Chapter 239: Coming For You

Institute of Advanced Mathematics, the time is half past eleven in the morning.

At this moment, Deligne is checking his mailbox, preparing to select the papers he is interested in from the manuscripts sent by the editorial offices of "Annual Journal of Mathematics" and "Annals of Mathematics", and review them during the break after lunch.

He roughly scanned the titles, but at this moment, he was suddenly stunned.

"Any even number greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers"

Goldbach Conjecture?

Squinting his eyes, Deligne clicked on the email and looked at the abstract of the paper.

Although the Annals of Mathematics has a double-blind review principle, in fact, this rule is not strictly enforced for scholars who are already well-known.

For example, some people who like to post on Arxiv before submitting their manuscripts will receive reminders to colleagues who pay attention to this field. Another example is the abstract part of the paper, some details of grammar and wording style, it is easy to guess the identity of the contributor.

There is no doubt that this paper was written by Lu Zhou. After all, it is not the first time he has reviewed a manuscript for him.

After reading the text line by line, Deligne frowned slightly.

Suddenly, he looked up at the doctoral student sitting not far away and said, "Smith, when you go to the restaurant, bring me a bacon sandwich and coffee."

The doctoral student named Smith stretched his waist, stood up and said, "Okay, professor... are you going to have dinner in the office today?"

"Yes," Deligne reached out to turn on the printer, and at the same time took out his glasses from his pocket and put them on, "There is a very interesting paper waiting for me."

...

After five full days, Lu Zhou didn't hear any news, as if his thesis was thrown into the water.

Until the sixth day, he suddenly received an unexpected call.

The caller was Qiu Chengtong.

After connecting, Mr. Qiu only had one sentence.

"You proved it?!"

Hearing this urgent question, Lu Zhou froze for a moment, then nodded and said.

"If you mean Goldbach's conjecture... I did prove it."

After hearing Lu Zhou's answer, there was no movement on the other end of the phone for a while.

Because he was so surprised, Qiu Chengtong didn't know what to say for a while.

He has met many talented new-generation Chinese mathematicians, such as Terence Tao who is teaching at the University of California, Yun Zhiwei who is teaching at Yale University, and Xu Chenyang...all have made outstanding research results in their respective fields.

However, Lu Zhou was undoubtedly the most dazzling one, and also the one that surprised him the most.

At that time, he just suggested that Lu Zhou work hard in the direction of Goldbach's conjecture, and he didn't expect his ability to prove it.

After all, both the sieve method and the round method have come to an end on this issue. Even if he has accumulated enough experience in the study of prime numbers, it is impossible to solve this conjecture in a short time.

However, Lu Zhou's performance was completely beyond his expectations...

Taking a deep breath, Qiu Chengtong asked seriously, "How sure are you?"

Lu Zhou thought for a while and replied, "90% or more."

In fact, what he wanted to say was 100%, after all, even the system recognized his steps, but it is better to be a little low-key, who knows what kind of tricky questions the reviewers will ask? He is 100% sure that he is right, but he is not 100% sure that he will be recognized.

Hearing Lu Zhou's answer, Mr. Qiu nodded.

His research direction is mainly partial differential equations and differential geometry, and even mathematical physics, but it does not include the field of analytic number theory, so it is impossible to evaluate Lu Zhou's thesis from an academic point of view.

But if Lu Zhou can say with a certain tone that he is 90% sure, even if there is a problem, it is just a matter of modification.

After a pause, Mr. Qiu said with emotion: "Since the death of Mr. Hua Luogeng, the Hua Luogeng school has been suppressed by two mountains, and even the entire Huaguo number theory field has been in a slump. To be honest, I am very surprised. Debach's conjecture was proved. Originally, I was thinking that studying Goldbach's conjecture will definitely help you deepen your understanding of prime numbers. Even if you can't solve this problem, what you learn from it can make you do a lot in the future... The result is now Come on, I underestimated you."

The Hua Luogeng School is the internationally renowned "Hua Guo Analytic Number Theory School", which is also known as the Shuimu School.

As for the two mountains that Mr. Qiu mentioned, although he didn’t specify which ones they were, Lu Zhou can probably guess when he thinks about the grievances between Mr. Qiu and Yan University and the many accusations against the mountains in the domestic mathematics circle.

But he didn't want to get involved in these things, so he just smiled and didn't answer.

After a pause, Mr. Qiu asked with a smile: "After graduation, are you interested in coming to Mizuki as a professor?"

Lu Zhou thought for a while and replied with a smile: "I will probably be a professor at Princeton for two years. As for returning to China, I have promised Academician Xu to return to my alma mater to teach."

Hearing what Lu Zhou said, Qiu Chengtong didn't say anything else, just nodded and said: "That's fine, you are in Jinda. The most taboo in learning is that one family dominates, and only by gathering the opinions of hundreds of schools, let Only when academics bloom everywhere, can there be collisions and sublimation of thinking. Jinling University is a good place, not far from the academic circle, and you are willing to study there.”

Going to Shuimu is equivalent to standing on the opposite side of the Yan University School. Mr. Qiu seems to be aware of this.

If Lu Zhou was just an outstanding scholar, he would definitely invite him to Shuimu without hesitation, revitalize the Shuimu School, and compete with several domestic hills.

But Lu Zhou's talent has reached such a level that Mr. Qiu can't bear to watch him waste it on things other than academics.

At least during the period between the ages of 20 and 40, his talents should belong to academics, not academic circles.

After the two chatted for a few words, they ended the call.

However, just as he was going to have dinner, the phone rang again.

It was none other than his mentor, Professor Deligne, who called this time...

...

Because of Professor Deligne's phone call, Lu Zhou came to the Institute for Advanced Study.

Since he asked for leave, he hadn't stepped in here for more than two months, so he almost got lost when he entered through the side door.

After finally touching the office, Lu Zhou knocked on the door.

Looking at the students who walked into the office, Professor Deligne took off the glasses on the bridge of his nose and rubbed the space between his brows.

"I have read your paper... But to be honest, Goldbach's conjecture is beyond my research field, and this kind of important mathematical conjecture, my opinion alone can't decide anything, let alone my is your mentor."

Lu Zhou understood Professor Deligne's words.

After all, Goldbach's conjecture is not twin prime number conjecture or Polignac's conjecture. Even if its importance is not as important as Wiles' Fermat's last theorem, its difficulty itself deserves to be taken seriously by the entire number theory and even mathematics circles.

When he submitted the manuscript to the Annals of Mathematics, he did not designate an academic editor. The technical editor of the Annals of Mathematics threw the paper directly to Deligne, presumably he was also undecided about this paper.

Lu Zhou went straight to the point and asked, "What do you need me to do?"

Deligne: "I will arrange a one-hour report meeting for you at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. What you need to do is to prepare a PPT and a speech. If you are not sure, I can send someone to help you. .Also, I need you to provide me with a schedule of when you will be available."

Lu Zhou wondered: "My time is not a problem, it's just...do you have any academic conference arrangements recently?"

He has been paying attention to the movement of academic conferences. If he remembers correctly, there are no important conferences scheduled for the entire month of May.

"No, but it doesn't matter." After a pause, Professor Deligne continued, "Your research results are enough for other scholars to make a special trip to Princeton."

The meaning in Professor Deligne's words is concise and to the point.

If there is no academic conference arrangement, just arrange one.