Chapter 72 Professor Deligne's Astonishment

Princeton, New Jersey, in a quiet residential house.

A bald white old man said loudly without looking back while stuffing clothes in his suitcase.

"I don't have time, please go find someone else! Now, my teacher is lying in the hospital bed, maybe this will be the last time I see him! At least this month, I don't want to see anything related to mathematics."

The middle-aged man in a suit had an embarrassed smile on his face, but he had no temper at all.

After all, standing in front of him is the famous Viscount Pierre Deligne, the prover of Weil's conjecture, the Fields Medal, the Crafford Prize, the Wolf Prize, and last year's Abel Prize. He has basically won all the trophies the world can give him.

Even in the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, a edifice that houses mathematical geniuses from all over the world, he cannot hide his brilliance.

And he, Davis, is just a general editor of the "Mathematics Chronicle", graduated from the Johns Hopkins University journalism department, and only has some research on mathematics.

Although the "Mathematics Chronicle" is the son of Princeton University, it has followed the "stepmother" of Johns Hopkins University after all. In addition, the "Annual of Mathematics", which is currently in charge of Princeton, has the status of four heavenly kings in the field of mathematical journals, and the resources that are inclined to "The Chronicle of Mathematics" are naturally less and less.

The editors of the journals department of Johns Hopkins University Press are also worried about maintaining the influence of "Chronicle of Mathematics" in the academic world.

Originally, if it was an ordinary number theory paper, it would not be worth so much attention to Davis. However, it just so happened that the technical editor also had some research on number theory. When he conducted the preliminary review of the submitted manuscript, he immediately found that the value of this paper was extraordinary.

There are countless conjectures about the distribution law of Mersenne primes, but no conjecture has been proved so far. Among them, the most mathematically beautiful, and the one that achieves the level of precise expression is undoubtedly the famous Zhou's conjecture.

That is, when 2^(2^n)

However, conjectures are conjectures after all.

If these conjectures are not proven for a day, then it will always be the prince.

When will it be proved before it can be upgraded to a theorem and crowned!

Seeing that Deligne was indifferent, Davis did not give up, and continued to persuade: "Please, Viscount Deligne, in the field of number theory, your research is the most outstanding among the professors I have ever met! See this paper After that, I thought of you for the first time. For the sake of our cooperation for so many years, can you just take a look?"

"These flattery are useless to me." Closing the suitcase with a snap, Deligne sneered, "I don't need you to tell me."

He's not usually so irritable, at most, like the other geniuses at the Princeton Institute, a little arrogant. If it was usual, Davis personally brought an interesting paper to him, and he would have to find time to study it.

However, in interesting things, it also depends on the occasion.

His mentor, Mr. Grothendieck, is now lying in a hospital bed and may die at any time.

Where does he still have the mind to study any math problems? I can't wait to fly to France now.

Not to mention a volunteer like an academic editor, he even rejected the research projects of the research institute.

Davis tried to persuade: "Don't you want to bring a present to Mr. Grothendieck?"

"Gifts?" Deligne said aggressively. "Take a bunch of scrap paper over there? I might as well buy a bunch of flowers on the street when I get to France!"

"I assure you, this paper is definitely not as bad as you think." Davis said sincerely, "Isn't proving the Riemann conjecture exactly what your teacher wanted in his life? The distribution law of Mersenne primes has been solved. Solved, we are one step closer to the crown of the mathematics community...even if it is only a small step! I still remember what you said in your academic report last year, the road to the end of the Riemann Zeta function is dark , it takes countless candles to light... Now, the match is in your hands."

Staring into Davis' eyes, Deligne was silent for a while, then scolded and snatched the manuscript from his hand.

"Fake!"

In the end, as a scholar, he still couldn't hold back his curiosity.

"Proof of Zhou's guess?" Deligne frowned slightly.

A few years ago, he didn't know how many copies of this kind of paper he had seen, and it has only recently become fewer. People who think they are smart always like to start with seemingly simple problems, but they can't even find that thorny road.

If Zhou's conjecture is proved, it can indeed help the research of Riemann's conjecture. After all, the behavior of the Riemann zeta function ζ(s) is closely related to the frequency of prime numbers, and the Riemann hypothesis discusses the equation ζ(s) =0 case.

See the names of the authors of the papers.

Deligne was stunned.

Lu Zhou?

Chinese? Or Chinese?

There are many outstanding mathematicians in Asia, but he has never heard of this name...

He couldn't help but feel a bit of contempt in his heart, but thinking that Davis shouldn't fool himself with something that looked like a parallel importer, Deligne patiently looked down.

The clock on the wall is ticking.

One minute……

five minutes……

ten minutes……

Deligne kept his original posture, staring at the first page of the thesis with a frown, not even planning to turn the page.

Seeing Professor Deligne like this, Davis controlled the rhythm of his breathing, trying not to make noises to disturb his thinking.

The more he looked down, the more serious Deligne's expression became.

About five minutes passed.

Leaning the lever of the suitcase against the wall, he returned to the study without saying a word, took the A4 paper, and slammed the door shut.

Davis breathed a sigh of relief, then moved his stiff shoulders and sat casually on the sofa in the living room.

From so many years of experience, Professor Deligne's attention to a certain paper is positively related to how hard he closes the office door.

If you are going to the shredder, there is absolutely no need to close the door of the study.

Sitting in the study, Deligne took out the scratch paper from the drawer and started the process of verifying the paper manuscript by pen calculation.

The author's argumentation ideas are very clear, logically rigorous, and the methods used are so ingenious that he can't pick out any faults at all.

Even, there is no room for improvement.

And it was here that he was astonished. Except for the poor English and the slightly flawed exposition, from the argumentation process alone, it could not be seen that the writer was an unknown novice. .

So smooth.

Incredibly smooth.

He is more willing to believe that in the process of the five-page argument, there is a trap that is easily overlooked at first glance!

Can you hide it from his eyes?

interesting.

An hour has passed.

Looking at the last line of the formula for a long time, Deligne put down the paper and the scrap paper next to it, sighed, and softly spit out a word in French.

"sharp."

If he said an hour ago, he still had doubts in his heart.

So now, he is almost certain that there is nothing wrong with the five-page argumentation process.

Apart from being awesome, he couldn't think of any other compliments.

If possible, he really wanted to meet the author of the paper. However, there are few opportunities in the near future. After returning from a vacation in France, he will soon participate in a new project of the Princeton Institute, and he will be very busy in the next few months.

Perhaps, this paper can really arouse the interest of teachers?

Although he knew the odds were slim, his teacher had not studied mathematics for many years.

Davis, who was pacing back and forth in the living room, finally turned his attention to the bathtub next to the cabinet in the entryway, and flicked the glass of the fish tank with his fingers boredly, playing with the goldfish inside to pass the time.

At this time, the door of the study was suddenly pushed open, and Deligne came out with the paper manuscript.

Seeing this, Davis hurried forward and asked, "How?"

Stuffing the manuscript into the suitcase, Deligne said without looking up.

"I need a little time, and I will give you an answer in a week at the latest."

Hearing this sentence, Davis held his breath for a moment, and his heart was full of excitement.

After working together for so many years, he really knows this professor too well.

A paper, if he didn't shove it directly into the shredder, already showed that he couldn't pick out a big fault with the paper. If he didn't throw this paper into his hands, it would be enough to show that the content of this paper was enough to attract his attention!

A week is nothing.

It is impossible for any serious academic editor to pass a paper hastily. Repeated deliberation and verification for a long time are necessary. This is not only the rigor that a mathematician should have, but also the minimum respect for his research field as a scholar!

A world-class math problem is about to be solved.

For the academic value of "Mathematics Chronicle", it is undoubtedly a huge improvement!

As for Davis himself...

What better proof of his performance as a technical editor than picking a grain of gold out of a pile of sand?