete the task!”