Chapter 126 Closing Ceremony

There may be a distinction of academic value between mathematical conjectures and mathematical conjectures, but it is difficult to use a definite standard to measure the difficulty of a conjecture.

After all, how to measure the difficulty of something that has not been proven to be true at all?

This in itself is false logic.

However, it is not impossible to classify mathematical conjectures and mathematical conjectures.

If we put aside all non-academic factors such as political significance, economic significance, and news rendering, and only talk about the academic value "to today's mathematics community", then thousands of mathematical conjectures can be roughly divided into several levels.

The first echelon is undoubtedly the millennium problems such as Riemann's conjecture, NP complete problem, Yang-Mills gauge field existence and mass interval hypothesis, the so-called seven major mathematical problems in the world, and Hilbert's 23 problems Some of the questions in and so on.

Once these conjectures are proved, it will not only promote the development of the mathematics field, but also have a profound impact on other disciplines.

The second level, of course, is the most well-known three major modern mathematical problems, Goldbach's conjecture, the four-color problem, and Fermat's last theorem. Two of them have been solved, and the remaining one, Mr. Chen, has achieved "1+2". In addition, some of the questions in the Langlands program and some of the questions in Hilbert's 23 questions can also be listed here.

The third echelon, the distinction between conjectures at this level and the second echelon is actually not obvious, and it involves subjective opinions, and there may be large differences. If it is typical, the Jacobi conjecture can be counted in this column.

As for the problem of proving this level, it is not far from the Fields Award, at least it can be nominated... Of course, the premise is that it is under the age of forty.

As for the fourth echelon, Zhou's conjecture can be counted in this list, and all sub-problems of the first, second, and third echelon problems, or the "weak conjecture" of a certain conjecture can also be inserted.

There are even more in the fifth echelon. Some unpopular branches that no one cares about, conjectures proposed by an unknown mathematician, and all conjectures that do not reach the fourth echelon can be included in this echelon.

According to this grading method, the Poligniac conjecture can be counted in the third echelon, and the twin prime conjecture can be regarded as the "K=1 special form" of the Poligniac conjecture, but considering that the academic value is higher than that of "pair Research on the Distribution Law of Mersenne Prime Numbers (Zhou's Conjecture)", so it is between the third and fourth echelons, and infinitely close to the third echelon side!

No matter what the final result is, with this outstanding contribution, Lu Zhou must be nominated for the 2018 Fields Medal. And his biggest competitor is probably the winner of the 2013 Ramanujin Award, the "German God of Learning" Peter Schulz. It is said that he is challenging the famous weight-monodromy conjecture, and the progress is temporarily unknown.

Of course, the study of mathematical conjectures is only a part of theoretical mathematics research, but not all. Many people have never proved any major mathematical conjectures in their lives, but this does not prevent him from making contributions to the entire mathematical community.

For example, Mr. Grothendieck, who laid the foundation of modern algebraic geometry and completely changed the face of the subject of functional analysis, these two contributions alone are probably unmatched by any mathematical conjecture. After all, many mathematical conjectures today are based on his "prototype theory".

There is still a long way to go to climb the peak of mathematics.

The proof of the twin prime number conjecture is just a small step towards Mount Everest.

Lu Zhou is deeply aware that his research results are only answers to some of the questions in Hilbert's 8th question.

Although his heart was excited, his heart was about to jump out of his chest, but he didn't expand beyond that.

The more you know about the world, the more things you put in your head, the more you can feel your own insignificance.

In fact, Lu Zhou is not very clear about what his true feelings are at this moment. However, no matter what he thinks, one thing is certain, his name is popular in Princeton.

Everyone knows.

At yesterday's report meeting, a young man from Asia, in front of all the audience of the report meeting, killed a world-class mathematical conjecture on the spot...

...

Shaking his drowsy head, he got up from the bed.

Pushing open the bathroom door, sitting in the bathtub and taking a hot bath, Lu Zhou put on new clothes and stood in front of the mirror to take a picture.

Yes, Not Bad.

Still as handsome as ever, but unfortunately there is no meat.

Hey, this physique that can't get fat no matter how much you eat, is really nerve-wracking.

The mirror was enough, Lu Zhou walked to the window and opened the curtains that had not been opened for a long time.

This time, he slept very comfortably.

This was probably the most comfortable sleep he had in the past few days in North America.

However, looking at the sky outside the window, it seems that nothing has changed.

If he didn't feel that his mental state couldn't be better, he would have doubted whether he had slept...

Lu Zhou's face suddenly changed.

Wait, what time is it?

Looking at the time on the phone, it was already half past three!

Thinking that there was still a closing ceremony waiting for him, Lu Zhou ran to the porch to put on his shoes without saying a word, and rushed out the door.

When I got off the elevator and walked through the lobby, I didn't see anyone except the hotel waiter.

There was an ominous premonition in his heart. Lu Zhou ran to the door and accidentally bumped into a Caucasian boy who was looking down at his phone. Before he had time to explain, he threw a word of "sorry", and immediately asked, "What day is the academic conference now?"

The little brother said with a dissatisfied expression: "Sixth day, buddy, walk carefully!"

so close!

Lu Zhou breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed that the closing ceremony was finally not missed.

But if you think about it, even if he had a blast for a few nights, he wouldn't be able to sleep for two days and two nights so exaggeratedly.

At this moment, the white man stared at Lu Zhou for a long time, and suddenly came back to his senses, his eyes widened: "Wait, are you... are you a braised elbow?"

Fuck?

Lu Zhou almost sprayed him in the face.

MMP! Still want to spoil me!

Hard enough!

Glancing at the phone, he might have confirmed the photo from Twitter, and the Caucasian boy's eyes lit up immediately, and he pulled Lu Zhou and refused to let him go.

"Hey, listen, you scrapped my graduation thesis. Guess what my thesis was about? I cleverly found a lambda function, and proved that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers whose difference is less than 242. The gap to 246 has been shortened by another step! And just yesterday, you not only killed the hen that can only lay golden eggs, but also ruined my two-month research results!"

Lu Zhou didn't know what to say, he just looked at the Yankee with crazy eyes, and was ready to wave to the security guard next to him.

Fortunately, this little brother didn't make any drastic moves, he just pulled him to beep.

"...Damn, but well done! I guess this is the same method of proof, using topology... but I didn't expect the sieve method to be used like this. Meet me, my name is Callisto, let's drink together tonight A glass? For the sake of delaying my graduation, you owe me this glass of wine anyway, hey, don't run away, hey!"

Lu Zhou ran away decisively without looking back.

...

In the auditorium, there were many people.

The closing ceremony is about to begin, but it feels that there are not as many people as there were at the beginning.

Lu Zhou remembered hearing Senior Brother Luo say that many people would not wait until the end of an academic conference. Many people finished their presentations, listened to the lectures they wanted to hear, or talked about like-minded people. Go out and make waves all over the world.

Lu Zhou looked around, but he couldn't find Brother Luo, but he saw an unexpected person, that Indian brother named Di Rang.

Surprisingly, this product hasn't left yet?

Is it so strong against pressure?

Noticing Lu Zhou's gaze, the Indian guy didn't say anything, but responded with a resentful curry-like roll, then looked aside and ignored him.

Lu Zhou made a helpless expression.

If he cites other people's unpublished research results, he will feel a little guilty, but this... this pot can't reach him anyway.

The closing ceremony begins.

The hall quickly fell silent.

After a while, an old man who looked unreliable walked up to the podium slowly, leaning on a black cane.

Francis, the current president of the Federal Mathematical Society, is also a member of the International Union of Mathematicians.

The reason why he looks unreliable is that because of his slow movements, people always worry that he will suddenly fall asleep while talking, or fall when going up the steps.

"Let me introduce myself, Francis. I don't have anything else to introduce...Furthermore, the lads should be getting impatient, so let's start directly." The old man smiled kindly and said.

The people in the audience also smiled kindly and gave encouraging applause.

The old man pushed his glasses, turned a page of the speech, and read it fragmentarily.

"First of all, thank you very much for participating in this mathematics exchange meeting, and also thank Parker, Amazon Group... and other companies for their sponsorship. No matter how noble the cause, without the help of good people, our cause cannot move forward... "

"... In the face of a great cause, the work we do is the same, regardless of high or low. Even if your conclusions are temporarily wrong, even if you are refuted fiercely, it does not mean that you are not good enough. On the contrary, you who stand here are more courageous and talented than 99% of the people in the world. I hope to see you guys and girls who are full of vigor next year... Of course, bad old men like me are welcome, always welcome."

"There's a party tonight..."

"By the way, I almost forgot the most important thing." The old man pushed his glasses, smiled apologetically, cleared his throat, and continued, "The best young speaker of this academic exchange conference will be awarded A prize of 10,000 dollars sponsored by the Amazon Group and a certificate issued by the Federal Mathematical Society... the winner is Lu Zhou. It seems that there is no suspense?

The cane stomped hard on the wooden floor, Mr. Francis raised his spirits, and said with a smile to everyone who was looking forward to it.

"Then, have fun!"

"Plus, the championship belongs to the Philadelphia Eagles!" (Super Bowl)

The young people in the audience whistled.

In the thunderous applause and relaxed atmosphere, this academic conference came to a successful conclusion.