Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

by Stayrr

After suffering from a heat stroke while working under the scorching heat of summer, Lu Zhou, a hardworking but poor university student, somehow becomes the owner of an advanced technological system. With the cheat given by the system, his university life changes overnight. A Master’s degree? Easy. PhD? Not a problem. From a nobody, he quickly becomes a huge celebrity in the wor

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Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 228 - Your Hands Are Your Tools online free - Novelfull

Chapter 228: Your Hands Are Your Tools

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"Neither?"

Molina was stunned.

She looked at Lu Zhou and said with a skeptical tone, "I know you are a genius… Although Goldbach's conjecture isn't in my field of research, if I heard you correctly, you're intending on doing a century worth of work on your own?"

Lu Zhou smiled coldly and said with a relaxed tone, "The problem of ab is a complex expression of Goldbach's conjecture. That is, each large even number N can be expressed as AB, where the prime factors of A and B do not exceed a and b, respectively. When a=b=1, the problem will eventually return to the original expression. Any even number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers."

One prime factor, naturally meant that it was a prime number.

Therefore, the form of 11 was the ultimate form of Goldbach's conjecture.

Molina said, "So you're saying that the people who have researched the Goldbach's conjecture for over a century has been doing nothing?"

"Of course not," said Lu Zhou as he shook his head. He then asked an unexpected question, "Do you know about sports?"

Molina frowned and said, "Sports?"

Lu Zhou, "You know about the long jump right."

Molina was confused but she said, "Of course."

Lu Zhou smiled coldly and said, "Brown's ab proof method is equivalent to the run-up before the long jump. Although the run-up time itself is not included in the score, is the run-up useless? The same logic applies here where ab is equivalent to the run-up of Goldbach's conjecture. Because without it, there will be no large sieve method, which is an inspiring and potential analytical tool for number theory. It can even be said that the value of the large sieve method is beyond the Goldbach conjecture itself."

Whether or not the large sieve method could really reach 11, it had already played an important role in number theory.

Lu Zhou had personally benefited from it.

Molina brushed her hair as she looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "So, how do you plan on proving it?"

Lu Zhou smirked, "Of course, to use my own method."

Molina did not know why, but her heart skipped a beat when she saw Lu Zhou's smile.

Of course, it was only for a second. As a woman married to mathematics, she quickly returned to normal.

…

A solution to a mathematics conjecture required accumulation of workload and a creative genius.

Both were indispensable.

Just like Fermat's last theorem.

When the Taniyama-Shimura theorem was proved, people could not see the whole picture of the theorem's value, but they had a rough idea in their minds. This was because a tool to solve the problem had surfaced. This was the historic work by Andrew Wiles.

As for Goldbach's conjecture, whether it was the large sieve method or circle method, it was the same.

The work of the predecessors built the foundation. However, whether it was Chen's theorem or the proof of the Goldbach's conjecture under odd conditions, they were all one step off. The meaning of Chen's theorem was more to let other mathematicians know that the road of the large sieve method had ended and that there was nowhere else to go.

The circle method was the same.

This was why last year, Helfgott said that "to fully prove Goldbach's conjecture, we have a long way to go". He expressed that there was no hope solving Goldbach's conjecture anytime in the near future.

At least, no hope toward the circle method.

Lu Zhou could not help but agree that both of these methods were at a dead end.

He had also faced similar problems when studying the twin prime conjecture.

Zhang Yitang's research selected a clever lambda function, which limited the space of prime pairs to 70 million. The successor reduced this number to 246. However, they could not go any further.

Lu Zhou's initial thought process was also to use a lambda function. However, after countless attempts, he discovered that this road was a dead end.

There were too many lambda function forms to choose from. He could not find the right one no matter how hard he tried.

Until finally, he was inspired. He tried a very different proof of the conjecture and introduced a topology method. This paved a new road.

Although this method was first mentioned in the 1995 thesis by Professor Zellberg who was tackling Goldbach's conjecture, it was Lu Zhou that introduced it to the problem of prime numbers.

Lu Zhou then built on his own knowledge of group theory and pushed the prime number finite distances to infinity. This solved the Polignac's conjecture. The topology sieve method had been transformed twice, and completely unrecognizable from its original form.

Therefore, Lu Zhou gave his weapon a new name, "Group Structure Method".

However, when he was studying the Goldbach's conjecture, he habitually forgot about his own tools.

On the surface, it seemed that the Group Structure Method was unrelated to Goldbach's conjecture. However, the intention of the sieve method was to solve Goldbach's conjecture.

As long as he improved on it, he could use this tool to solve Goldbach's conjecture.

When a mathematical method was continually perfected, it would transform from a toothpick to a Swiss army knife. It would gradually evolve into a theoretical framework! The theoretical framework for number theory!

This was just like the "Cosmic Teichmüller Theory" created in the study of the ABC conjecture.

Whether it was to develop new methods and then prove the value of the methods or to develop methods while studying the problem, both paths were valid.

Lu Zhou saw hope in Goldbach's conjecture.

…

Lu Zhou walked out of the food club. However, he did not go to the library. Instead, he went to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Although he did not make an appointment, Professor Deligne had said that every evening from 6 p.m to 8 p.m. was office hours.

Lu Zhou knocked on the door before he walked in.

Professor Deligne stopped writing and looked at Lu Zhou. He asked in a relaxed tone, "You've made a decision?"

Lu Zhou nodded, "Yes, I plan on doing my own research… I apologize but I can't extract any energy to join your research."

Deligne nodded and did not show signs of dissatisfaction.

Deligne was a person that respected freedom. That was why he allowed Lu Zhou to make his own decision.

Deligne, "I respect your decision. But as your supervisor, I have to know what your research is about?"

Lu Zhou answered, "Goldbach's conjecture."

Deligne nodded. He was not as surprised as Molina. His facial expression was calm.

Maybe…

Deligne thinks that I am the "best candidate" to solve this conjecture?

Thanks for the compliment.

Lu Zhou felt a little proud.

Deligne, "The Goldbach's conjecture is an interesting problem, I also studied it when I was young. However, I didn't dive deep into the problem, so I can't give you much help. Right now the closest research results are Chen's theorem and Helfgott's proof of the weak conjecture. I look forward to your new research… "

"… Of course, other than your own research, there are also some things on my side you have to do. Like teaching assistant work."

Lu Zhou nodded, "No problem… I'm confident in my teaching abilities on number theory and functional analysis."

"I believe in your abilities in number theory. In fact, you are overqualified… Also, I prepared a gift for you."

Deligne pulled out the drawer and took out a certificate looking thing. He then placed it on the table and smiled.

"I heard that your family conditions aren't good. I helped you solve the problem of your student aid. Take this thing to the finance office, and sort out your tuition fees."

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Chapter 229: Full On Research

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The so-called fellowship was different from scholarships. Not only did it covered accommodation fees and tuition fees, but it also gave students a certain amount of living expenses for personal consumption.

As such, the competition for a fellowship was fierce. In addition to requiring higher academic grades, foreign applicants were also required to provide a domestic school transcript, recommendation letter, and a personal essay.

The prize amount varied amongst different schools and different people. The payment method would even be divided into yearly, monthly, or quarterly payments.

Princeton's fellowship prize was one of the most difficult prizes to apply to. Especially for a PhD position. However, for a winner of the Cole Prize in Number Theory, it was not a problem.

After all, Lu Zhou himself was qualified enough to write recommendation letters for other people. Not to mention, his mentor was Professor Deligne.

Lu Zhou's bursary included tuition fees, medical insurance, and a one-time payment of $40,000 USD.

When Lu Zhou set up his bank account, he had cashed the Cole Prize check and Princeton scholarship check. As he looked at the string of numbers in his bank account, he could not help but think.

Everyone else pays an insane amount to study overseas while I earn money for studying overseas.

This feeling is quite special.

…

After completing his bank errands, Lu Zhou gradually got used to life at Princeton.

For undergraduate students, the academic pressure was high. But for PhD student, it was a lot more relaxed. Especially if the supervisor did not urge you.

Although Professor Deligne arranged teaching tasks for Lu Zhou, Lu Zhou's first class was in April which was still a month away. Lu Zhou even found the time to get his driver's license.

Other than studying Goldbach's conjecture, his mission was mainly to studying algebraic geometry.

What made Lu Zhou so ecstatic was that Deligne had the original drafts of Grothendieck's work: Esquisse d'un Programme. These works were translated into English by a French student.

Many of Grothendieck's Esquisse d'un Programme were still not fully understood until this day.

Lu Zhou had never been to France to seek out Grothendieck's work on modern algebraic geometry. First of all, he did not understand French. Second, he had not studied Grothendieck's work in depth.

The English translation of Esquisse d'un Programme was a huge help to Lu Zhou. Coupled with personal guidance from Professor Deligne, it made things much easier to understand.

Sure enough, a good supervisor could save a lot of time.

Other than studying algebraic geometry under Professor Deligne's guidance, Lu Zhou spent all of his free time on Goldbach's conjecture.

There was one time where he was suddenly inspired and he did not leave his room for days. He locked himself in his tiny bedroom and started to think about how to invent the perfect theoretical framework as well as how to reinvent Group Structure Method to solve Goldbach's conjecture.

As a result, he even missed a class that he was supposed to teach at.

Due to this, Professor Deligne called him and asked him what was going on.

However, after Professor Deligne learned that Lu Zhou was not playing around in NYC or Philadelphia, and was researching Goldbach's conjecture instead, he did not say anything about Lu Zhou's absence.

"Researching mathematics needs hard work, but that doesn't mean you should close yourself off. If you feel like your research has reached a bottleneck, I recommend you take a short break. Go play some football or watch a movie… You need to actively find inspiration instead of waiting for inspiration to find you."

Lu Zhou, "I'll take your advice into consideration… Also, can I take a vacation?"

Deligne, "How long?"

Lu Zhou said, "Two weeks."

Deligne, "There's no need to ask me. You can manage your own time. If after a year you still haven't made any progress, I'll assign you another task to work on. You only have a few golden years of mathematics research, so there's no need to waste more than one year on just one question."

After that, the old professor hung up.

Lu Zhou put down the phone and smiled as he twisted the pen in his hand.

I only have one year?

Although Professor Deligne did not say it out loud, he did not think that Lu Zhou could complete this task.

However, this also meant that the professor cared about Lu Zhou. If it was anyone else, Lu Zhou could go become an actor instead and the professor would not give a sh*t.

"I can't waste any more time," said Lu Zhou as he shook his head. He picked up the pen that he dropped and started to write calculations on the draft paper.

…

Although he said that he could not waste any more time, wasting time was a habit of his.

However, Lu Zhou did not think that there was anything wrong with his habit.

In the world of mathematics, there were multiple types of mathematicians. Some were like Chen Jingrun who was so introverted he would not accept any prizes, or like Kolmogorov, who loved boxing and the outdoors.

Lu Zhou felt that he was not an introverted researcher as he would listen to lectures when he had to. However, most of the time, he preferred to be a lone researcher.

A few days passed by.

It was a bright Saturday morning with blue skies.

Lu Zhou did not know how he fell asleep on his desk. He woke up and stretched his stiff body.

"Maybe I should hire a maid…"

I wonder how the robotic maids in Silicon Valley are.

Lu Zhou could theoretically give Xiao Ai a robot body. Maybe then his artificial retardation could finally be useful.

Like, take out the trash or something.

He did not have high hopes for more complicated tasks.

Lu Zhou rubbed his head and looked at the dozens of draft papers spread across the table. He picked out a few, crumpled them into balls, and threw them in the trash.

He felt a bit hungry, so he got up and walked to the kitchen.

He took out some bacon slices and vegetables from the fridge. After poaching the bacon, he took out two pieces of bread and placed them in the toaster.

Unfortunately, cooking was uncommon in America. Occasionally, they would have a barbecue party outdoors. Since Lu Zhou's small kitchen did not have a stove, he could not put his cooking skills to use.

Lu Zhou asked the apartment manager if he could install a stove but he was given a strange look and was refused.

However, it made sense. His apartment building was more than 90 years old. There had been many famous scholars that lived there. Even Einstein's house was nearby.

If he accidentally caused a fire, it would be a great loss.

Lu Zhou understood the apartment manager's decision.

Anyway, he mainly ate at the food club. He would only cook breakfast at home.

After he finished eating, Lu Zhou poured himself a cup of coffee. He stood next to the refrigerator and stared at the ticking clock while he sorted out his mind.

Suddenly, Luo Wenxuan called him.

"Hey, didn't you say that we're looking for cars today? I'm at the school gate, when do you want to leave? Don't tell me you're still in bed?"

Lu Zhou realized that he locked himself in his room for too long.

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Chapter 230: Real Men Drive SUVs

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou cleaned himself up and met Luo Wenxuan at the school gate. By the time they drove to the car dealership in Philadelphia, it was already 10 am.

It was a weekend, so the dealership was packed.

Luo Wenxuan got off the car and started to talk to Lu Zhou.

"I bought my car here. I heard that the owner is this rich Middle Eastern guy. He can provide economical modifications to the car and even provide custom parts."

Lu Zhou could not help but ask, "Friend?"

Luo Wenxuan smiled and said, "No way."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Lu Zhou thought that he could get a discount, but that did not seem possible anymore.

Luo Wenxuan coughed and asked, "What type of car do you like? I can recommend something for you. The cars here are pretty cheap, especially with discounts. High-end cars are only $60,000 USD or so. I recommend a Porsche…"

When Lu Zhou heard him, he shook his head, "I can't use my prize money on a car. I only need one that drives. Is there anything cheaper?"

Luo Wenxuan said, "Japanese cars and second-hand cars are all very cheap… You can get one for $3,000 USD. But honestly, I don't think you should get them unless you want to spend money on repairs."

Lu Zhou said, "I don't want that…"

Although he did not want to spend too much money on the car, he would not risk his safety for a cheaper car.

He took into account that since he was still a new driver, it would be better if he could get a safer car.

Lu Zhou walked around and his eyes soon landed on a bulky, rough figure.

After that, his eyes kept staring.

Luo Wenxuan looked in the same direction and was stunned.

"Ford Explorer SUV. Turbocharged 4 cylinder, 2.3T, medium-sized off-road vehicle… Don't tell me you're buying this?"

Lu Zhou immediately asked, "How much is it?"

"Around thirty grand. But I don't recommend it. Thirty grand can get you a Chevrolet Camaro. You can even buy a Cayenne with another 20 grand. And…" Luo Wenxuan paused.

Lu Zhou asked, "And what?"

Luo Wenxuan was embarrassed to say, "Nothing, I just don't think it fits your style…"

Lu Zhou: "…"

F*ck sake!

What do you mean it doesn't fit my style!

In what way?

In the end, Lu Zhou insisted on his own choice and bought this bulky SUV.

The total costs were $31,117 USD.

After paying the full amount, Lu Zhou took the car keys from the dealer's hand. He excitedly pulled Luo Wenxuan into the car and started driving it.

Lu Zhou already got his New Jersey driver's license a long time ago. He was now officially a real driver.

After driving around for a bit, Lu Zhou stopped in a parking lot to let Luo Wenxuan out.

When Lu Zhou got off the car, he said, "Thanks for the help today! You can go back to Princeton if you want. I still have some stuff to do."

Luo Wenxuan asked, "Are you fine driving by yourself?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I remember the way. Anyway, I have a GPS."

Luo Wenxuan said, "Okay then, see ya."

Lu Zhou, "Yeah, see ya. I'll buy you dinner sometime."

Luo Wenxuan said, "There's no need for that. Just introduce me to some pretty ladies from the University of Pennsylvania." He then got in his car and drove away.

Lu Zhou looked at his taillights and shook his head.

This guy is smart.

He actually guessed where I'm going.

But, he definitely has the wrong idea.

…

When Lu Zhou first arrived in Philadelphia, he promised Chen Yushan to take her to dinner.

Now that he had his license and car, he had no excuse to not meet up with her.

Lu Zhou used his GPS to drive to the Wharton school dorms. Once he found a spot to park, he called Chen Yushan.

"Little brother, you finally gave me a call."

Lu Zhou did not know why she sounded a little resentful.

Lu Zhou pretended like he did not notice as he asked, "Where are you? I'm already at Wharton's dorm entrance… But I don't know if you live here."

"What? You're at the University of Pennsylvania?" said Chen Yushan with a tone of surprise. She then asked, "Look outside. Is there a Blue Island coffee shop nearby?"

Lu Zhou looked outside his car window and said, "I think so."

"Yeah, I'm here. Just wait a bit, I'll come right away!"

Chen Yushan hung up the phone.

She said right away, but Lu Zhou waited for a while in the car. He was about to fall asleep when he finally saw a familiar figure walked out of the dorm entrance.

It was now March so the weather had eased up a lot. Lu Zhou saw that Chen Yushan was wearing a slanted shoulder dress and she looked a lot more youthful than when he first arrived in Philadelphia.

Especially her bangs, it made Lu Zhou felt like it was two years ago when he first saw her all dressed up at the cafeteria.

Chen Yushan opened the door and sat shotgun. She then looked around curiously.

"You bought a car?"

Lu Zhou, "Yeah, I just bought it. Where should we eat?"

Chen Yushan put her hand out and said, "I know a good restaurant nearby. Give me your phone, I'll GPS route it for you."

…

They were going to a nearby Italian restaurant.

Lu Zhou parked the car in a parking lot near the restaurant and walked in with Chen Yushan.

The two got a table and ordered the food.

Once the food arrived, they started to chat while eating.

After all, they were comrades who used to sit together in the library. Now that they met across the Pacific Ocean, naturally they would have a lot of things to talk about.

"You must be busy."

Lu Zhou nodded, "Yeah, pretty busy. I've been researching Goldbach's conjecture recently, but haven't made much progress."

Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou with worship and said, "You're insane…"

Although she did not do research on mathematics, she obviously knew about Goldbach's conjecture.

Lu Zhou was embarrassed. He smiled and changed the subject.

"It's okay… How about you?"

"Me? I'm pretty busy as well," said Chen Yushan as she played with her straw. She then sighed and said, "My supervisor has a Walmart project. It's about the management and training program for senior employees in the India Branch. I need to read 20 pages of research every day and write a report every week. They're working me to the bone."

Chen Yushan playfully stuck her tongue out.

She was cute, just like a little puppy… Although it could be misunderstood.

Lu Zhou put away his dirty thoughts and said, "Walmart project? Your supervisor must be a big name."

Of course, he was really thinking about the money involved in helping a major corporation.

"It's okay, not as impressive as you, Mr. Mathematician," said Chen Yushan as she looked at Lu Zhou with a smile. She then changed the subject, "Speaking of which, why did you buy an SUV?"

"I don't know? I just like it. It's big, rough, resistant, Se… Secure." said Lu Zhou. He coughed and said, "It fits men like me."

Close! I nearly said sexy, thank god I reacted in time.

He did not know why, but his friend started to laugh.

"Pfft…"

Lu Zhou was confused, "What?"

Chen Yushan laughed and slapped her thigh as she said, "Nothing, little brother… As long as you're happy."

Lu Zhou: ? ? ?

Once Chen Yushan finished laughing, she looked at him and teased, "Also, by the way, I think you're more of the Mini Cooper type… They're very popular."

Emmmm…

Are you saying I'm sophisticated?

Thanks for the compliment.

Lu Zhou smiled as well as he did not know what else to say.

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It really was convenient and safe to have a car.

Lu Zhou spent the whole day in Philadelphia with Chen Yushan. They watched a movie, chilled around and had dinner. After that, Lu Zhou drove back to Princeton.

Lu Zhou parked the car near the Institute of Higher Education. He was in a good mood and he started humming while walking up to his apartment.

When he walked up to the second floor, he saw Molina in sports clothes. It looked like she was about to go running.

Molina looked at Lu Zhou and asked, "Went on a date?"

"Bought a car."

Lu Zhou shook the car keys and did not say much to her as he went straight into his apartment.

Once he was inside, he threw his jacket and car keys on the sofa. First, he went to the kitchen and made himself some coffee. He then sat down at his desk and was ready to continue working.

Suddenly, a message from Xiao Ai popped up on his phone screen.

[Master, new mail!]

Is it from Professor Frank?

Lu Zhou opened his computer and logged into his email. He did not just see one, but two emails in his inbox.

One email was sent three days ago, probably when he was still locked in his room. He probably did not see Xiao Ai's notification.

Lu Zhou did not recognize the sender's email address. Since he was afraid that he missed something important, he opened this one first.

[Mr. Lu Zhou, I am Vera Pulyuy from Berkeley. I have some questions from our last discussion. Don't know if I can take up some of your precious time?]

Pulyuy?

Probably a Slav name?

Why is this girl so polite? It's not like I'm some famous professor.

Lu Zhou scratched his head. He could not imagine this little girl being from a country with bearded large men and polar bears.

Never would've thought she is a Slav…

Lu Zhou shook his head and put these insignificant things aside. He skipped the paragraph worshiping him and looked at the important part of the email.

[… In the paper reported by Professor Helfgott at the mid-year conference of the Federal Mathematical Society, the third page of the 11-line formula J(n)=Φ(λ)·G(λ)2·H(λ) ·e-nλdλ. Why does it directly draw the conclusions in the thesis proposition (2.1)?

Lu Zhou lifted his eyebrows.

Oh, she knows what she's talking about.

No wonder she's an IMO gold medalist, she's quite talented.

Compared to the question she asked me last time, this question was at least related to the circle method.

Lu Zhou smiled and typed a response.

[Because we have to deal with the interval using the circle method and establish several equal distribution results. So we record S1(q,α)=e(αm3/q), C1(q,α)=e(αm3/q2), brought into Td(n,q)=S1(q,αd3) ·C1(q,αd3)·e(-an/q)/qψ2(q)… and then, what do we get? Think about it yourself.]

Lu Zhou double checked his email and once he made sure there were no mistakes, he sent it out.

In the email, he did not directly answer Vera. He hoped that she could figure it out on her own.

If she wanted to study mathematics in the future, whether it was number theory or another field, this process of figuring it out on her own was crucial.

Basic mathematics could be taught, but higher levels of mathematics must be digested by herself. This was because everyone had different interpretations, so there was no standard answer.

Lu Zhou took a sip of his bitter coffee before he realized that he forgot to add sugar.

He walked to his kitchen and got some sugar. When he returned to his desk, he found out that he already received a reply.

"That quick?"

Lu Zhou placed down the coffee and opened the email.

The body had only one line.

[… can you get the order δd(n)=Td(n,q) absolute convergence?]

Lu Zhou smirked as he nodded with satisfaction.

This girl is worthy to be taught!

As he estimated, this student had potential.

Although her experience was low, her ability to understand and intuition toward numbers was high.

If he was a professor at Berkeley, he definitely would not mind being her supervisor.

Lu Zhou smiled and wrote a reply.

[Correct.]

Within a minute, he received a reply.

[Thank you.]

Wow, she's very polite as well.

Lu Zhou closed the email and looked at the calculations he did on the computer. He was about to delete this document when he suddenly stared at the lines of calculations. He then went into deep thought.

Td(n,q)=S1(q,αd3)·C1(q,αd3)·e(-an/q)/qψ2(q)…

The series δd(n)=Td(n,q) is absolutely convergent…

From here on, I can introduce the circle method and solve the proposition (2.1).

Lu Zhou suddenly realized something. He quickly opened his computer files and found Helfgott's thesis that was submitted to the Federal Mathematics Society's conference. He found the third line on page 11 and started to read.

The clock on the wall slowly ticked. Without him knowing, it had been half an hour.

Suddenly, Lu Zhou realized something. He quickly picked up a pen and started writing on paper.

Helfgott was undoubtedly the master of the circle method, just like how Chen Jingrun was the master of the sieve theory.

However, even Helfgott himself did not expect that the circle method could be used to solve Goldbach's conjecture. Lu Zhou had not expected himself to defeat the master while he was looking for a possible way.

However, when he was reviewing the thesis, he found a detail that he did not notice before.

The old man's thesis was very long, and thus, Lu Zhou did not examine it carefully. If it was not for Vera, Lu Zhou would not have noticed this detail.

Lu Zhou was ecstatic at this unexpected surprise.

Although this discovery could not solve Goldbach's conjecture, it would perfect his tools!

It could possibly let him apply his Group Structure Method to Goldbach's conjecture…

… Maybe?

His pen slowed down and stopped.

As Lu Zhou looked at the four pages in front of him, he could not continue to write.

He had lost his train of thought.

I was so close!

The clock kept ticking away and the sky outside the window gradually darkened.

Lu Zhou looked at his computer screen.

Suddenly, he realized that he had another un-read email.

He immediately sat up straight.

In his mind, he apologized to Professor Frank as he had nearly ignored his email.

The email was short.

Only one line.

[About the 750 GeV signal, I need to talk with you face to face… When do you have time?]

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The shorter the sentence, the most meaningful it was.

After the International Theoretical Physics Conference at Brussel, Lu Zhou had predicted that Professor Frank might have something to say.

He quickly replied.

[I'm available any time. When are you free?]

He waited for a while but Professor Frank did not reply.

Lu Zhou looked at the time and guessed that Frank was probably asleep. Lu Zhou got up and took a shower before calling it a night.

They did not speak again that night.

The next morning, Lu Zhou got out of bed and turned off his alarm. He then checked his inbox and saw a reply.

[I'm going to Stony Brook University the day after tomorrow, and I'll stay there for around three days. If you are available, we can meet there.]

Lu Zhou looked at the calendar.

He had to do a lecture in two days, but he had already asked Professor Deligne for a vacation.

He then replied.

[Okay, let's meet the day after tomorrow. I'll contact you then.]

Frank's reply was short.

[Ok.]

…

New York was located on the east coast. It was the economic and cultural hub of the world, and one of America's major technology centers.

Many people know about Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty. However, few people know about one of the world's most advanced scientific research laboratory in Long Island: Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Many Nobel Prizes including Yang Zhenduo and Li Zhengdao's J particle discovery was born here. There were around 3,000 researchers and engineers here, and an average of more than 4,000 visiting scholars who worked here each year.

Although it was not as advanced as CERN, it was still impressive.

To a large extent, the meaning of the Hadron Collider lied here. On the surface, discovering a new particle did not seem like a big deal as it would not change people's lives in any way. However, the experiment attracted a large number of scholars and created cutting-edge equipment while forming a "scientific research ecosystem".

For example, the Hadron Collider's storage ring required harsh vacuumed conditions. This had led to the development of ultra-high-vacuum technology which had many industrial and medical uses.

A lot of civilian technologies were developed this way.

This laboratory was part of the Department of Energy but is managed by the Brookhaven Science Society, a company founded by Stony Brook University.

It was a Monday when Lu Zhou drove his new car to New York.

He had arranged to meet Professor Frank at a cafe near Stony Brook University. Lu Zhou did not know why, but all of the professors he had met liked coffee.

At around 12 o'clock in the coffee shop, Professor Frank arrived with a laptop in his hand.

"Sorry, I'm late. I had a meeting."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "No, it's fine. I only just got here."

Professor Frank sat across from Lu Zhou and said to the waiter, "I'll have an Americano and a tuna sandwich."

Waiter, "With sugar?"

"No, thanks."

Professor Frank placed his laptop on the table and opened a document as he said to Lu Zhou, "You brought your USB, right?"

Lu Zhou nodded. He then took out a USB from his pocket and placed it on the table before he asked, "I did… Can you tell me what is it? Although I don't mind drinking coffee with you, if we are just talking about experiment data, why can't we do it over email?"

Professor Frank did not answer his question as he was busy playing with his laptop. He opened a graph and turned the computer around.

As Lu Zhou looked at the graph, he asked, "What is this?"

Professor Frank moved his chair closer to Lu Zhou and pointed at the graph.

"This is CERN's latest experimental data. The two charts above are the distribution curves and statistical charts of the energy region as collected by ATLAS and CMS. You should be able to see why this graph is meaningful."

Lu Zhou stared at the graph for a while before he said, "The confidence level has fallen?"

Professor Frank sighed and said, "Yes, no matter how many times we do the experiment, we can't reach a confident level of 3-sigma. And the 750 GeV characteristic peak we saw last year has shrunk… That is why the confidence level decreased."

Lu Zhou stared at the graph for a long time and did not speak.

He could guess why Professor Frank wanted to talk to him in person.

Professor Frank saw that Lu Zhou did not speak, so he continued.

"The Theoretical Physics Conference in Brussels was big. It's a pity that you missed it…"

"… The latest discovery report on the accelerator was done by the newly elected 16th President of the CERN Council, Ms. Fabiola Gianano. The presentation was packed with people. Some even sat on the floor… "

"… The report contained a lot of things and a whole 20 minutes was spent on the 750 GeV CERN discovery… "

"… You should be able to understand this graph, or you can bring them back and study them," said Professor Frank. He sighed and said, "Although it's not that meaningful anymore."

Lu Zhou did not look at the computer. Instead, he continued to look at Professor Frank and waited for him to speak.

Professor Frank shrugged and did not want to sound so depressed as he said, "But in any case, you've been a great help. From last year May till two months ago, a large influx of thesis was seen on arXiv. Many of them on physics models. Although they may not be correct, they are still useful. Also, the two theses that we co-wrote, has been referenced many times."

Although Frank tried to comfort Lu Zhou, Lu Zhou was not comforted at all.

Lu Zhou had spent more than half a year on this project. For a theoretical physicist, half a year was nothing, but for Lu Zhou, it was different.

Not only because his precious time spent building the models were wasted, but also because his hopes of the 750 GeV had been crushed…

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and looked at Professor Frank before he said, "So, you're saying?"

Professor Frank did not respond, which confirmed his hypothesis.

The old man stood up, took off his hat, and nodded as a show of thanks.

"It's clear that from CERN's experimental plan, that after January 1st, there will be no more experiments to retrieve the 750GeV characteristic peak anomaly. This is because every collision of the particle is money burnt. It has been a pleasure working with you. I sincerely thank you for your work, but…"

Professor Frank coughed and looked regretful as he said, "Logic tells us that it's much easier to build a model that doesn't contain 750 GeV particles, than looking for the particle."

It was clear that this project was no longer meaningful.

Explaining the non-existence of a particle that could not be proven was not an experiment worth researching. Perhaps the experiment could help a few particle physicists published a few theses, but it was nothing "new".

Lu Zhou was silent for a long time.

He made up his mind and said, "But I haven't given up."

Professor Frank did not say anything. Instead, he put on his hat and sighed, "Then I wish you good luck."

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Chapter 233: The Last Piece Of The Puzzle

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

There was a well-known joke in the mathematics world which was used to ridicule physicists. It was about how physicist proved that "odd numbers are prime numbers".

The joke was that 1 was a prime number, so 3,4,5,7, 9 was a random error, 11 was a prime number, so was 13…

Okay, enough experiments, all odd numbers were prime numbers!

Then, after several years of experiments, more numbers were tested. The physicists found "experimental errors" that exceeded the confidence threshold. The physicists then added onto the theory and redefined the definition of physics for three-digit numbers.

This sounded like the evolutionary nature of relativity where theories were constantly changed and improved on.

In reality, theoretical physics lacked the rigor and beauty of mathematics.

The 750 GeV characteristic peak was similar to "9 is a random error", whereby if it was repeated multiple times, it was a "sign" or even "discovery". However, if it disappeared, then it became a random error.

Unfortunately, even the upgraded Hadron Collider could only do experiments for "prime numbers under 100". The theory was way ahead of the technology.

At the end of the meeting, Professor Frank dissolved the team.

Lu Zhou's gains were merely two theses, co-signed with Professor Frank and his PhD students.

For him, this was definitely bad news.

However, Lu Zhou did not intend to give up.

Even though Professor Frank gave up, Lu Zhou would continue to research this project.

Mathematics was the language of God, and although Lu Zhou did not believe in God, he believed that mathematics would not deceive people.

Through his rigorous calculations, he predicted the appearance of the characteristic peak. Although he did not know why it disappeared, never for a second did he believed that it did not exist.

Otherwise, how else could anyone explain the detections from both ATLAS and CMS?

Could it just be quantum fluctuations?

The probability was too low for fluctuations to be observed by two detectors at the same time.

Lu Zhou originally planned on hanging around New York for a few more days but because of this bad news, he was no longer in the mood.

In the same afternoon, he drove back to Princeton.

It was already night time by the time he got back to his apartment. He bumped into Molina who was back from her night run. She was wearing a black sports bra and her golden hair moistened from sweat. She looked elegant and charming.

Molina glanced at Lu Zhou and noticed something. She teased him, "I can see that you're not in a good mood."

"Yeah."

Molina raised her eyebrows and gloated, "Dumped?"

"I guess."

Lu Zhou took out his keys. He then opened the door and went inside.

Molina looked at the door close. After a while, she whispered to herself, "I guess he really did get dumped…"

…

Excavating the 750 GeV characteristic peak required a Hadron Collider with a higher brightness detector and many other things…

Lu Zhou could predict the characteristic peak from calculations, but he could not prove the existence of this particle purely through theory. He could only perfect his model and then wait for CERN to verify his theory.

Unfortunately, many people had lost hope in this "750 GeV".

Like Molina said, he was "dumped", physics "dumped" him and left him alone.

Lu Zhou did not have any better ideas. He could only seek comfort in the arms of mathematics.

At least, improved his Group Structure Method. Perhaps this temporary depression could be turned into motivation and maybe helped him find the last piece of the conjecture.

Lu Zhou took a shower and went to bed early.

The next morning he woke up refreshed. He printed out the lecture slides and went to the mathematics building.

The mathematics building was the tallest building in all of Princeton. It represented the significance and status of mathematics at Princeton.

However, Lu Zhou was not here for an esoteric lecture. He was instead attending a number theory lecture with a bunch of undergrads.

As a winner of the Cole Prize in Number Theory, why did he have to waste time and listen to an undergrad lecture? Yesterday night in bed, he suddenly remembered a book he read in University of Jin Ling library.

That book was the autobiography of Mr. Yang Zhenduo, in which it contained a chapter about Fermi.

In the book, the author mentioned that Fermi advised him not to stay at Princeton for too long because that place was like a monastery.

Mr. Yang's biggest impression of Fermi was that Fermi loved to communicate with students. Fermi was keen on lecturing, organized seminars, and his students won six Nobel Prizes.

More than once, he mentioned that his ideal plan was to teach physics in a small Ivy League school and to write a book that contained all of the difficulties in physics.

From Vera's letter, Lu Zhou suddenly realized that while studying Goldbach's conjecture, he ignored some "well-known" things.

Helfgott's paper was very useful, but he skipped over a lot of things and was too brief. For Lu Zhou, the things that Helfgott skipped over were "obvious", but he missed out on many "obvious" details.

Abstraction should be done, only after careful scrutiny.

Lu Zhou hoped to recapture some basic principals and concepts and to see things from a different perspective as a way of inspiration.

Lu Zhou quietly walked into the classroom as he did not want to attract anyone's attention. He found a seat in the last row.

The lecturer was the current head of the mathematics department, Charles Fefferman, who solved calculus at 12 years old, doctorate at 20 years old, and by 22 years old, he was a professor of Chicago University. He was considered a super genius.

Charles looked at the class and stared at Lu Zhou's face for a second. He clearly recognized Lu Zhou. However, he did not say anything. Like usual, he wrote on the whiteboard and started his lecture.

Princeton's students were all exceptional. There were IMO competition finalists, Putnam competitors, and geniuses from all over the world attending this lecture.

Doing a lecture for these geniuses were obviously different than at a normal university.

Especially for those sloppy professors.

Charles was talking about the proof of the prime number theorem. When he wrote down the 20th line of proof, someone raised their hand.

"Professor, the value of the Φ(s) function should be 2 instead of 3!"

Obviously, someone had already studied the prime number proofs.

Charles turned around. He smiled calmly and said, "You're right, but can you believe that even if this step is wrong, I can still prove the theorem."

That student was stunned and whisperings were heard in the classroom.

From the whispers, Lu Zhou could feel a sense of disbelief coming from the students.

It was not just the students, but Lu Zhou himself was also in disbelief.

Lu Zhou was very rigorous toward calculations and he would never make a mistake.

However, Lu Zhou did not say anything. Instead, he patiently waited for the professor to finish the proof.

Charles did not say anything. Instead, he turned around and started to write on the whiteboard.

15 minutes went by and he finally finished his last line of calculations. Everyone in the classroom was stunned.

Especially the student that pointed out the mistake. His face was full of confusion.

That mistake was clearly there, but…

Charles solved it!

"I've personally researched the prime number theorem, and there's around a dozen of them. The rigor of calculations is very important, but when we are at the frontier field, it's more important to be logically self-consistent. This is not just for mathematics, but for all of science. As for why I could draw the same conclusion, it's because I've tried numerous methods of proofs, and found out that most methods are the same…"

Charles smiled and gently wiped out the "3". He changed it to a "2" and said, "Of course, I was only manipulating the mistake. Student Smith is correct, the calculation result should be a 3, but whether it is a 2 or 3, we still satisfy the interval defined by function ζ(x)."

It was clear he knew this theorem inside and out, like the back of his hand.

Lu Zhou even suspected that Charles purposely made a mistake to demonstrate to these rookies.

Of course, his attention was not here.

"Same result but from different calculations?"

Lu Zhou repeated this sentence and went into deep thought.

His eyes gradually lit up.

He suddenly realized something.

The puzzle he had been searching for was in his own hands…

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Chapter 234: Surprising Evaluation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

If the core idea of Lu Zhou's Group Structure Method for non-residual estimation of the modular prime numbers was from the large sieve method, then the Fourier analysis of the function on the circumference in the Helffgot's thesis was the 1% left for his "core idea".

Lu Zhou had completed this job up to "99%" since California. The remaining 1% that he required was the inspiration.

However, this last piece of the puzzle was now in Lu Zhou's hands.

Lu Zhou did not wait for Charles's lecture to finish before he packed his things and quietly left.

The professor on stage noticed him leaving. However, Charles merely smiled and pretended as if nothing had happened while he continued to speak in his slow voice about number theory.

Lu Zhou returned to his apartment and picked up a pen before he started to write on the draft paper.

His thoughts were flowing like a waterfall. Unstoppable!

He wrote five pages, six pages, seven pages…

Time slowly passed by.

The clock on the wall turned noon, then afternoon, then night.

Lu Zhou finished writing on the 16th page. He finally stopped the pen and looked at his research work.

"… Then this introduces Bombiere theorem, and the rest of the calculations are trivial… Done!"

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath and a smile finally emerged on his face.

Further down was the solution of Goldbach's conjecture.

From now on, his "boat" was going into unknown territory.

However, he believed that he could do it.

This unreasonable but persistent belief was similar to what Andrew Wyles felt right after he saw the proof of Fermat's last theorem.

When a tool was built, the mission of using the tool was nothing but a piece of cake.

The collection of over two centuries of research, several generations of Goldbach's conjecture studies, finally came to this step.

Instead of arrogance, Lu Zhou only had honor in his heart.

He was honored to stand at the top of this building.

Lu Zhou took out his phone and sent a message to Deligne and his friends at Princeton. He told them that his research project was in its final stage and that he would be AFK for a while.

Then, he turned off his phone and locked himself in his tiny apartment…

If it went well, it should not take too long.

If it did not…

Then he would not be leaving his apartment!

…

The design of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was very interesting. The research and the lecture hall were designed together. In the middle of a lecture, people could take a break and eat at the research hall.

Also, the coffee machine was free to use.

Deligne sat in a corner of the restaurant. He was holding a thesis.

As an academic editor of [Annual Mathematics] and [Mathematics Chronicle, he usually had very little spare time, so he used his lunchtime to review theses.

Unless it was a particularly interesting thesis, he would not bring it back to his office.

Sitting across Deligne was Edward Witten. Edward asked with a smile, "How come I haven't seen your new PhD student recently?"

Among all of the PhD students at Princeton, Witten respected Lu Zhou the most. Especially after Lu Zhou's mathematical physics talents were put to use at CERN's report, Witten saw himself in Lu Zhou.

Witten always wanted to discuss the 750 GeV characteristic peak with the young man, but unfortunately, he had never had the chance.

Professor Deligne was looking at the thesis when he simply answered, "He took a vacation."

Witten, "Vacation?"

"Yeah," sad Deligne with a nod. He then said, "He's been researching Goldbach's conjecture, so I approved a two-week vacation."

"Goldbach's conjecture…" said Witten. He was slightly surprised. He then said, "This is an interesting conjecture. I thought he was studying the standard conjecture with your research group."

Deligne made a mark on the thesis as he said, "I invited him, but he wasn't interested, so I didn't persist. For a genius like him, it's better to give him freedom than to force him to do anything."

Suddenly, the phone on the table vibrated.

Deligne looked at the text and his eyebrows twitched.

[Dear Professor Deligne, I'm your student, Lu Zhou. Here's the thing, my research has entered a critical stage and I need to retreat for a while. It could take a month, or… I'm not sure. In short, before the end of the year, I will give you a satisfactory explanation.]

Although Edward did not see what was on the phone, he could tell what it was from his old friend's change of expression. He then asked, "Do you think he will succeed?"

Professor Deligne placed down his phone. He was expressionless.

After thinking for a moment, he sighed and shook his head.

"I don't know, I just don't agree with his research method. Retreating isn't a good research method as he could bring himself to a dead end. If he was going to a meeting or conference, I would support him. I could even financially support him. But as of now, from my knowledge, he's been locking himself in his room."

Witten smiled and said, "But you still support his decision?"

'Yeah, I gave him a year," said Deligne. He shrugged and said with a tone of uncertainty, "After all, I may be wrong. His twin prime conjecture discovery at Princeton really surprised me. It even created a type of illusion for me…"

Witten, "Illusion?"

Deligne was silent for a while. He then said, "It's like I saw Grothendieck."

Edward Witten was stunned.

Grothendieck!

Father of modern algebraic geometry, the pope of modern mathematics!

Many people liked to compare young mathematicians to Faltings, or even Jean-Pierre Searle. Very few people compared mathematicians to Grothendieck as it would be too big of an exaggeration.

There was no more than five young mathematicians that could be compared to Grothendieck.

After a while, Witten said slowly, "That is… quite surprising."

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Chapter 235: Proving The Conjecture!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The sky shined bright outside the window.

Lu Zhou was sleeping on his desk. He slowly opened his eyes.

He rubbed his sore eyebrows and looked at the calendar on the corner of his table.

It's already May…

Lu Zhou had a slight headache and he shook his head.

Since arriving at Princeton in February, he had spent almost half of his time in this tiny apartment. Other than going for grocery shopping, he basically did not leave the room.

The worse was his $5,000 USD food club membership. He had barely used it.

After receiving the mission, he had been challenging Goldbach's conjecture for almost half a year.

Finally, there was a result.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and stood up.

He was almost at the finish line and he did not have to rush anymore.

Lu Zhou went into the kitchen and made himself a snack. He even took out a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and poured himself a glass.

He bought this champagne two months ago just for this moment.

Lu Zhou quietly finished his food. He then went to wash his hand before he returned to his desk. He began to put an end to his work.

He started to continue where he left off.

[… Obviously, we have Px(1,1)P(x,x{1/16})-(1/2)Px(x,p,x)-Q/2-x(log4 )…(30)]

[From equation (30), Lemma 8, Lemma 9, Lemma 10, it can be proved that theorem 1 holds.]

The so-called theorem 1 was the mathematical expression of Goldbach's conjecture in his thesis.

That was, given a sufficiently large even number N, there were two prime numbers P1 and P2 that satisfy N = P1 P2.

Similar theorems were Chen's theorem N = P1 P2.P3, there were an entire series of theorems about P(a,b).

Of course, although he labeled this as theorem 1 in his thesis, it would not be long before the mathematics community accepted his proof. After that, it could be upgraded to "Lu Zhou's theorem" or something like that.

However, the review process for this type of major conjecture was longer.

Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture took three years to be recognized by the mathematics community. The proof of the conjecture was filled with a lot of "mysterious terms". Therefore, it was difficult for anyone but him to understand the thesis.

The speed at which a major conjecture was reviewed largely depended on the popularity of the conjecture.

When Lu Zhou proved the twin prime conjecture, he did not use a particularly novel theory. He only used the twin prime method mentioned in Zellberg's 1995 thesis. Therefore, people quickly understood his proof.

However, for Polignac's conjecture thesis, the review process took a long time.

Even though Lu Zhou used his already proven Group Structure Method, he made significant modifications and it became very different than the large sieve method. Even for a big name like Deligne, it would take a long time to review.

Lu Zhou wrote fifty pages for the Goldbach's conjecture thesis. Half of which was to discuss the theoretical framework he built for the proof.

This part could be published as a thesis on its own.

To a large extent, his review process depended on other people's interest in his work, and how accepting other people were.

As for how long it would take, it was out of his control.

Actually, Lu Zhou thought about what the system's criteria were for completing the mission.

If he completed the proof, but for decades, no one accepted his work, would he be stuck on this one mission?

What he was most confused about was where the system's large database came from. It must have come from a civilization far more advanced than humans.

Lu Zhou felt like the system would make its own judgment whether or not he proved the conjecture. The system would not rely on "humans".

Lu Zhou's conclusion was that the completion of his mission would depend on two factors.

The first was correctness.

The second was publishing!

Actually, there was a very simple way to verify if his proof was correct.

He did not have to publish in journals…

…

After proving Goldbach's conjecture, Lu Zhou spent an entire three days sorting the thesis onto his computer. He converted it into PDF format and uploaded it onto arXiv.

He was almost certain that his thesis was correct because his habit was to carry out rigorous double checks on each line of conclusion. He would repeatedly scrutinize all possible errors.

As for publishing…

ArXiv did not have a peer-review process, so it was undoubtedly the fastest option!

The only drawback was that it could conflict with submission to other journals. For example, uploading the thesis before the deadline may violate some double submission rules, but Lu Zhou did not care about those things. He also believed that reputable journals would not care either.

After all, Lu Zhou was not some no-name guy. He was the winner of the Cole Prize in Number Theory. Plus his thesis was not some random work. It was the famous Goldbach's conjecture, the eighth question of Hilbert 23, which was one of the Millennium Prize Problems!

He would spend the next two days editing and organizing his thesis. After that, he would submit it to [Annual Mathematics].

When Fermat's last theorem was first proved, it took six peer reviewers to check the proof. Lu Zhou did not know how many reviewers he warranted, but it should be no less than four.

Lu Zhou looked at the "upload finish" message on his browser and took a deep breath.

Does this mean I've finished it?

After the publication of his thesis, someone in this field received an alert. Somewhere on this planet, someone was already reading his thesis.

However, Lu Zhou did not know if the system counted this as a successful submission.

Lu Zhou sat in front of the computer and took a deep breath. He then closed his eyes and whispered.

"System."

When he opened his eyes again, he was met with a pure white view.

It had been a long time since he came here. Lu Zhou almost felt uncomfortable.

He walked to the semi-transparent information screen and clicked on the mission panel.

He was going to see if his mission was completed…

He could also verify if his thought process was correct.

Wait a minute…

Lu Zhou realized a problem.

If the system did not respond, that either meant that his guess of the system mission evaluation process was wrong or that his thesis was wrong.

The system did not give him time to think.

A notification sound rang.

Then, a line of text appeared.

[Congratulations, User, for mission completion!]

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A lot could happen in a second.

While Lu Zhou was laying in bed, immersed in the system space, British mathematician Andrew Granville was browsing arXiv at the University of Montreal which was located thousands of miles away from Princeton.

This was one of the daily habits that he would sometimes do after his morning run or sometimes before going to bed.

Although many professors liked to delegate the work of stalking arXiv's latest research to master's or PhD students, Granville liked to take this matter in his own hands.

Although the papers on arXiv had not been peer-reviewed, many people had come up with new and creative ideas. They were inspirational albeit not perfected.

Granville roughly scanned through a dozen or so theses, he yawned and was about to go to bed.

Suddenly, on his profile, he got a notification from the website. It was from the two categories he followed: analytical number theory and prime numbers.

Granville flinched. His OCD prompted him to open the notification.

Once he read the title of the article, his mouth was wide open.

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

Isn't this Euler's statement of Goldbach's conjecture?

Normally speaking, this type of thesis would be in the "general mathematics" section which would then be blocked by Granville's settings.

Granville did not know why this thesis gave him a notification. He thought that the website must have malfunctioned.

He shook his head and was about to turn off his laptop and go to sleep when he suddenly noticed the name of the author.

Then…

He was stunned.

Lu Zhou?

The winner of the Cole Prize in Number Theory?

Solver of Zhou's conjecture, twin prime conjecture, and prime number?

This means that… Did he solve Goldbach's conjecture this year?

WTF?

Granville was instantly awake!

His sleepiness instantly went away and he sat in his chair for half a minute.

Then, he looked at the calendar to confirm that it was not April Fools' Day.

A fifty-page long thesis was normal for a conjecture of this size.

"I can't believe he solved Goldbach's conjecture… No way."

Granville opened the thesis and started reading.

He spent the entire night reading the thesis.

…

On the other side of the Atlantic, in École Normale Supérieure, a lecture on the weak Goldbach's conjecture was going on.

The lecturer was Helfgott.

"… The limit of the circle method is the weak Goldbach's conjecture. We can prove that any odd number greater than 7 can be expressed as the sum of three prime numbers, but it is difficult to generalize it to even numbers… "

"… Of course, my proof is far from perfect. There is a lot of room for improvement. If anyone in the audience is interested in this problem, I recommend you change your mind and research something else."

The lecture came to an end.

Next was the question and answering session.

There were both professors and students from École Normale Supérieure attending this lecture.

After a long time, a young man spoke.

"Professor Helfgott, how long do you think until Goldbach's conjecture is solved?"

Helfgott thought and said, "It depends on whether or not the tools used to solve the conjecture exists or not. In fact, I hope it is never solved. Look at what we have received? In order to solve this conjecture, we invented the sieve method, circle method… There is much more to be gained researching this problem."

The lecture ended.

The crowd erupted in applause and Professor Helfgott left the lecture hall.

He did not stay there for long. Instead, he carried his briefcase and walked toward his office.

When he opened the door and before he could sit down, his student walked over with a horrified look.

"Professor! I saw a proof of Goldbach's conjecture on arXiv!"

Helfgott placed his briefcase on the table and did not change his expression as he said calmly, "Amos, I've told you, you have to be more careful when reading theses on arXiv. There's only one Perelman. You should look at some classic publications that I've given you, not ones that haven't been peer-reviewed."

Mathematics was different than computer science. For computer science, two months could be a century. Therefore, many people liked to first publish before they prove. Hence, they used arXiv frequently.

However, for mathematics, publishing without peer review meant nothing.

Amos had a helpless expression. He knew that his boss did not like arXiv but he still tried to explain, "But Professor, this thesis was written by the winner of Cole Prize in Number Theory! Surely his paper is legit."

Helfgott froze and he had a surprised expression.

Not because of the Cole Prize award because he had met many people that had won the Cole Prize. It was because he knew who won the Cole Prize in Number Theory last year. He was there at Berkeley and the young Chinese man left a good impression on him.

Just what…

Why would he submit such a major conjecture on arXiv?

Helfgott changed his attitude. He felt that he should treat this thesis with caution. He could not ignore such a major discovery due to prejudice against arXiv.

He took out his glasses from his pocket and said, "Bring me the thesis."

"Okay, professor!"

Amos went to the computer with enthusiasm and printed the thesis.

The printer quickly printed fifty warm pages which were then delivered to Helfgott.

Professor Helfgott adjusted his glasses and took out a pen as he started to read the thesis line by line.

Time slowly passed by…

Amos waited for a long time.

Finally, he was a little anxious and he could not help but ask, "Professor, is he correct?"

"I don't know…," said Professor Helfgott as he shook his head. He then placed the pen down as he said, "… But I haven't found a mistake yet."

It was impossible to verify a major conjecture in a short amount of time. Helfgott needed time and friends that were in this field.

Helfgott leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as he started to think.

After five minutes, he opened his eyes and said to Amos.

"… He used a brand new method, I can see signs of the sieve method, and residual of the circle method… Of course, the most interesting part is the introduction of his own theoretical framework. I have seen similar ideas in Zellberg's thesis. As for whether or not his proof is correct, I can't make a decision yet. I need someone else's opinion…"

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Chapter 237: Level 5 Mathematics!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

As Lu Zhou expected, the system did not care about "humans" evaluation of his thesis. The system made its own evaluation.

Correctness and publication. Since these two criteria were met, the mission was considered complete.

[Congratulations, user, for completing the mission!

[Mission completion details is as follows: Successfully solve Goldbach's conjecture.

[Mission final evaluation: S

[Mission rewards: 200k mathematics experience points! 500 general points. One lucky draw ticket. (50% garbage, 30% sample, 20% blueprint)]

200k mathematics experience points!

Double Polignac's conjecture!

When Lu Zhou saw this number, he took in a deep breath before he felt ecstasy.

"System, open my characteristic panel!"

[

A. Mathematics: Level 5 (54,000/300,000)

B. Physics: Level 3 (53,100/100,000)

C. Biochemistry: Level 1 (4,000/10,000)

D. Engineering: Level 1 (0/10,000)

E. Materials science: Level 1 (3,000/10,000)

F. Energy science: Level 1 (0/10,000)

G. Information science: Level 1 (3,000/10,000)

General points: 2,475 (one lucky draw ticket)

]

As he leveled up his disciplines, it meant that he would be able to unlock more of the information in the system's database and that his understanding of the disciplines would further be strengthened.

Without him knowing it, he was already halfway from the maximum mathematics level.

As his mathematics level increased, the level limit of his other subjects also increased.

Perhaps it was time to upgrade other subjects?

Lu Zhou put these problems aside. He intended to look at the reward mission before he made a decision. Otherwise, if the system gave him another conjecture mission, he would not be able to tackle other subjects even if he wanted to.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and clicked on the lucky draw icon.

The exciting lucky draw session came next.

The wheel started to spin.

Lu Zhou ordered the wheel to stop and it gradually came to a stop.

[Congratulations, user, a sample is given!

[Acquired: Brainwave Sampler (one time use) (Description:…)]

Lu Zhou read the message and was stunned.

He was a little disappointed that he did not get the blueprint.

However, when he saw the sample, his disappointment was replaced by surprise.

In his inventory, a pen-shaped thing appeared.

Obviously, this pen was not for writing.

It could be used to record voices from the brain!

Lu Zhou carefully read the description. According to the system, this "recording pen" could be used to acquire certain brain wave signals from someone. It had a maximum range of three meters and could block out unwanted signals.

The acquired brainwave signals would be then analyzed by special software to figure out what the target had in their brain.

Most of the result was memory fragments.

These memory fragments would then be transformed into audio, image, and text files.

In a sense, this device was a mind reader.

With some suggestive techniques, the subject could be subconsciously manipulated into a certain memory. In theory, he could steal any secrets from a person's brain…

Lu Zhou's palms started to sweat.

This is what future technology is like?

Lu Zhou guessed that in a society with this technology, it would be heavily governed by laws and regulations. Like the ban on guns, brain scanning technology would be prohibited.

For example, this thing might be restricted to only medical use or for licensed medical professionals only. With some suggestive guidance, patients with memory loss could restore their memory.

Or it could be used by spy agencies…

That possibility seemed scary.

Lu Zhou stood in front of the information screen for a long time as he did not know what to use it for.

Maybe he could steal a billionaire's bank account? Lu Zhou would not do anything illegal though.

Maybe he could listen to other people's secrets? However, he was not interested in other people.

Lu Zhou finally decided to close the inventory tab. He had decided to keep it just in case of a rainy day.

In fact, he wished that he would never have to use this thing.

Even if it was only for one-time use.

Lu Zhou looked at the mission panel.

Due to the difficulty of Goldbach's conjecture, the system gave him an S evaluation.

Therefore, his next mission would be a reward mission which was a relatively easier mission.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and prayed before he opened the mission panel.

[

[Reward mission is activated! (Give up at any time without spending general points)

Description: Mathematics is the foundation of the sciences, but it is not all of science. User has reached level five mathematics, why not try other areas?

Requirements: Publish any thesis in a journal or conference. The reward will be based on the content value. (User can choose any thesis for mission completion).

Reward: 1~??? subject experience points. (Mathematics experience points consist of a 0.5 ratio penalty, other subjects consist of a 1.25 ratio bonus).

]

When Lu Zhou looked at the mission, he was stunned.

He was just thinking if he should develop in other areas and this mission came along.

Maybe this was God's plan?

…

Lu Zhou spent three days editing and cleaning up his thesis. He then submitted it to [Annual Mathematics].

Of course, it was not for the mission.

According to the mission, he could choose any thesis that he wanted for mission completion.

On the fourth day, Lu Zhou woke up early.

He walked outside and bumped into Molina who was going on her morning run.

When Molina saw Lu Zhou walking out of his apartment, she was stunned.

"How… How long has it been since you went outside?"

"A month… Why?"

I bought groceries last month. Does that count as going outside?

Molina shook her head and asked, "Is there any progress in your project?"

Lu Zhou, "I solved it. I just uploaded it on arXiv."

"Oh, solved… What?!" Molina looked like she saw a ghost as she stared at Lu Zhou with her big blue eyes. She then said, "You solved it? Wait a minute, it's already May, April Fools' Day was a long time ago…"

Lu Zhou looked at Molina's astonished face and smiled as he said, "Trust me, it's not an April Fools' joke. It's not even the same date. If you don't believe me, you can check on arXiv yourself."

Not everyone kept up to date with Goldbach's conjecture research. Furthermore, the thesis had only been online for three days, so it was not that unusual that Molina had not seen it. After all, this was unlike your friends' news feed. Most people only paid attention to their own field of research.

Molina stared at Lu Zhou and she saw that Lu Zhou was not joking. She then took a deep breath and digested this new information.

Goldbach's conjecture.

Although she was not in this field, she was well aware of the status of this conjecture in number theory.

If what he said was true, then there is no doubt he will become the youngest professor at Princeton…

She took a deep breath and asked, "What plans do you have now?"

Lu Zhou looked outside the apartment and yawned before he said, "Plans? I'm going to eat breakfast."

Molina: "…"

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Chapter 238: Came For You

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Higher mathematics institute, 11:30 am.

At the moment, Deligne was checking his email. He was about to choose interesting papers from the Annual Mathematics and Mathematics Chronicle to review during his lunch break.

He briefly scanned through the thesis titles when suddenly, he froze.

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

Goldbach's conjecture?

Deligne squinted his eyes as he opened the email and looked at the abstract.

Although Annual Mathematics had a double-blind review rule, it was well known that this rule was not strictly enforced.

For example, some people liked to submit to arXiv before the peer review. One could guess the identity of the author from the abstract grammar style and wording.

Without a question, this thesis was Lu Zhou's. After all, it was not Deligne's first time reviewing Lu Zhou's thesis.

As Deligne continued to read the thesis, he started to frown.

Suddenly, he looked up at his PhD student and said, "Smith, go to the restaurant later and bring me a bacon sandwich and a coffee."

Smith stretched and stood up before he said, "Okay, professor… Eating in the office today?"

"Yes," said Deligne. He turned on the printer and took out his glasses from his pocket before he said, "There's an interesting thesis waiting for me."

…

It had been five days but Lu Zhou did not hear any news. It was almost as if his thesis was tossed into the water.

However, on the sixth day, he received an unexpected call.

It was from Qiu Chengtong.

Professor Qiu only said one thing, "You proved it?!"

When Lu Zhou heard his question, he nodded and answered, "If you're talking about Goldbach's conjecture… Then yeah, I proved it."

The other end of the telephone went silent.

Qiu Chengtong was shocked. He did not know what to say.

He had seen many talented young mathematicians like Tao Zhexuan, who taught in California, or Yunzhi, who taught at Yale… They had all made outstanding research results in their respective fields.

However, Lu Zhou was undoubtedly the most eye-catching one and the one that surprised him the most.

Back then, he only wanted to nudge Lu Zhou in the direction of Goldbach's conjecture. He had not expected Lu Zhou to solve it.

After all, both the circle method and sieve method were exhausted. Even though Lu Zhou had experience researching prime numbers, it was almost impossible to solve this conjecture in such a short amount of time.

Lu Zhou's performance completely went beyond his expectations.

Qiu Chengtong took a deep breath and asked with a serious tone, "How confident are you?"

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he answered, "Above 90%."

He actually wanted to say 100% since the system approved his thesis. However, he wanted to be more modest as the review could give him a hard time. He was 100% confident that it was correct, but he was not 100% confident that it would be accepted and approved by the community.

When Professor Qiu heard Lu Zhou's reply, he nodded.

His research focus on partial differential equations and differential geometry, and even a little mathematical physics. However, he was not in the field of number theory, so he could not objectively evaluate Lu Zhou's thesis.

However if Lu Zhou said he was 90% confident, that meant that the thesis had no problems.

Professor Qiu paused for a moment before he said with emotion, "The death of Hua Luogeng devastated the entire Hua Luogeng School. The two mountains also suppressed the community. Honestly, I didn't expect you to solve Goldbach's conjecture. I wanted you to just challenge it as studying Goldbach's conjecture would definitely help your understanding of prime numbers. Even if you couldn't solve the problem, it could give you useful knowledge and experience… But now it seems that I underestimated you."

The Hua Luogeng School was an internationally renowned "Analytic Number Theory School", also known as Shuimu School.

Lu Zhou knew of Professor Qiu's trouble with Yan University, so he could probably guess what he meant by the two mountains.

However, he did not want to participate in this conversation, so he only smiled and did not respond.

Professor Qiu smiled and said, "Once you graduated, would you be interested in becoming a professor at Shuimu?"

Lu Zhou thought for a moment. He then smiled and said, "I'll probably become a professor at Princeton for two years. As for after returning to China, I already promised that I'll return to my school."

Qiu Chengtong did not say much. Instead, he nodded and said, "Okay then, the University of Jin Ling is good. Academic needs collision and sublimation of thinking as it is a blooming process. The University of Jin Ling is a good place and it's within the academic circle. It's good that you want to pursue academia there."

Going to Shuimu was equivalent to going against Yan University, and Professor Qiu was aware of this.

If Lu Zhou was only an average scholar, he would definitely try his best to convince Lu Zhou to come to Shuimu, to fight the mountains.

However, Professor Qiu could not bear to watch Lu Zhou's talents wasted on things outside of academia.

At least between 20 and 40 years old, Lu Zhou's talents should be on academia, and not the academic circle.

The two chatted for a bit before they ended the call.

However, just as Lu Zhou was about to eat dinner, he received another phone call.

This time it was his supervisor, Professor Deligne.

…

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

Since taking a vacation, he had not been here in two months. He nearly got lost when he entered through the side door.

Lu Zhou finally found Deligne's office and knocked.

When Deligne saw Lu Zhou, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyebrows.

"I've already read your thesis… Honestly, Goldbach's conjecture is beyond my field of study. My own opinions can't decide anything on a major conjecture like this. Furthermore, I'm your supervisor."

Lu Zhou understood what Professor Deligne meant.

After all, Goldbach's conjecture was not like Polignac's conjecture or the twin prime conjecture. Even though it was less significant than Fermat's last theorem, it still deserved to be taken seriously by the entire number theory community.

When he submitted it to Annual Mathematics, he did not specify an academic editor. Annual Mathematics must have given the thesis to Deligne.

Lu Zhou asked, "What do you want me to do?"

Deligne said, "I'll arrange a one hour report with the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. You'll have to prepare a PowerPoint and speech. I can arrange for someone to help you with the presentation. Also, you have to tell me when you're free."

Lu Zhou asked, "I'm always free. The thing is… Is there an academic conference in the near future?"

He had been paying attention to academic conferences. If he recalled correctly, there were no major conferences planned in May.

"Nope, but that doesn't matter," said Professor Deligne. He paused for a second before he said, "Your research result is good enough for other scholars to make a special trip to Princeton."

Professor Deligne spoke concisely.

If there were no academic conferences, he could just schedule one.

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Chapter 239: Lively Town of Princeton

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

It had been a week since Lu Zhou posted on arXiv. Most people who paid attention to Goldbach's conjecture had heard the news.

As for the fifty-page essay, some people said that the "Group Structure Method" was unbelievable. Some people dismissed the thesis because they could not understand it at all. The proof process was no piece of cake.

Except for those "exceptionally gifted" folks, most people that researched Goldbach's conjecture knew less than two methods.

For example, those who were proficient in the large sieve method were not proficient in the circle method. Apart from the mainstream choices, there was also the secret rate method and the triangle summation method which was even less popular.

In Lu Zhou's theory, there were residual signs of the circle method, sieve method, and even group theory. His scope of proof was unusually broad.

As such, most people could not even understand the paper, much less reviewed it.

Of course, the number theory community was quite optimistic. After all, Lu Zhou was a winner of the Cole Prize in Number Theory, and he had solved many number theory problems in the past.

Due to many professors mentioning this matter in class, the discussion spread from the academic circle to online.

It was not just scholars who were discussing this matter, but all university mathematics majors were talking about this thesis.

The discussion began on an online Fields Medal forum.

[Ok! I know that he solved the twin prime conjecture and Polignac's conjecture, but in class, my professor told us that Goldbach's conjecture is on a completely different level. It's like the minor leagues compared to the Super Bowl. To put it bluntly, I don't think his thesis is correct. There must be a problem somewhere. It will probably be discovered in the near future.]

[Who is your professor?]

[James Maynard! 2014 SASTRA Ramanujan Gold Award winner! 2018 Fields Medal candidate! I think his opinion is quite trustworthy.]

[Oh, Maynard, I've heard of him before, the British who studied prime spacing? I heard that after Zhang Yitang calculated 70 million, he's been challenging the twin prime conjecture. Now Lu Zhou solved the conjecture instead, is he pissed off?]

[Haha!]

[I disagree with you, my professor's evaluation of this thesis is high. He believes that the Group Structure Method will become a promising analytical tool for analytic number theory.]

[Oh? Who is your professor? To be honest, in the field of number theory, especially prime numbers, not everyone has the ability to understand and review the thesis.]

[Tao Zhexuan.]

[…]

…

There was no peer review on Arxiv, so the correctness of the thesis was yet to be determined. It would be a matter of time before the public would know if this mathematics problem was solved correctly.

However, most people knew that the mathematics community would not take too long to verify this research.

The second week after Lu Zhou uploaded the thesis, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study announced a message on their website.

Next Monday, Lu Zhou would make a one-hour speech on the Goldbach's conjecture at Lecture Hall 1 of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Since this announcement came out, all of the arguments about the correctness of the thesis turned into the discussion about the report itself.

Many people were still skeptical. Mostly because they could not understand the Group Structure Method, and that Arxiv did not have a peer-review process. However, if there was a report at a prestigious place like the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, many unsolved questions regarding the thesis would be answered.

Due to this, Lu Zhou had been preparing for this speech seriously. He did not want to take this lightly just because the system recognized his work.

The key to a mathematics conjecture being proved was logical self-consistency. It also depended on if it was recognized by peers. As the prover of this conjecture, Lu Zhou had to explain his own theory and answer and to remove all doubts.

Lu Zhou did not care to let go of a single tiny detail as very often, many traps were hidden in "trivial" matters.

Even Wiles was stuck on tiny details when proving Fermat's last theorem, and this delayed his thesis by an entire year. If it was not for his friends' encouragement, he would have admitted defeat long ago.

Lu Zhou could not help but think.

He finally realized how useful it was to have a student working for him.

Lu Zhou could just ask the student to look over his report content. He would then asked the student to circle areas where they did not understand. Through this method, he would know which areas his peers found difficult.

Unfortunately, even though Professor Deligne gave him a PhD student for help, the PhD student did not help him on the theoretical aspects, only the PowerPoint slides.

Although Lu Zhou wanted to ask him which part of the thesis he did not understand, he would be completely confused as the thesis was completely incomprehensible to him.

This was due to the fact that the PhD student's research direction was algebraic geometry. As such, he was not well-versed in the circle method or sieve method at all.

…

Time slowly passed by, and it was finally the report presentation day.

A crowd of mathematicians came to Princeton bringing with them their excitement and liveliness.

Princeton was quite attentive to the reception of mathematicians from all over the world.

The Princeton Institute for Advanced Study arranged for all of the mathematicians who participated in the conference to stay at the Princeton Hotel opposite Palmer Square.

Also, Princeton had not only arranged a conference during the day, but there was also a celebration party full of food at night.

However, Lu Zhou did not have time to think about these things. For him, every second before the report was valuable.

The next afternoon, at Lecture Hall 1 of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

In addition to scholars who were invited to this conference, there were also unsolicited students. Some of them came with their supervisors, some were studying at Princeton, others even came all the way from Philadelphia or New York.

They did not know the specific time of the conference, so they got here in the early morning to reserve a spot.

For those people that arrived late, they simply sat on the aisles between the seats. Some people even sat outside in the corridor, with the news reporters.

The report was going to start at 2 pm and it would end at 3 pm. However, it might be extended depending on the number of questions asked.

If everything went well, after this conference, the editorial department of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study would organize a jury of four to six people. These juries would review the manuscript before they determined whether or not his thesis passes.

The success of Lu Zhou's thesis depended on his abilities to explain the Group Structure Method.

Lu Zhou sat in the backstage of the lecture hall. He looked at the time on his phone before he took a deep breath.

There were five minutes left.

This was the tenth time he looked at the time on his phone.

He could not count how many times he took a deep breath.

Prior to this, Lu Zhou was informed by Professor Deligne on the number of people attending the conference.

There were more than 150 well-known scholars invited to this event. Some were from Paris, Germany, and China. He even knew some of the people coming.

In addition to the mathematics community, there were also media reporters from all over the world who were attending as well.

Soon, he would be standing in the spotlight of the world while drawing a picture of a century-old problem.

A staff member of the Institute for Advanced Study walked into the preparation room and he asked Lu Zhou respectfully, "Mr. Lu, it's about time. Are you ready?"

Lu Zhou did not answer.

He turned around and looked at himself in the mirror before he reached out and adjusted his tie.

He took one final deep breath and smiled at himself in the mirror.

"I'm ready."

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Chapter 240: I Was Never Worried

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

At exactly 2 o'clock, Lu Zhou walked onto the stage in a suit and a pair of dress shoes. The lecture hall immediately quieted down.

Everyone was tacit and pairs of eyes were locked on the person standing on the podium. They were either doubting, expecting, or remained expressionless.

If it was anyone else, they would sh*t their pants just standing in front of all these big names in mathematics.

However, Lu Zhou was calm and collected. He did not feel the pressure at all.

He had already mentally prepared himself off-stage.

Plus, it was not his first time doing a report.

"Thank you for coming to Princeton from all over the world to listen to my report on Goldbach's conjecture."

Lu Zhou thanked the audience for coming. He then started to describe the reporting process.

"My presentation will be divided into two parts. One part is on the Group Structure Method that I used to prove Goldbach's conjecture, and the other part is on the proof of Goldbach's conjecture."

"I'm guessing that everyone has read the thesis already. I'll keep my explanation of the thesis brief, and explain the cumbersome steps in the PowerPoint. I'll focus on ideas and steps in my explanation."

"Also, I will try to leave as much time as possible for the questions and answers session."

Pre-reading the thesis before the report was common practice in the academic community. If someone asked a question that was explained in the thesis, it would be considered extremely rude.

Obviously, this would not happen with an audience like this.

Similarly, the parts of the thesis that was explained clearly would not be explained again on the PowerPoint. Everyone's time was precious, and they did not come to Princeton to watch slides.

After the opening remarks, Lu Zhou went straight into the topic.

"The so-called "Group Structure Method" is the abbreviation of "The Whole Structure Research Method Of Group Theory". The core idea is to use the concept of a cyclic group to study the problem of infinity from the whole. Based on integer modulus, a p multiplication group is always a cyclic group. This theorem…"

Lu Zhou pointed at the slides with his laser pointer.

[… there is a limit group G and G=p1α1p2α2···piαi, where pi is a prime number and αi is a positive integer. Let pπ(G), define deg(p)={qπ(G)p~q).]

[The number of times deg(p) is the vertex p. Redefine C(G)=…]

Compared to the latter half of Goldbach's conjecture's proof, the Goldbach's conjecture explanation was more crucial. As long as the audience understood the Group Structure Method, they could figure out how Lu Zhou solved Goldbach's conjecture.

Therefore, Lu Zhou was extra meticulous when explaining. He tried to make every point as clear as possible.

The people in the crowd, whether it was invited scholars or unsolicited students, they were all listening intently.

Especially James Maynard. He sat in the middle of the venue and listened carefully.

He was also a leader in the field of analytical number theory in the United Kingdom. He was one of the hottest candidates for the Fields Medal, and he had originally intended to use the twin prime number problem to win the 18-year Fields Prize, but his glory was snatched by Lu Zhou.

One of the main reasons he came over from the UK was to create problems for his opponent.

However…

The more he watched, the more intrigued he was.

The logic of the Chinese scholar had reached an impenetrable level. In fact, he even wanted to cheer for him.

Sitting next to him was his PhD student, also an English bloke named Evan.

Evan looked at the lines of text on stage, and he started to feel lost.

Finally, he could not help but ask quietly.

"Professor, what exactly is the Group Structure Method?"

Maynard stared at the PowerPoint. He was extremely still.

He did not want to answer.

He did not want to miss any crucial details and get distracted. He was also afraid that he would not be able to convey the beauty of the Group Structure Method accurately. Just yesterday, he was talking trash about this fifty-page thesis on his blog, and how he was going to expose this Chinese person during the report at Princeton.

Even though he did not want to admit it, the skill gap between him and Lu Zhou was astronomical.

It did not matter whether or not he wanted to admit it because that was how mathematics was.

On the other side, in the back row of the lecture hall, two old people sat in the corner in a low-key manner as they watched the report and whispered to each other.

"I only left for a few years. I didn't expect Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was able to produce another talent," said Andrew Wiles while he looked at the young man on stage. He then nodded and said, "Not bad, it reminds me of myself."

Since Andrew Wiles returned to Oxford in 2011, he rarely returned to Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Princeton gave the role of head of mathematics to another genius: Charles Fefferman.

Andrew was talking about twenty years ago when the Newton Institute hosted the most important mathematics conference of the century. Only a quarter of the audience understood what was going on.

As for the remaining three quarters, they witnessed history.

It was the same now.

Although Goldbach's conjecture was more like an IQ test than the widely applicable Fermat's last theorem, this IQ test was one of Hilbert's questions. It had a significant status in the field of number theory.

Solving it would not change the world, but the tools created when solving this problem were valuable to the entire mathematics community.

Without a doubt, everyone in the audience was witnessing history.

"Oh," Deligne's mouth twitched with a smile. He said, "Who was it that wanted to apologize to the New York Times, and return the open champagne?"

Wiles coughed and said, "A person can only become inspired in a moment of desperation. I was only pushing myself… In the end, I succeeded."

Deligne said, "Didn't you say it was for the art last time?"

"Fine, my good friend, let's change the topic," said Wiles. He looked at the content on the stage and asked, "I don't really understand Goldbach's conjecture. In your opinion, does his thesis count as proof?"

Deligne, "You should ask Iwaniec and Faltings this question. They are truly experts in analytic number theory. I'm only involved in the prime number problem. Of course, after reading his thesis, I'm quite optimistic."

If he was not optimistic, he would not have arranged this report.

Wiles asked in surprise, "Faltings is here?"

"Not only is he here," said Deligne. He paused for a moment before saying, "He didn't want to miss it…"

Suddenly, the audience gasped.

Gasped in astonishment.

Their gasp also contained praise.

Deligne and Wiles stopped talking and looked up.

After a while, Wiles smiled and said, "It seems that our worries were redundant."

Deligne looked at the equations on stage and finally gave him a gratifying smile.

"I was never worried."

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Chapter 241: Victory Champagne

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Whenever a new set of theories emerged, people in that field of research would often doubt the theory. After the suspicion passed, acceptance and appreciation would follow.

Lu Zhou looked at the reaction of the audience and knew that he was halfway to success.

He was confident that at least half of the audience understood his Group Structure Method.

As for the other half, they did not matter.

He only needed a quarter of the people and the thesis reviewers to understand. That was the purpose of this report.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath and turned the pages on the PowerPoint slides.

Next was the Goldbach's conjecture proof.

At this point, he was a lot more relaxed.

After one created the tool, fulfilling its mission was a piece of cake.

He only had to do one thing.

Under the gaze of the audience, Lu Zhou pointed the laser on the slide.

[Let N denote a sufficiently large even number, and let Px(1,1) be the number of primes p satisfying N=p1p2. Life Cn={px,p2}(p-1)/(p-2){p2}(1-1/(p-1)2), and there is a limit group G=…]

[…]

The atmosphere and tension of the lecture hall were at its peak.

When the Group Structure Method was incorporated into Goldbach's conjecture, every listener held their breath in fear of missing a single detail.

Maynard stared at the stage. His pupils were dilated as he murmured to himself.

"Bombieri theorem! It turns out… He really did it, it's incredible."

With Lu Zhou's finishing touches, all of the steps were clear.

It was like Lu Zhou had removed the curtains and unveiled everything to him.

As an expert in prime numbers, he felt the most profound.

Although, this was not what he had expected.

Evan, who sat next to him, was muddled.

This UK bloke gave up on trying to understand the Group Structure Method, and he quietly waited for the final result.

He heard his supervisor said that it was probably correct.

Evan could not help but look awkward.

A few days ago, he took his supervisor's blog post around and swore to people that this report was a joke.

Now? The joke was on him.

On the other side of the lecture hall, Helfgott sat still. He closed the notebook in his hand and had a face of approval.

Before he arrived at the hall, he had already read Lu Zhou's thesis more than a dozen times. He even wrote down his questions in a notebook and was planning on asking the questions during the questions and answers session.

However, it seemed that his notebook would not come in handy.

The reason was that his questions were already answered in Lu Zhou's presentation.

It was not just Helfgott who got the answers he wanted, but Lu Zhou who stood on stage also got his answers.

Lu Zhou felt a sense of affirmation from his peers.

Finally, he arrived at the last step.

[… Obviously, we have Px(1,1)P(x,x{1/16})-(1/2)Px(x,p,x)-Q/2-x(log4 )…(30)]

[From the equation (30), Lemma 8, Lemma 9, Lemma 10, it can be proved that theorem 1 holds.]

[Proof complete.]

This was the last page of the PowerPoint. Everyone in the lecture hall froze.

This silence was broken by Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou had been speaking for 40 minutes. He cleared his throat and said with a raspy voice, "The proof of Goldbach's conjecture is over. I think that I have proved this proposition."

The audience had been waiting for this.

The world had been waiting for this.

The letter from Moscow to Berlin was in 1742, two and a half centuries ago.

After countless efforts spanning through generations, Lu Zhou finally placed down the last brick on this conjecture building.

The mathematics community received the final puzzle piece.

The second he finished talking, the lecture hall was filled with applause.

The applause continued for a long time…

…

To Lu Zhou's surprise, he thought that the real challenge was going to be the QA session, but the QA session was actually very easy.

A few big names in number theory asked some simple questions and sat back down. Lu Zhou thought that he would have to extend the QA session, but he finished on time.

After the report finished, the dean of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study took a bottle of champagne and gave Lu Zhou a warm hug on stage.

This mathematical physicist was famous for his string theory as he won the Dirac Medal, the highest honor in the field of mathematical physics.

"Congratulations, Dr. Lu Zhou," said Goddard as he patted Lu Zhou's shoulder. He smiled and stuffed the bottle of champagne in his arms, "Take this, this trophy of champagne belongs to you!"

Lu Zhou took the bottle of champagne and smiled as he said humbly, "Isn't there a peer review?"

Lu Zhou felt that it was a bit early to pop the champagne.

However, Goddard did not think so. He smiled and said, "Of course, Annual Mathematics will still organize a six people jury to independently review your thesis. However, popping champagne is Princeton's report tradition. This is Princeton's gift to you, so you can think of it as a type of pressure."

Actually, this was Oxford and Cambridge's tradition. However, Princeton was one of the few Oxford-style universities in America, and Goddard was a Cambridge graduate, so it was not ridiculous to call it a tradition.

The review process of a world-class mathematics problem could take a long time. This depended on the complexity of the proof process and the prover's own articulation of their proof.

During this period, Lu Zhou must answer all questions coming from the juries.

Therefore, this bottle of champagne was not just a celebration, but it was also a spur of encouragement for Lu Zhou to run the finish line.

If he gave up, he still had to return the bottle of champagne.

Although the champagne did not worth much, no one wanted to do this.

Lu Zhou took the champagne in his hand and felt the pressure.

Goddard encouraged him with a smile and patted his shoulder as he said, "Open it, this glory belongs to you!"

With the encouragement from the dean, Lu Zhou no longer hesitated.

A winner should not be overly cautious as the chances of the thesis being rejected were less than one in a million.

Not to mention, his proof process had already been affirmed by the "system".

He believed that he could answer all of the questions asked by the juries.

Right now, he had to be more confident in his own research. He had to let his parents, schools, Princeton, and even country, to be proud of his glory.

Foam sprouted out of the bottle of champagne and the people sitting in the front row even got a little wet. However, no one complained. Instead, they were all laughing.

The people at the back were jealous as they wanted to get soaked as well.

The two reporters standing on both sides of the lecture hall used their cameras to capture the moment of victory.

Maybe tomorrow, the photo of Lu Zhou holding the bottle of champagne would be on the cover of Times Magazine, just like Wiles was.

However, right now, Lu Zhou did not want to think about those useless things.

He swore that this bottle of champagne was the best drink he has ever tasted.

The taste was extraordinarily sweet, creamy.

It was intoxicating…

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Chapter 242: Unexpected Surprises

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

A peer review of a major conjecture often would not enforce the double-blind principle. This was because there were not that many people in the field, and many of the juries had to ask Lu Zhou questions.

As soon as the report was over, Lu Zhou received the list of reviewers from [Annual Mathematics].

[Annual Mathematics] was jointly operated by Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University, so for Lu Zhou, it was almost like a school magazine that was open to the public. This list of reviewers was not sent to his mailbox. Instead, the editor, Evans, personally delivered it to Lu Zhou's hands.

"… Your thesis will be openly and independently judged by Faltings, Helfgott, Iwaniec, etc. Enjoy the party tonight, you'll start to get busy from tomorrow," said Evans with a smile.

Faltings! Iwaniec!

When Lu Zhou saw this list of names, he had a headache.

It was understandable that Helfgott would appear on the list. After all, he was also researching Goldbach's conjecture. Helfgott was the number one researcher in the world in the circle method. He was like Chen Jingrun with the large sieve method.

However, Faltings was in algebraic geometry, so why was he here?

Although Lu Zhou did use algebraic geometry, he did not use it often.

Lu Zhou took the name list and said, "I hope these masters will be merciful."

"Merciful? Impossible! This is one of the crowns in analytic number theory," said Evans with a smile. He patted Lu Zhou's arm and said, "Professor Saneck of the Institute of Advanced Studies is quite optimistic about your thesis. So, be more confident in yourself. I believe in you, come on!"

Lu Zhou obviously knew who Saneck was. Princeton's Saneck was one of the famous editors for the Annual Mathematics journal, a 2014 Wolf Prize winner.

Although Saneck was not as strong as Faltings or Iwaniec, he was still well-versed in the field of number theory.

However, due to conflicts of interest, this name list only contained one researcher from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and that researcher was not Peter Saneck. Two researchers from École Normale Supérieure were also on that line.

Actually, Evans was wrong.

It was not from tomorrow. The moment his report ended, Lu Zhou had already begun to get busy.

When he left the lecture hall, he was ambushed by the reporters.

"Mr. Lu Zhou, I'm from Princeton Daily. Can I ask if you'll be teaching at Princeton? Will you return to China?"

Lu Zhou, "Of course, China is my home. I'll always go back. At the same time, I really enjoy Princeton's academic environment. This is a good place to do an academic exchange. If Princeton wants to offer me a teaching position, I'll gladly accept it."

"Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, I'm a reporter from the Daily Mail. How do you feel about your report today?"

"I was nervous and excited… Therefore, right now I need to rest, and I really do. You guys can interview my supervisor, Professor Deligne. He has been a huge help. He knows my research very well…"

The reporters gave Lu Zhou a hard time with these technical questions while Lu Zhou tried to escape.

However, he did not know that this was just the beginning.

In the evening, at the banquet at Princeton Hotel, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study held a dinner party for scholars to meet each other. In reality, this dinner party was just for Lu Zhou.

Other than the Poincaré conjecture and ABC conjecture, the Goldbach's conjecture was one of the most important academic achievements in recent times. Furthermore, this achievement was in the field of number theory.

When Lu Zhou arrived in the ballroom of the Princeton Hotel, he immediately became the spotlight of the party.

Although he tried to avoid the crowd by going to get food, people would not let him go, and they kept trying to talk to him.

After Lu Zhou grabbed a piece of steak and placed it on his plate, he saw a middle-aged man in a suit walking over with a glass of champagne.

"Hello, I'm John Morgan, the head of mathematics at Columbia University."

"I'm Lu Zhou, nice to meet you," said Lu Zhou. He nodded his head and politely shook his hand.

"It's nice to meet you too. Your research results were quite amazing. Honestly, I have never seen a young mathematician at your level."

Morgan was a very socially intelligent guy, and his praise almost made Lu Zhou embarrassed.

The two started to chat, and soon after, Morgan started to talk about Columbia University.

"… Columbia University has many outstanding Chinese mathematicians. Like Zhang Wei and Zhang Waowu, they're very good scholars. You will be able to communicate with many excellent Chinese students at Columbia. It's definitely the most accepting place toward Chinese students in America. If you want, we can give you a teaching offer."

Professor Morgan cut straight to the point.

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly. He wanted to say something like, "I'll consider your offer", but Professor Deligne interrupted.

"Those things you said, Princeton can provide them as well."

Morgan froze. He then looked over and had a weird smile.

"… Deligne? Oh, my friend, I didn't expect to see you here."

"Nice to see you too, Professor Morgan," said Deligne. He looked at Lu Zhou and said, "I was planning to wait until tomorrow, but since the opportunity is here, I want to announce something."

When the people nearby heard this exchange, they stopped talking and listened carefully.

Deligne stared at Lu Zhou and spoke with a formal tone.

"Lu Zhou."

Lu Zhou felt a sense of seriousness. He subconsciously stood up straighter and put on formal expression.

Deligne looked at his student and nodded as he said, "Given the results that you have achieved during your PhD, you have proven your academic ability. After discussing with Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, we decided to grant you your PhD."

The crowd around Professor Deligne started to applaud.

A few younger students even whistled.

There were both Chinese students and Princeton students from the Ivy Club. They were worshiping this god from the bottom of their heart.

A PhD was nothing special.

Getting a PhD in three months, however, would undoubtedly be written in Princeton's school history, or maybe even in world history.

However, Professor Deligne had not finished speaking. It was clear that he had more to say.

After the crowd quieted down, he spoke with a calm voice.

"At the same time, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study decided to offer you a faculty position at the Princeton Institute. This is because of the series of major breakthroughs you have made in the field of prime numbers."

Professor Deligne looked at Lu Zhou with approval.

"The offer will be sent to you along with your degree certificate. Of course, whether or not you will accept that offer, is entirely up to you."

The few old professors were not surprised. However, those who were younger held their breath.

Maybe some people thought that the title of a professor was nothing special.

However, this was the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the world center of mathematics!

In addition, Lu Zhou was only 21 years old…

Jealousy almost turned into resentment…

Morgan stopped speaking. Instead, he shrugged and had a hopeless expression.

Columbia University was no match for Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Even if Morgan offered the position of head of the department, Lu Zhou might not even accept.

Lu Zhou was stunned by this question.

He took a deep breath.

"… What is the offer?"

Professor Deligne spoke in a tone that implied redundancy.

"Of course it is for a full professorship, what else could it be?"

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Chapter 243: Princeton's Youngest Professor

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou did not expect that Professor Deligne would give him this big of a surprise at the dinner party.

He originally planned to get his PhD before the end of the year, but now it seemed that his plan was too slow. Annual Mathematics had not even published his thesis, and Princeton already awarded him his PhD and an offer for the position of a professor…

As Lu Zhou thought about it carefully, he understood Princeton's decision.

Even if he did not solve Goldbach's conjecture, his Group Structure Method was an excellent theoretical tool in the field of number theory.

Many university mathematics textbooks had made plans to incorporate it.

Lu Zhou could not help but think.

If his name was going to be in history, why did he not choose a better sounding name for his method?

Group Structure Method just did not sound cool…

If he called it something like the "Cosmic Theory", it would be way better.

After Lu Zhou finished his graduation procedure, he took a photo of his degree certificate and doctor's hat and posted it on Weibo.

His Weibo blew up again.

However, this time it blew up beyond his expectations.

[F*ck, a PhD should take 9 years, why do you get to do it in 3 months?]

[21-year-old full professor? Nutty, even younger than Professor Charles.]

[I think it's more impressive that he got his PhD in three months.]

[No no, do you guys know why this dude graduated so soon? I heard that he proved Goldbach's conjecture, and did a report at Princeton…]

[F*ck, no way?!]

[Pray to God Lu…]

[Lu Zhou, send us a photo. I'll post it on my wall as good luck.]

[…]

Lu Zhou had not expected people to know about him solving Goldbach's conjecture. It seemed that many foreign exchange students followed his Weibo.

After that, the discussion became more and more intense. Some people even took screenshots of the articles from the New York Times and Philadelphia Daily. Some people even posted the link to the thesis in arXiv.

Then…

"Princeton's youngest professor" and "Goldbach's conjecture" started trending online.

Due to Hua Luogeng and Chen Jingrun's connection to Goldbach's conjecture, the significance of this conjecture was beyond academics. It was politically involved.

What Lu Zhou did not know was that not only his thesis on arXiv was spread around online, it even blew up in the Chinese mathematics community. In fact, it even aroused the attention of political circles.

However, no one stood up to express their views, because they were all waiting for the results from Annual Mathematics.

At this moment, Lu Zhou had not realized the significance of his thesis as he had put all of his energy into the peer review of Annual Mathematics.

The six reviewers were all big names in the mathematics world and they pointed out many problems in Lu Zhou's thesis. Lu Zhou had been actively revising every problem.

Fortunately, he was not like Wiles, who was stuck on an "obvious" problem for over a year.

The second week of the peer review…

Lu Zhou finally received feedback from the Annual Mathematics reviewers, and Evans handed him the file.

The words used by Faltings were concise. He had almost never praised anyone, but he summarized his opinion in one sentence, "Good proof."

Henryk Iwaniec was nicer to young mathematicians. He wrote a little more, and even gave his expectations toward young mathematicians, "… The application of group theory in the thesis is shocking. I look forward to your future success. Regardless of the opinions of my peers, it seems to me that you have successfully proved this problem."

Helfgott's point of view was similar to another scholar from École Normale Supérieure. The two probably exchanged ideas, and they both had high opinions on the Group Structure Method.

Lu Zhou turned the page and read the final review comment.

Then, he looked at Evans.

Evans smiled and reached out his hand.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu, your thesis will be published in the next issue of Annual Mathematics!"

…

In the editorial office of the Washington Times, Keane Larter sat in his office chair. He scrolled his mouse while reading the news on his computer.

Suddenly he was attracted by a piece of news, and he was mildly surprised by it. He bit his tongue and spoke with a teasing tone.

"Oh, I can't believe it, the Goldbach's conjecture was proved by a chink?"

It was safe to say that America was extremely sensitive to racism. It was unacceptable to call racial slurs in public. However, the editorial department of the Washington Times was different as they did not employ Chinese employees.

At most, the Korean employees would chuckle.

It was worth noting that the Washington Times was different than the Washington Post. The latter was one of the largest and oldest newspapers in America while the former was founded in 1982 by a Korean guy called Sun Myung Moon.

This was interesting as even though this newspaper had been operating for over thirty years, it did not strengthen the US-Korea relationship. The main objective was to attack China and post smear remarks to boost their audience engagement.

However, because the political status of this newspaper was too extreme, this newspaper had been losing money for over 20 years.

This newspaper had drawn controversy for publishing racist content, including commentary and conspiracy theories about Barack Obama.

Bob, who was sitting nearby, walked over to the computer screen and said, "This is big… We have to interview him."

"Not only do we have to interview, but we also have to help this Chinese guy do propaganda," said Larter with a smirk as he closed the website. As he opened a document and started tapping on his keyboard, he asked, "Think about it, how should we write the press release? A chink solves Goldbach's conjecture?"

Bob hesitated before he said, "We could get sued."

Although their boss, Sun Myung Moon, did not like China, he did not like racial slurs either.

"I know what's within the rules and what's not…" said Larter as he waved his hand. He said, "Right now, I need inspiration."

The female assistant Pereira was sitting at her desk on her computer. She suddenly said, "Remember the end of 2015? Professor Opiyem from Nigeria thought that he solved Riemann's conjecture. He wrote to Clay Institute, but they still haven't responded to this matter."

She graduated from the Department of Journalism at Washington State University, so her level of education was much higher than her boss. Her boss was only admitted to the editorial office due to his political stance.

Therefore, Larter respected her views.

"I remember," said Bob. He added, "I remember Daily Mail first interviewed him, but there was no follow-up."

Larter spun around on his chair. He held his chin and asked: "…"

"I just checked on Wikipedia. Riemann's conjecture is a guess that all prime numbers can be expressed as a function," said Pereira. She spun her pen and said, "It says here that Goldbach's conjecture is also related to the prime numbers, so… Is there any connection between the two?"

She was not very knowledgeable in pure mathematics, but she had a degree, so at the very least, she knew how to do a google search.

Larter's eyes suddenly lit up.

She does make sense…

Bob said, "I remember that Goldbach's conjecture is 11 = 2, right?"

"Oh, Bob, you uncultured swine. Even I know that 11 = 2 is Peano's axiom. As for Goldbach's conjecture… In short, it's a prime number question," said Larter as he laughed. He then stood up from his chair and said, "I'm flying to Nigeria immediately. You guys can start writing the press release. Just write… A Nigerian professor has been treated unfairly due to his skin color. The honor of Goldbach's conjecture should be partly his, but the racism of America's academia left him cold in the dark."

What kind of news attracted the most attention in America?

News related to black people.

Americans loved to play identity politics.

Bob frowned and said, "But Lu Zhou isn't white. Can you have racial discrimination between minorities?"

If the prover of Goldbach's conjecture was a Caucasian, and the black person was ignored, then the news article would be sensational. If the Clay Institute did not give a reasonable explanation…

Even if they gave an explanation, it would just be labeled as an "excuse".

After all, people would blame them for racism regardless of the mathematics.

The black academic was definitely considered a "vulnerable group" in America.

The problem was that Lu Zhou's identity was a bit weird as he was also considered a minority in America… Even though the American academic community ignored a black person, they did not reward a white person.

This was not worthy of a news article.

The editorial department went silent.

Even Larter, who was ecstatic about this potential news article, went into deep thought.

Suddenly, Pereira, who was researching information, shouted with excitement.

"I know!"

She thought of a brilliant idea.

How to create a huge news story!

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Chapter 244: Three Hours Is Enough

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The University of Ekiti, Ekiti, Nigeria.

Professor Enoch stood in the classroom. He was a little unhappy and even annoyed.

He had also posted on arXiv. Perelman's Poincaré conjecture and Lu Zhou's Goldbach's conjecture was recognized by the academic community. However, his thesis was thrown into the classification of "General Mathematics".

He only recently found out that this classification was a garbage dump.

A student in the classroom asked, "Professor Enoch, do you think Riemann's conjecture can be used to solve Goldbach's conjecture?"

Professor Enoch said, "Yeah, of course. Goldbach's conjecture is very easy. The distribution of prime numbers is closely related to a well-constructed Riemann (s) function. In essence, it is a prime number problem, which I have already established under the Riemann (s) function system. It takes only three hours to solve Goldbach's conjecture."

The student then asked, "What about Hilbert's 23 questions? It should be easy for you, Professor Enoch?"

"Of course, it can be solved very easily," said Professor Enoch said with a relaxed tone. He then added, "Riemann's conjecture is the eighth question in Hilbert's 23 questions. However, it is shrouded in the ζ(s) function system."

The student said, "Professor Enoch, it's time to solve this problem."

"I will consider solving it when the time is right, but not right now. Remember, my young ones, a real genius would never solve problems he's not interested in. That grunt work is reserved for second-rate mathematicians," said Professor Enoch as he waved his hand. He then added, "Okay, this class is over. The homework is to write one thesis. The thesis topic is my ζ(s) function system. Use it to prove Goldbach's conjecture.

"I already gave you guys the method, solving it should be easy."

There was a sorrow in the classroom as the students grabbed their heart and looked at each other with a painful expression.

Professor Enoch's thesis was too difficult. Although they liked Professor Enoch, every homework assignment was extremely time-consuming.

Professor Enoch happily packed his stuff and was about to go to his office.

However, he saw a Caucasian man and the head of mathematics standing in front of the classroom door.

"Professor Enoch, this is a gentleman from America. He wants to talk to you about Riemann's conjecture," said the black man. He patted Professor Enoch's shoulder and smiled before he quietly said, "Put on a good performance."

Of course, he wanted Professor Enoch to win the one million dollar prize that was attached to Riemann's hypothesis.

For a small country like Nigeria, this money was huge.

Before this, no one believed that this number theory professor solved Riemann's conjecture, especially after the Daily Mail interview.

Now that this American reporter came here, maybe it meant that the Clay Institute had accepted his research?

In Nigeria, British people and American people were all considered Caucasians. The latter was slightly higher status, especially after they elected a black president.

If the Clay Institute had really accepted Professor Enoch's thesis, then he would undoubtedly get an opportunity to migrate to America.

Not only in Nigeria, but the entire continent of Africa had this "migration" mentality, especially for those who were educated. They wanted to get out of Africa, and into a first world country.

When Professor Enoch saw the American man, he was stunned. He then asked, "You are?"

"Let me introduce myself. I'm a reporter from the Washington Times. You can call me Larter," said Larter. He squeezed out an unnatural smile and reached out his hand as he asked, "I want to talk to you about Riemann's conjecture. When are you free?"

Larter did not want to be here at all. He could not believe that after he landed at the airport, he was blackmailed $70, 000 Naira… Although it was only a few hundred USD, he was still pissed off.

He swore that this would his last business trip here.

Professor Enoch looked at Larter and said, "We can talk about it in my office."

Professor Enoch's office was very chaotic, and he was clearly not an organized person. Socks were sitting on top of textbooks, dust was everywhere, and there were even spider webs.

Larter squinted and when he found a place to stand, he cleared his throat and said, "The thing is, we found out that in 2015, you sent a letter to the Clay Institute claiming to solve Riemann's conjecture. However, according to the Daily Mail's interview, Clay Institute didn't respond to your thesis. After we learned about your situation, we immediately followed up on this matter…"

Professor Enoch sat in his chair and looked at Larter suspiciously. Enoch did not believe that this white man could help him win the million dollars. He asked, "You can read my thesis on arXiv, so why did you have to come all the way to Nigeria?"

Larter said sincerely, "To help you."

"Help me?" said Professor Enoch. He rubbed his nose and asked, "Why don't you just give me the money instead?"

"It's not about the money. Aren't you angry!" said Larter as he stared at Professor Enoch. He then said sternly, "I listened to your lecture just now. I think you are a very excellent mathematician. However, because of your skin color, some people ignored your work. It is clear that the Russians, Chinese, and French, are recognized by the academic community. However, you were excluded!"

Professor Enoch had a weird expression.

He could not believe that a white man was saying these things.

However, this reporter's words did make him angry.

The reporter was right. He submitted his thesis on arXiv, and it was categorized into "General Mathematics".

Larter stared at his eyes and said, "I only have one question. Can you prove Goldbach's conjecture under the pretense that Riemann's conjecture is proved?"

"Of course," said Professor Enoch without any hesitation. He then added, "This is easy."

Larter sneezed and said, "Okay, I'll sort out your Visa and flights. I'll also pay for your expenses…"

"Wait!" said Professor Enoch as he stopped Larter. He then asked, "I don't understand, what are you doing?"

Larter, "We'll arrange a report for you at Princeton, to report on Riemann's conjecture. You' ll use the function or whatever to prove Goldbach's conjecture."

Of course, Larter could not book Lecture Hall 1. However, he could book the Princeton Hotel next to it. He only had to pay for it for a few days. In fact, many academic conferences were hosted in hotels.

When Larter conveyed his ideas to his Korean boss, his boss quickly approved the expense.

The only thing Sun Myung Moon cared about was attacking China.

"Wait a minute, I still don't understand. You want me to report at Princeton?" said Professor Enoch. He had a twinkle in his eye.

Thesis submission was one thing, but reporting on stage was another. In short, Enoch was not prepared.

Larter smirked and said, "Yes."

Professor Enoch wanted to refuse, but he could not say it out loud.

This person is a devil…

He thought for a long time. He realized that he would not lose anything. Teaching in Nigeria was not a promising career, so he should take this opportunity.

Enoch cleared his throat and said, "I need time to prepare…"

Larter asked, "How long?"

Enoch said, "Three months."

"Too long," said Larter as he shook his head. He then said, "Time won't wait for you. You can fill in the report details later. Listen, I don't need you to convince Princeton professors. I only need you to convince some black rights organizations and their sponsors."

"Okay, how long do I have?" asked Enoch as he scratched his head. He said, "Give me a time range."

Larter said, "Three days at most."

Enoch said, "This is impossible!"

Enoch needed time to mark his students' homework assignments.

Three days was way too short.

Larter said, "I'll give you $10,000 USD."

Without any hesitation, Enoch agreed, "Deal!"

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Chapter 245: Invitation

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"I can't believe it… You're already a professor," said Molina as she stared at Lu Zhou for a long time.

It had been a long time since the report, but this was her first time seeing him because Lu Zhou was too busy.

Molina paused for a second before she asked, "When do you plan on moving out?"

Lu Zhou said, "Maybe around this time period. I heard it's not too expensive to rent a one-bedroom place around here. But I don't like moving, it's too much of a hassle. I'll wait till I go back to China, and move all my stuff at once."

Lu Zhou was going back to Jin Ling in a month.

Although he had not received the confirmation call from the University of Jin Ling, he guessed that the call would come in a few days.

Also, even if the University of Jin Ling did not call him, he still had to return to his hometown and visit his little sister, who was about to take the college entrance exam.

After all, this exam determined her future.

Although he could not help her with liberal arts subjects, he could still cheer her on.

…

Not only did Princeton Institute for Advanced Study gave Lu Zhou a fat salary, but they also gave him a bright office.

Lu Zhou was organizing his office when he suddenly realized something.

What a minute, aren't these things done by students?

I'm a boss now. It's embarrassing to clean my office myself.

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered that he was a one-man army.

Although Princeton officially hired him as a full professor, it was currently May, the time period between the spring enrollment and fall enrollment.

Which meant that he had to wait two months before he could review students' CV, and to decide on interviews.

Maybe he could ask Edward Witten and borrow Luo Wenxuan?

That's not good.

Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly.

Then, he called Edward Witten and quickly got the "OK".

Soon after, Luo Wenxuan appeared in his doorway while panting.

However, when he heard that Lu Zhou only needed him to clean up the office instead of doing research, he was dumbfounded.

"Wait a minute, you asked me to come here… to clean up your office?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'll buy you food later… I really can't finish cleaning this up."

Bro, please. Just let me gloat as a professor for a bit.

"Once isn't enough, you're buying me two meals!" shouted Luo Wenxuan. He then went to pick up the broom.

Lu Zhou placed the textbooks on the table and smiled, "Sure, three meals are fine too."

The two worked together, and Lu Zhou doubled his efficiency.

Lu Zhou did not want to admit it, but Luo Wenxuan's cleaning speed was much faster. Lu Zhou remembered that Luo Wenxuan was heavily involved in club activities, so it was not unusual for him to help out around the clubs.

Speaking of which, Lu Zhou had not done any physical activities in a while. The last time he exercised was back at the University of Jin Ling with Brother Fei.

Luo Wenxuan suddenly spoke.

"Washington Times? What is this?"

When Luo Wenxuan picked up the piece of newspaper, he frowned.

He flipped to the first page and was stunned.

Lu Zhou noticed Luo Wenxuan, and he could not help but ask, "What's that?"

"Nothing, Korean media. Don't pay attention to it. It's just trying to frame you," said Luo Wenxuan casually. He threw it in the trash but Lu Zhou picked it up out of curiosity.

When Lu Zhou read the title, he was stunned.

[The Neglected Group Of Nigerian Mathematics Professors]

The article told Professor Enoch's story on Riemann's conjecture, and how he published his thesis onto arXiv but received no results.

At last, Enoch wrote to Clay Institute.

However, the Clay Institute did not respond.

According to Professor Enoch, he did not solve the conjecture for the money, but that he solved it for his own students. This was because his students believed in him, and therefore, he tried to solve this mathematics problem. The money would be used for education.

Lu Zhou kept reading, and he felt something was wrong.

In the article, the interview of Professor Enoch was posted.

[Professor Enoch: Any prime number is under the prime distribution of the Riemann function. You might not know what I'm talking about, but I can tell you it's like Usain Bolt. It doesn't lose.

Larter: Which is saying you can easily use your method to solve Goldbach's conjecture.

Professor Enoch: Yes, you're right.

Larter: If the Clay Institute didn't ignore your work, based on your prime distribution function, how long will it take you to prove Goldbach's conjecture?

Professor Enoch: Actually I already proved it last year. If I recall correctly, it only took me three hours. Proving Polignac's conjecture, Goldbach's conjecture, twin prime conjecture… They're nothing special, even my students can do it.

Larter: I think you've been treated unfairly.

Professor Enoch: Yeah, I'm very angry.

…

]

Lu Zhou nearly laughed out loud.

Western journalism was a joke. Daily Mail fell into the pit of Nigeria, and now, Washington Times jumped in as well.

Honestly speaking, this Nigerian professor might not even know the difference between the Riemann function and the Dirichlet function.

However, this did not concern Lu Zhou.

It did not affect him at all.

Suddenly, he noticed that there was a piece of letter attached to the newspaper.

[Dear Lu Zhou, I am an editor for the Washington Times, Keane Larter. The day after tomorrow at 3 pm, there will be a report at the Princeton Hotel. The speaker is Professor Enoch from the University of Ekiti. The report is on the proof of Goldbach's conjecture, using a method based on Riemann's conjecture. Of course, I know that you are a Cole Prize winner, you must disdain to have to listen to a third world country speaker, just like how the American academic community is.

[However, I can testify that Professor Enoch solved the Goldbach's conjecture in just three hours by using his prime distribution system established in Riemann's conjecture. If he does this, then there is no doubt that he is the one that proved Goldbach's conjecture, not you.]

[Of course, in order to be fair, we have arranged one hour for you to speak in the report. You can defend your thesis during this time.]

[It's worth mentioning that there will be a total of 21 legal representatives from the Black Rights Organization and the Anti-Racism Alliance. At the same time, we invited reporters from the New York Times and Philadelphia Daily to report on this news.]

"…"

Lu Zhou threw the trash newspaper in the garbage can. However, he kept the letter.

Luo Wenxuan noticed Lu Zhou's movements and said, "Honestly, this is a waste of time. The person obviously doesn't know the difference between the Riemann function and the Dirichlet function. Your time would be better spent on preparing for your first lecture."

The Americans used the E8 system to unify the four interactions. Garrett Lisi had been adamant about this theory for many years. Frank Wilczek, a notorious gambler, challenged his theory.

"Why shouldn't I go? They already sent the invitation," said Lu Zhou as he laughed coldly. He then added, "As a Chinese person, I'll not stand this ignorance and insult."

Luo Wenxuan, "Insult?"

"Yes, the outstanding contributions from Hua Luogeng, Wang Yuan, and many others on the Goldbach's conjecture can be said to be one of the most brilliant mathematics collaboration in the world. I will not allow this type of slander."

Lu Zhou shrugged and said, "Actually, I'm going to China soon, so it doesn't concern me. But look at what that Nigerian professor said. It only took him three hours to solve a century-long problem."

"People that insult respectable people are absolute trash."

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Chapter 246: Imaginary Number

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Washington Times was not a mainstream media outlet, but it was already blowing up on the Internet.

What else was more eye-catching than "racial discrimination"?

The discussion was everywhere on Facebook and Twitter.

Chinese students and Chinese groups naturally stood on Lu Zhou's side whereas the black and white-left groups were filled with indignation.

However, Lu Zhou was unperturbed by it.

He did not use Facebook or Twitter, and he was busy with his own stuff. He did not have time to worry about the comments on the Internet.

However, as he said, since the opposite side gave him an invitation, he had to respond.

Soon, it was report day.

There was still a few hours before the report would begin. When Lu Zhou arrived at Palmer square, he planned to get a bite to eat.

It was too late to go to the Ivy Club as it was halfway across the Princeton campus.

Lu Zhou found a Texas burger store near Palmer Square. He was about to go in when he heard an argument going on.

He saw a black dude standing in front of the counter while speaking in a condescending tone, "This chicken burger combo is $6, the Texas beef burger combo is $7. The burger is only $3.5 and $4 dollars respectively. Also, I saw that coke is $1."

"The combo includes a barbecue kebab and coke. I got two prices for the kebab through simultaneous equations. Your Texas kebab is both $1.5 and $2. Do you have a reason for this imaginary solution?"

The white guy stood behind the counter and scratched his ear as he said impatiently, "So what?"

"This is unacceptable," said Professor Enoch confidently. He added, "In Nigeria, a high school student could solve this equation. You're selling burgers at Princeton, how do you not know this?"

The redneck behind the counter was obviously annoyed when he said, "I don't care about your numbers. Are you buying or not? If not, move aside."

Although the redneck wanted to tell the black guy to f*ck off, he restrained his anger.

Enoch looked at this rude redneck and could not help but feel superior.

He felt the same type of superiority when he was teaching at the University of Ekiti.

A group of dumb black guys sat in his classroom, and he was the omnipotence god. He enjoyed gloating in front of those weaker than him.

This type of feeling was like a drug.

However, Professor Enoch did not realize that the situation here in America was different than Nigeria.

The redneck standing in front of him was not interested in learning, and Enoch was far from home.

The redneck rolled up his sleeves and looked at the waiter. Suddenly a clear voice came from the entrance of the burger store.

"The equations aren't very difficult at all, any Chinese high school will teach them… I'll have a bacon sandwich and a coffee. I have a report later, please hurry up," said Lu Zhou as he skipped the line and placed the money on the counter.

When the redneck saw the cash, he smiled.

"You got it."

Professor Enoch heard the report being mentioned and was interested. He seemed to have guessed this Chinese guy's identity.

He immediately asked, "Then how do you explain the prices on the menu?"

"It's easy, you just have to put it in an equation. In this case, we usually consider adding a coefficient in front of the unknown. You can treat it as the so-called preferential margin," said Lu Zhou. He shrugged and said, "Of course, you can't just add two brackets to the equations at the same time, and use one of them to calculate the imaginary solution. I'm curious how you did it, did your students not teach you?"

A few students eating in the restaurant chuckled.

They had been watching the show since the beginning. They wanted to watch this Chinese teach this Nigerian a lesson.

In mathematics, imaginary numbers were numbers that were in the form of abi. a and b were real numbers, and b was not 0. i2 is -1, and a was the real part, b was the imaginary part. Most, if not all, Chinese students knew about imaginary numbers.

Basically, the imaginary part was the square root of a negative number. Once you added a real number to it, it became a complex number.

This was not something that was difficult or esoteric. As long as one had a high school education, one could learn it easily.

"He's right… It's none of your business what I sell," said the redneck impatiently as he waved his hand. He tapped the table and said, "If you're not buying anything, you can leave. The people behind you are waiting."

The atmosphere was full of joy.

Enoch blushed and said, "How do you know there are no imaginary numbers in linear equations? Do you know that in Albanian group, homomorphism, and conjugate classes, there's no such thing as an imaginary number…"

Lu Zhou was speechless.

He wanted to ask if Enoch even know what those terms meant, but that was not the main point.

The main point was…

"No sh*t, you don't even need to square root anything for a linear equation!"

…

For Lu Zhou, what happened in the burger shop was only a small incident.

He was curious where that black guy learned mathematics from. In the end, the black guy blushed and was laughed out of the restaurant.

Lu Zhou put this matter aside and finished his food. He then calmly strolled back to the hotel opposite Palmer Square.

Larter stood at the front door and welcomed all of the guests. When he saw Lu Zhou, he was stunned. However, he quickly put on a smile.

That smile was malevolent.

"Welcome, the Chinese mathematician from Princeton. I didn't expect to see you here."

Lu Zhou looked at the nearly full lecture hall and laughed as he said, "I don't think I count as crashing the party, right?"

"You're laughing?" Larter smirked. He then lowered his voice, "Hope you can still laugh in an hour."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Can I ask a question?"

Larter, "What question?"

Lu Zhou asked seriously, "Who gave you this sh*tty idea?"

Larter paused. He did not change his fake smile as he said, "What idea? Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."

Lu Zhou smiled and said softly, "Nothing, it's fine. Pretend like I didn't ask."

Lu Zhou obviously did not expect anything to come from that one question.

The human subconscious was uncontrollable, especially when external factors are present.

Larter did not waste his time with Lu Zhou. Instead, he turned around and started to greet the legal representatives of the black rights protection organizations.

Most people sitting in the venue did not understand mathematics. Just like how the original "New Yorker" article misrepresented Qiu Chengtong's achievements, the media did not care about the truth.

This was a place where populism was rampant.

The reason why they sat here today was that a Nigerian brother was treated unfairly by the American academic community. They only came here for political correctness.

However…

What did this have to do with Lu Zhou?

Academic exchanges could not be done with people that knew nothing about mathematics. Having Professor Enoch talking on stage was like playing piano for cows.

However, some things could still be conveyed through language.

Lu Zhou gently adjusted his tie.

For him, this was nothing difficult.

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Chapter 247: Princeton's First Lecture

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The report soon started. However, there was a small incident.

The protagonist of this report, Professor Enoch, seemed to be absent.

The atmosphere in the crowd was awkward.

Honestly, Lu Zhou was stunned. He wanted to talk to professor Enoch, but what now?

Larter was sweating as he explained on stage, "Professor Enoch has some personal stuff to sort out. I'm trying to contact him."

"Although justice is an important issue, our time is valuable," said a black man who was sitting in the front row of the venue said with a dissatisfied tone. He then asked, "I'm now doubting if Professor Enoch even takes this matter seriously?"

Honestly speaking, African Americans did not like their African brothers that much.

However, for their own interests, they had to take this matter seriously.

Larter started to sweat, and he cursed Enoch in his mind.

The report was about to start, but Enoch wanted to go eat some burger. It had been two hours and Enoch had yet to return.

Larter swore that this would be the last time he interacted with Nigerians. Nigerians really did not keep their word.

Suddenly, an unexpected voice was heard.

"Since Professor Enoch is a little busy, let me talk first."

The main reason was that Lu Zhou did not want to waste his time. He just wanted to end this lecture.

Larter froze.

He did not think that Lu Zhou would solve his problem.

However…

Did Lu Zhou actually want to solve his problem?

It was too late.

Lu Zhou already walked on stage, and the people in the crowd obviously agreed with this proposal.

Larter reluctantly retreated to the side. He knew that if he objected, he would be booed off the stage.

As Lu Zhou stood on the podium, he was not nervous at all.

He was experienced in doing reports.

However, he had not expected that his first lecture as a professor would be at the Princeton Hotel.

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.

At least it counted as practice.

He stared at the hundreds of pairs of eyes in the crowd and cleared his throat before he said,

"I can tell that you guys don't trust me."

The audience did not say anything. Many people either looked at their watch or looked around as they were clearly disinterested in it.

However, this was normal, and Lu Zhou had expected it.

He paused for a second before he raised his voice.

"Because the person standing in front of you is a Princeton elite, and you are the most distrustful of the elite. You are distrustful of their morality and academic qualifications. You are more eager to hear those neglected voices. So, I bet that in a few months, most of you will vote for a fat man named Trump, because he is the only smart person who tries to stand in your perspective and makes your voice heard… Of course, this is not what I want to talk about today."

"Before the speech begins, please remember that I am a Chinese citizen."

"Since you guys are so politically correct, let me ask this. When you read the Washington Times article, did you ignore my voice?"

Lu Zhou did not speak loudly, but it was impactful.

The crowd froze. They were speechless.

They thought…

Lu Zhou made sense?

Suddenly, no one looked at their watch anymore and they paid attention to the person standing on the podium.

Many people started to listen to him intently.

Lu Zhou smirked.

He already achieved his goal.

Larter kept calling on his phone.

"What is this black dude doing?"

He stuffed his phone into his pocket and looked at the stage.

Although he wanted to drag Lu Zhou off stage, he could not do it.

After all, he was the one that invited Lu Zhou.

And now, Lu Zhou was here.

Lu Zhou looked at the audience and continued, "I won't use any difficult mathematics symbols today, and I won't talk about anything that is difficult to understand… Of course, don't mind it if there are a few difficult parts. After all, mathematics has to be explained through symbols."

Lu Zhou did not have Hawking's level of articulation.

However, he could still articulate some common things.

Lu Zhou turned around to the blackboard and wrote down two lines of equations.

[Riemann's conjecture, π(x)=Li(x)O(xe{-1/15lnx})]

[If Riemann's conjecture is true, then π(x)=Li(x)O(xlnx)]

He then turned around and smiled at the audience.

"Mathematics is a very magical thing, so is the Riemann's conjecture. Although you might not understand what I wrote, I can tell you that the first line of the equation forms the basis of number theory, the so-called prime number theorem. The second line is a more accurate formula for the distribution of prime numbers obtained by H.von Koch in 1901, based on the Riemann conjecture. Although this formula isn't used in textbooks, it has already been used for over a century."

"I can write a dozen more similar examples, but there are too many."

"As for these two formulas, they are the most common ones."

"In the world of mathematics, the common practice is to solve it first, then find applications. What kind of applications? Let's say we prove Riemann's conjecture, then…"

"As for why I mentioned Riemann's conjecture, is because this answers Professor Enoch's thesis. He proved a rather "interesting" point in his thesis. He builds around the ζ function under the condition of the Riemann's conjecture. Under the prime number distribution system, is Goldbach's conjecture true or false?"

Lu Zhou paused for a moment. He then smiled and continued, "The reason why I said it was "interesting", is because till now, not a single person has considered this method. In fact, Hardy and Littlewood proved in the 20th century, that under the conditions of Riemann's conjecture, weak Goldbach's conjecture can be proved."

"But take note! I'm talking about the generalized Riemann's conjecture which is different than the actual Riemann's conjecture."

The crowd was confused. They obviously did not know what was going on.

They thought, "Then doesn't it mean that the generalized Riemann's conjecture can solve Goldbach's conjecture?"

In fact, this was not the case.

As for why, basically, it was similar to using Newtonian physics to calculate objects traveling near the speed of light. It was ridiculous.

Lu Zhou smiled.

"The difference between GRH and RH isn't easy to understand. Basically, GRH is the object of discussion, whereas RH is a more extensive Dirichlet L function."

"The Dirichlet L function can barely prove Goldbach's conjecture, maybe from a probability point of view… Anyone in number theory knows this."

"This is just a matter of the history of number theory."

Lu Zhou took a deep breath before he said slowly, "It's worth noting that the 20th century was the closest anyone has gotten to prove Goldbach's conjecture from GRH. Because it's less than 20 years, or exactly 1937 since Vinogradov and Este Mann used the circle method, and without the help from the generalized Riemann's conjecture, established the weak Goldbach conjecture."

Then in 2012, Tao Zhexuan proved that "odd numbers can be expressed as the sum of up to five prime numbers."

Then after a year, Helfgott completely solved the weak Goldbach's conjecture and reduced this number to a calculable size.

This completely got rid of the GRH.

Actually, this type of situation was common in number theory. The birth of Theorem 1 by mathematician A drew a beautiful conclusion and attracted everyone's interest.

Then mathematician B came out and tried to prove Theorem 1. If they could not solve it, mathematician C would then come out with a weaker Theorem 1 and established it.

Then theorems 1,2,3… were established. Everyone realized that these sets of theorems could be used to solve RH. The Clay Institute would probably replace RH with GRH.

Yes, history was full of routines.

It was precisely this cycle that advanced civilization.

Would some people reconnect things already proven by GRH?

Emm…

Although it was interesting, was there any meaning? If a student did this, then the professors would look at them with approval. If a professor did this, then he would be laughed at by his peers.

"Riemann's conjecture is a very important thing. Maybe the Clay Institute will give Dr. Enoch a reply in the future, but this has nothing to do with me. I only explained the relationship between Goldbach's conjecture and Riemann's conjecture."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If my explanation isn't simple enough, I can make it simpler."

"The primes numbers in Riemann's conjecture are used for multiplication, whereas the prime numbers in Goldbach's conjecture are used for the addition!"

This statement was not accurate, but it was close enough.

The audience smiled.

This explanation was a lot easier to digest.

Lu Zhou paused for a moment. He then smiled and said, "As for why Goldbach's conjecture isn't as important as Riemann's conjecture, it's because that for most people, prime numbers are used for multiplication! These two conjectures have different values, and they do not form a 'system'. Even if you don't know the difference between RH and GRH, you should know what Vinogradov did when he solved the three prime number theorem."

"This is where your influence comes in."

The stage was silent.

Lu Zhou looked at the pairs of persuaded eyes, and he knew that it was time to end his speech.

"Some conceptual things can't be circumvented by a system. The whole of mathematics is shrouded in the 'system' of Peano's axioms, but not all problems are as obvious as Peano's axioms. Especially when you really understand it, you will find that '11' and '11=2' are actually completely different things. They are both prime number problems, but they are wildly different."

"As for myself, I'm nothing special. I only stood on the shoulders of countless great mathematicians. Mr. Chen's contribution to the large sieve method, Professor Tao's discussion with me at Berkeley, etc, have all benefited me. Helfgott's thesis opened a new door to the world of mathematics for me. They are all heroes of history. Although there might only be one name imprinted in history, their work cannot be summarized in three hours. Therefore, I want to sincerely thank them."

"Even though my thesis only took 2 months time, the foundation was built a long time ago."

Lu Zhou tried to use simpler language to convey his thoughts.

Larter might not be happy.

Lu Zhou was right.

He noticed that next to the podium, Larter was fuming.

However, this changed nothing.

America was different than China. The root of the populist problem came from the White House and Wall Street. They would never use simple language to convey ideas to ordinary people.

The solution to this problem was very simple.

Just speak normally.

If Lu Zhou wrote more than two lines of equations, the New York Times and other media headlines would look very different tomorrow.

However, Lu Zhou was confident now that he convinced more than half of the crowd.

Lu Zhou sometimes discovered that he was not completely ignorant in politics. Experiments and science taught him logic which was applicable in politics.

Maybe once he reached level ten for all of his subjects, the system would unlock all of its knowledge to him.

He believed that the day would come.

Lu Zhou sighed in his heart and put down the marker.

The moment he put down the marker.

The crowd applaused…

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Chapter 248: Call From Stockholm

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Larter received his wish and got the big news he wanted.

However, it was not about Lu Zhou.

It was about him, and his scandal with the Washington Times.

The second day after the report, while he was trying to find Professor Enoch, a recording was posted on the internet.

More precisely, two recordings.

One recording was in the office. It was about him and his colleagues discussing how to create a piece of big news and how to provoke various racial rights organizations. It contained a lot of racist words and their ridicule of rights protection agencies as fools.

As for the second recording, it was in Professor Enoch's office in Nigeria.

[

…

"Three days at most."

"This is impossible!"

"$10,000 USD."

"Deal!"

]

The first recording angered Larter, but after he heard the second recording, he nearly slipped in his own cold sweat.

Not just because his career was in danger.

It was mainly the problem of how this recording was leaked.

The first recording could be leaked because of a mole in the office, but he had no idea how in the hell the second recording was leaked.

He was in Africa!

The other side of the Atlantic!

For the sake of confidentiality, he always went on business trips alone. It was impossible for someone to bug professor Enoch's office in advance. It was impossible for someone to bug Larter as well. He went through airport security and showered before meeting with Enoch…

Maybe…

Someone had been following him along the way.

This was the most logical explanation.

When Bob saw Larter's pale face, he was about to comfort him but Larter suddenly sprung up from his chair.

"Don't touch me!"

Bob looked at Larter's eyes that were filled with horror and asked, "What happened to you?"

No one in the editorial office spoke as everyone was minding their own business.

Larter looked around in a panic. His eyes scanned across the workers' faces as he tried to find someone looking at him.

Bob wanted to say something, but when he saw the state that Larter was in, he could not find anything to say.

Larter ignored Bob and furiously yanked opened the drawer. He took out all of the documents and placed them on the desk. His two hands searched for something that resembled a voice recorder bug.

Finding this bug would at least bring him some comfort.

However, no matter how hard he searched, he could not find the origin of the recording.

As such, the fear in his heart grew stronger and stronger.

Logic told him that it was impossible for an ordinary scholar to have this kind of ability. There must be more people behind it.

He thought of the political influence that Goldbach's conjecture had, and how neighboring countries had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the news they fabricated.

Larter gave up. His face became paler.

Maybe…

He was "targeted"?

…

Lu Zhou did not pay attention to the follow-up scandals that the Washington Times was involved in. He had only heard from Luo Wenxuan that the Washington Times would go into a temporary shut-down, and Larter would resign.

Although creating exaggerated news was one thing, once one was exposed to have committed bribery, that was another thing.

This scandal would follow Larter for the rest of his life, leaving a mark on his career.

He could forget about becoming a journalist ever again.

The last week of May, issues regarding Goldbach's conjecture finally settled. With the release of the newest Annual Mathematics journal, this two and a half century-year-old tower was finally built.

Lu Zhou did not know how many ongoing thesis and dreams he destroyed, but those things did not matter to him.

Institute of Higher Education, at a restaurant on the first floor.

In order to save time, Lu Zhou ate lunch here most of the days.

"You did something bad," said Edward Witten as he sat opposite Lu Zhou. He smiled, "You don't know how many people have lost the chance of submitting a bulsh*t thesis."

"Yeah, a bad thing," said Lu Zhou with a smile.

He definitely did not do as much "bad things" as old man Witten.

In the 1980s, knot theory was very popular. There were different 3-flow types, many different norm groups, many kinks and invariants like Jones polynomial could be constructed… In the end, Witten came up with a topological method of shear flow type, and the entire knot theory family was solved.

Of course, describing it as a "bad thing" was just a joke. The old man also did a lot of "good things", like creating the M-theory, which had at least saved theoretical physicists 10 years of research.

Edward Witten asked casually, "I know you won't take a break, so what's next? What interesting topics do you plan on researching?"

Lu Zhou thought for a second before he answered, "Materials science."

Witten was stunned. He then asked, "Materials science? What materials science?"

"Precisely speaking, it's computational materials science," said Lu Zhou. He paused for a moment before he smiled and said, "While studying at the University of Jin Ling, I participated in a research project. I think computational materials science has lots of potentials. I think the potentials are flexible and high fidelity, and I think I can do something with it."

Witten gave a thumbs up and smiled as he said, "I see. Which is saying you want to create your own discipline? This is a challenging idea."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Not exactly creating a new discipline, just doing development that affects this discipline… Maybe just a push in the early stages, or maybe I'll do a lot more 'bad things'."

The two looked at each other and laughed.

Witten cleared his throat and said, "I'm not very familiar with materials science, but if you're interested in organics materials science, I recommend Professor Paul. J. Chiric, he's an expert in this field."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Thanks, I'll consider your suggestion. However, I'll put this matter aside until I return from China. I worked hard for so long, I need a vacation."

Witten said in a relaxed tone, "Yeah, you really need to take a break."

Lu Zhou had already planned which thesis to use to complete the system mission.

He estimated that his patent lawyer should have a result.

This time, after he went back to China and sorted his degree out, he would also be dealing with this matter.

Suddenly, the phone in his pocket started to ring.

Lu Zhou took out his phone and saw that it was from an unknown number.

"Let me take this."

Witten smiled and said, "Sure, go ahead."

Lu Zhou picked up the phone and an unfamiliar voice came through.

"Hello, Lu Zhou, we are the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences."

Lu Zhou heard this name and went silent for a while. He exchanged a confused look with Witten.

Then…

He was shocked.

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences?!

The f*ck?

Maybe…

This is the legendary…

Nobel prize phone call?!

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Chapter 249: Receiving The Award

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

In the interview of Martin Charlie, 2008 Nobel Chemistry Prize winner, he said that if you were lucky enough to achieve something, people would do something scary to you…

After that, people would say, "Oh, you might earn a Nobel Prize". Then from the first week of October, you would start losing sleep to the point that even a phone call from your neighbor might spook you.

Until the day you actually received a call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The main reason for this was to ensure that the winners would not show off in advance and undermined the expectations of researchers.

The call to notify the winners would come a few minutes before the announcement of the winners. Due to this, the Nobel Prize phone call was one of the most exciting phone calls one could get. It felt like bungee jumping.

Lu Zhou, who received this call, felt that bungee-jump-like-feeling.

He had not expected the Nobel Prize. The reason why he was excited was obviously not because they were calling him for the Nobel prize.

It was the Crafoord Prize.

Ok, the Crafoord Prize was not bad either.

In fact, it was very decent.

The prize was established in 1980 by the industrialist, Holger Crafoord, and his wife, Anna Greta Crafoord. The selection process was through the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Although the prize money was less than the three big mathematics prizes, in the community of natural sciences, it had the reputation of a small Nobel Prize.

Why was this the case?

The reason was that the original intention of this prize was to fill in the gaps for the Nobel Prize. Both the process, specifications, and the award ceremony were based on the Nobel Prize.

The awards were in the field of astronomy, mathematics, earth sciences, and biological sciences. All areas that the Nobel Prize failed to cover. The award was chosen once per year and rotated between astronomy, mathematics, earth sciences, and biological sciences.

This year, it was the turn for mathematics and astronomy. The award would be given to the most significant contributors of the field.

The prize money was $500,000 USD.

Like the Nobel Prize, the Crafoord Prize was also selected and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences would usually inform the winner a few minutes before the announcement. Therefore, Lu Zhou, who was eating, was surprised by this phone call.

Actually, the main reason why Lu Zhou won this award had nothing to do with Goldbach's conjecture. It was actually because of his numerous contributions in the field of prime numbers. However, his recent thesis in Annual Mathematics certainly boosted his chances.

It was an achievement that could not be ignored.

Therefore, on the website, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences added the Goldbach's conjecture to Lu Zhou's list of achievements.

Lu Zhou was nearly dizzy from the $500,000 USD award and the medal that he almost forgot how to get back to his office from the cafeteria.

He only remembered that Witten laughed and patted him on the shoulder before he congratulated him. The next thing he remembered was him sitting in his office and looking at his computer.

Lu Zhou went on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences website and refreshed the page until he finally saw the list of Crafoord Prize winners.

His name was on there.

The two other winners were Professor Roy Kerr from the University of Canterbury New Zealand, and Roger Branford of Stanford University.

As for the mathematics prize, he was the only one.

Lu Zhou finally relaxed after he confirmed that the phone call was not some cruel joke. The knot in his heart finally loosened.

Then, Lu Zhou closed the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences website and opened another webpage.

Now that he confirmed that he won the award, he was only curious about one thing.

The $500,000 USD prize money…

How much was that in RMB?

…

Two hours after receiving the phone call, Lu Zhou received an email from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

He did not know how they got his email address or phone number for that matter.

Then again, his email was on the page of Princeton University Professors as well as on arXiv.

In the email from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there was an electronic invitation letter, and mainly a written retelling of what was said in the phone call.

Like the time of the award ceremony and the banquet after the award ceremony.

Also, as a celebration of the Crafoord Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was going to hold a three-day academic exchange meeting, and they invited Lu Zhou and the other winners to do a report.

The report was one hour long.

Lu Zhou closed the mail and took out his PowerPoint from the Princeton report. Suddenly, another phone call came through.

This time it was not from a stranger. It was from Professor Tang.

Lu Zhou heard a familiar and impatient voice.

"You solved Goldbach's conjecture?!"

Lu Zhou was stunned and he replied.

"Yeah, why?"

The other end of the telephone went quiet, and Lu Zhou heard a sigh.

"… Nothing, I'm just a bit surprised," Professor Tang paused for a second. He then said, "Today, the mathematics department was in the middle of a meeting. Suddenly, an Annual Mathematics journal came in. We were still talking about this year's enrollment plan, but the rest of the meeting was about you."

It was obvious that Professor Tang was emotional.

When Lu Zhou asked him about the distribution of Mersenne primes in the cafeteria, he suggested that Lu Zhou not to think about those things and focus on mathematical analysis and applied mathematics.

However, fate was a wonderful thing.

Lu Zhou achieved so much in the field of prime numbers in just a few years.

Tang Zhiwei could not help but feel proud of his student.

When Lu Zhou heard Professor Tang, he did not know what to say.

"This… I'm embarrassed."

He thought that his thesis would at most kill off a few in-progress theses. He did not expect it to interrupt the meeting at his old school.

Professor Tang smiled and changed the topic.

"You've already finished your PhD. The school isn't in a rush to get you back, but there are some documents and certificates waiting for you. Principal Xu and Dean Lu have been asking me to ask you. So, when do you plan on coming back and get this damn PhD?"

When University of Jin Ling and Princeton originally signed a joint training program for Lu Zhou, Lu Zhou agreed that he would return to the University of Jin Ling and do a report after he finished his PhD in Princeton.

Actually, there was a teaching position as well, but that seemed to have been put aside.

The University of Jin Ling was supportive of Lu Zhou teaching at Princeton.

After all, it was good politics for the leadership team.

Actually, most universities in China knew that they were no match for a world-class school like Princeton.

Whether it was the academic environment or facilities, the difference was night and day. It was like a mathematics problem where solving it took generations of effort.

Encouraging talents to learn scientific research overseas was also a talent training strategy for all major universities.

There were also government policies that encouraged overseas academic development.

This was the so-called, "Go away first, then come back".

Even if one did not return, one could stay overseas and trained foreign students.

For example, if University of Jin Ling graduates were teaching at Princeton, then the University of Jin Ling would be able to send at least one student every year to Princeton. This was an unrivaled privilege.

At the same time, Chinese professors were more likely to recruit Chinese students, and this benefited the whole country.

However, Lu Zhou still had much more to learn. He had to earn his qualifications overseas. At the same time, Princeton's resources would help him complete his system mission.

When the time was right, he would go back to China.

After all, he was a nostalgic man.

Lu Zhou thought for a moment before he said, "I have to go to Stockholm first, but I'll be back in early June."

"Stockholm?" Professor Tang was stunned. He then asked, "What are you doing in Sweden?"

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly.

"I'm receiving an award."

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Chapter 250: Stockholm Awards Ceremony

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

25th of May, Stockholm airport.

A bright silver airplane slowly landed on the airway.

Soon after, Lu Zhou carried his luggage and dashed through the crowd to get out of the airport.

This was his first time in this country. He felt a rich artistic atmosphere.

Actually, Lu Zhou was not an artsy guy. He was more logical and rational. Even then, he could still feel the rich art and history coming from the subway station.

It was no exaggeration to say that this place was like a museum.

The 108-kilometer subway network housed the creative works of more than 100 artists.

No wonder that Edward Witten recommended taking a subway instead of a taxi in Stockholm.

According to the Nobel Prize rules, the winner was arranged to stay at the Stockholm Grand Hotel.

At the entrance of the hotel, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences academician, Staffan Normark, opened his arms and gave Lu Zhou a big hug.

"Welcome, Professor Lu Zhou!"

"Hope you didn't wait too long."

"What do you mean?" asked Staffan as he smiled. He then said, "Let me introduce you to…"

A few scholars from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stood next to him.

Lu Zhou greeted them one by one. He then walked to his room with Academician Staffan.

Standing in front of the door, Academician Staffan smiled and politely spoke.

"If you have any needs, please let the hotel front desk know."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You're too kind."

"This isn't kindness, this is respect for a scholar," said Academician Staffan with a smile. He added, "Actually, I was very surprised to see you in person. I thought Tao Zhexuan was young. I didn't expect that in four years, another young mathematician would break this record."

Tao Zhexuan won the Crafoord Prize in 2012, and he was only thirty years old at the time. In the same year, he made a breakthrough in the weak Goldbach's conjecture, which led to Helfgott's special proof of the problem.

Now in 2016, it was Goldbach's conjecture again.

It came full circle.

Lu Zhou smiled and modestly said, "Mathematics is an ancient and energetic subject. The people that study it will become younger and younger, maybe in the future, someone younger than me will break this record."

Academician Staffan smiled and said, "That might be a little difficult."

Academician Staffan did not stay for long. He informed Lu Zhou of some important things before he left.

Lu Zhou placed his luggage next to the bed. He did not immediately go outside.

Although he was interested in this city, he had just got off a 12-hour flight. He needed rest at the moment.

Lu Zhou went to take a shower before he laid in his bed.

Just as he was about to sleep, he suddenly remembered that he had not shared this joy with other people. Therefore, he got up from his bed and grabbed his phone. He took a photo of the view outside the window and posted it in his friends' news feed.

This time, he did not add a caption, just the photo.

Soon, his Weibo was flushed with comments.

[God Lu, where did you travel to now?]

[Where is this?]

[I'm guessing Princeton, or it's close to Princeton. The houses don't look tall, unlike New York.]

[I'm taking the college entrance exams soon, please God Lu give me luck!]

[Oh my god! God Lu didn't bullsh*t this time!!]

Lu Zhou looked at the comments and smiled.

What are you talking about!

Am I that kind of person!

…

The next afternoon…

The antique Starrmore Concert Hall was filled with the melody elegant and classical music. More than a thousand people were already seated in the hall.

After a simple opening remark, a short-haired, middle-aged woman walked on stage and announced the beginning of the ceremony.

Her name was Barbara Cannon, the dean of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Although her face was covered in wrinkles, it was obvious that she was a scholar of value and knowledge in her younger years.

In the sound of applause, Staffan Normark, the lifelong academician of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, took over the microphone and read out the list of winners and awards.

"… Mankind's future is in the distant sky. One day we will reach the places we can see. Let us send them our applause and blessings! Thank them for their contributions on black holes!"

"… The astronomy award winners were Professor Roy Kerr from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and Professor Roger Branford from Stanford University!"

The voice of Academician Staffan ignited the crowd.

The two professors, one from New Zealand, one from America, walked on stage. They received the medal under the eyes of King Adolphus.

Lu Zhou was under the stage. He took a deep breath and adjusted his tie.

Normally, he was very calm, but in these last few seconds, he had to control his breathing and heartbeat.

This was different than the Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award by the China Mathematics Society, and the China Mathematics Society from the Federal Mathematics Society. The entire natural science community honored this award.

Academician Staffan stood on stage and continued, "… Mathematics is the language of God. Prime numbers are the codes he keeps in the world. Many propositions aren't great themselves, but it is exactly because of this simplicity that the world and our civilization changes.

"… Thank him for his outstanding contributions toward prime numbers! And the proof of Goldbach's conjecture!

"The mathematics award winner is…

"Professor Lu Zhou from Princeton University!"

The crowd began to applaud even harder.

It was like a tsunami, wave after wave.

Lu Zhou walked steadily onto the podium.

He was the first Chinese scholar to stand here.

Behind him, more than two hundred scholars of different nationalities and different fields offered their blessings and applause for Lu Zhou's contribution to the world.

At the same time, King Adolphus XVI and his wife, Queen Sylvia, stood in front of Lu Zhou.

"Congratulations, Professor Lu Zhou!"

The white-haired old man smiled and handed Lu Zhou the medal and certificate.

Lu Zhou received the two and shook hands with this king, "Thank you!"

The applause was even louder.

Lu Zhou stood aside. Academician Staffan came forward again and the applause subsided.

However, for Lu Zhou, unlike the applause, his excitement did not stop.

He felt the weight of this heavy medal. He listened to classical music until the end of the award ceremony, and until all of the guests began to leave the venue.

Only until then, did Lu Zhou calm down.

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Although the ceremony for the Crafoord Prize ended, the celebration party had just begun.

After the ceremony ended, Lu Zhou walked out of the Stockholm Concert Hall and was about to take the bus to Stockholm City Hall.

However, the second he walked out of the Stockholm Concert Hall, he was ambushed by reporters, and all kinds of microphones and cameras were pushed in his face.

A well-dressed female reporter walked up and quickly asked.

"Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, I'm a reporter from CTV. Can I please interview you?"

CTV?

Lu Zhou did not want to do interviews, but CTV was a different story.

After all, CTV was a reputable media outlet.

Lu Zhou looked at the young female reporter and said, "Of course."

The reporter smiled and asked, "As the first Chinese scholar to receive the reward, how do you feel right now? Any thoughts?"

"Excited, pleased, thankful…"

Lu Zhou paused for a second. He then listed the names of people that had helped him.

The female reporter asked, "We all know that the Goldbach's conjecture is one of the crowns in the field of number theory. The story of Chin Jungrun's "12" has also inspired a young generation of mathematicians in China. Many people are still confused about the problem of "11″. So, what is the meaning of mathematics for you?"

Lu Zhou did not answer this question directly. Instead, he pondered over it for a moment before he suddenly asked, "What do you think the meaning of science is?"

The reporter had not expected a question, but she smiled and replied smoothly, "I think it should change the world. All of the modern wealth has built on the foundation of science and technology."

Lu Zhou nodded in approval.

Not bad, this reporter was smart.

At least smarter than the previous ones he dealt with.

Therefore, Lu Zhou was happy to converse with her.

What was the meaning of mathematics?

Was it to pretend to be smart?

Of course not.

Even though bragging and showing off knowledge was part of mathematics, Lu Zhou felt like it was the byproduct of a chemical reaction. It was necessary.

Just like how mathematicians were usually handsome, but being handsome did not mean that one would be good at mathematics.

The meaning of mathematics…

Lu Zhou looked at the cameras and smiled before he said, "You're right, the meaning of science is to change the world."

"… And the meaning of mathematics is to change science."

…

Like the Nobel Prize, after the Crafoord Prize award ceremony, there was a grand celebration banquet in the Blue Hall on the first floor of Stockholm City Hall.

The King and Queen of Sweden as well as many great scientists of the Academy of Sciences were there. They were all gathered there to share the beauty of science.

In a sense, the Crafoord Prize was like a preview of the Nobel Prize. It allowed mathematicians to experience what it would feel like to actually win a Nobel Prize.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences organized this banquet with the rules of Nobel Prize in mind.

For example, the food would not be revealed before the banquet began.

The areas of party and dances were strictly separated. Eating was in the blue hall while dancing was in the gold hall. Everyone had their own assigned seat… This was the difference between European and American conferences.

Before the start of the banquet, Lu Zhou saw a lot of acquaintances and greeted them one by one.

Like Schultz, Helfgott…

The people that were too far away could not come, but most European mathematicians, especially those in the field of prime numbers, attended the banquet.

After attending many conferences, Lu Zhou actually noticed that the mathematics circle was actually quite small. One could almost count the number of big names on one's hand.

However, the appearance of one big name surprised Lu Zhou.

This person was Faltings, the godfather of algebraic geometry.

His name left a mark in Princeton.

In 1994, he left Princeton after teaching as Professor for more than 10 years and returned to his hometown in Germany.

As of now, he was the director of the Max Planck Institue for Mathematics and the editor of one of the top mathematics journals, Inventiones.

Although Max Planck Institute was not as famous as Princeton, it ranked quite high in the world of research institutions, especially in the field of physics and engineering. Max Planck Institute was undergoing a very nutty project.

Compared to Charles Fefferman, Faltings' mathematics at Princeton was in no way inferior.

Legend said that he played chess with Peter Sarnak once, and lost. However, the old man was not worried. In fact, he said, "You're better at chess, but I'm a better mathematician."

In short, this German old man was very difficult to get along with. Nonetheless, he had the right to be cocky. After the death of Grothendieck, the throne of algebraic geometry would either be his or Deligne.

He dealt with Lu Zhou in the Goldbach's conjecture proof thesis. He was one of the six reviewers. In fact, Mr. Faltings gave two impressive revision ideas.

This mathematics ability of this old man was really admirable. Although Lu Zhou made the two revisions smoothly, it was a lot of work.

Coincidentally, this old man sat right next to Lu Zhou.

What surprised Lu Zhou was that just when he was thinking if he should disturb Faltings, Faltings was the one to pick up a glass of champagne and said, "Congratulations on your Crafoord Prize, Professor Lu Zhou."

"Thank you!"

Lu Zhou was deeply surprised as he toasted the old man gently.

Lu Zhou tasted the champagne and watched the old German man talked.

"A month ago, only three mathematicians had the potential to surpass me. That number just became four."

When Lu Zhou heard this, he nearly choked on his champagne.

The f*ck?

Is this guy humble bragging?

I think I met my opponent…

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Lu Zhou felt like he was weaker in terms of bullsh*ting.

Especially after the old man added another sentence.

"Of course, all you guys have is hope."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Faltings took the initiative to talk to him just to say these two sentences.

After that, the old man carefully held the knife and fork down to eat his steak, and completely ignored everything around him.

As if he was thinking of a mathematics problem right now.

Lu Zhou who was sitting next to him was dumbfounded.

It was obvious that this big name mathematician gave him a lot of pressure.

After dinner in the blue hall, there was a dance party in the gold hall.

The swaying candlelight sparkled from the copper candlesticks that were on either side of the hall. It shined brightly on the clear floor tiles. Goddess Lake Malaren sat on the mural in the middle of the hall while the crowd watched her dance elegantly.

As for Lu Zhou, he stood on the edge of the dance floor with a glass of champagne in his hand. He started to talk to Wang Yuping.

He did not get a chance to say hello back at the dinner, but he had the opportunity now.

Wang Yuping stood next to Lu Zhou and said with an emotional voice, "I can't believe that your growth this year is so fast! You even won the Crafoord Prize. You're really giving us Yan University a hard time."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yan University has some talents. Zhang Hao, Yun Zhijun, Xu Chenyang, and etc. I often heard about their research."

"You don't have to act humble. You're still young, and you still have a long road of achievements to accomplish," said Wang Yuping as he shook his head. He then asked, "Oh yeah, how long are you staying in Princeton? Are you coming back?"

"A year or two at least, five at most," said Lu Zhou. With a smile, he added, "I'm definitely coming back."

Wang Yuping smiled and said, "It's good to come back. Are you interested in becoming a professor at Yan University?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I've already discussed this matter with Academician Wang Shicheng. I think University of Jin Ling's environment is more suitable for me."

"Okay then, I guess you have your own ideas," sighed Professor Wang Yuping. He then joked, "Yan University can't get you to become a professor there, but occasionally, you can still give a report there, right?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I'd be honored."

The dance party was almost halfway finished, but Lu Zhou did not have plans to join in.

It was not because he was not interested, but it was purely because he was alone. The two other winners brought their relatives, but Lu Zhou did not even have a date.

Fortunately, he was not the only one that did not know how to dance. It was not awkward for him to chat with his peers while drinking champagne by the side.

If only no one invited him to dance…

Which was impossible.

While Lu Zhou and Wang Yuping were chatting about the dinner party, a lady in a long dress came over and smiled at him.

"Hello, Mr. Lu Zhou, can I borrow some of your time?"

Lu Zhou glanced at her and said, "Of course… You are?"

"Maria Viazovska," said Maria with a smile. She reached out her right hand and said, "If you think my last name is too long, you can call me Maria."

Lu Zhou heard her name and had a moment of realization.

Maria Viazovska was the winner of the 2016 Salem Prize. Like Molina's supervisor, she was also a popular candidate for the 2018 Fields Medal.

This year, she solved a well-known mathematics problem that was nearly 200 years old. It was the high dimensional sphere filling in the 8D and 24D problem.

This problem was closely related to theoretical physics and string theory. It was not well known, but it had a large applicable range.

"Thanks for your invitation, but I don't know how to dance."

Lu Zhou shook hands with this legendary female mathematician. He tried to let go, but Maria held on.

"But you can learn, right?" said Maria. She smiled and said, "I can teach you. It shouldn't be hard for someone who just won a Crafoord Prize."

Since Lu Zhou did not expect her to respond like this, he was stunned.

Are all Slavs so enthusiastic?

I really don't know how to dance…

Lu Zhou could not help but look toward Professor Wang for help.

In the end, the old man misinterpreted and thought that Lu Zhou wanted him to leave. He smiled and said, "Then I won't third wheel you two. I'll go say hi to my old friends."

The old man left with his hands behind his back.

…

Dancing was a normal form of communication. It had no special meaning. Legend said that a Nobel Prize winner once danced his shoe off, and everyone just laughed.

In fact, Maria Viazovska did not do anything to him. The two only danced and talked about mathematics problems while dancing.

As for why they suddenly brought up mathematics, it was because Lu Zhou tried to conceal his horrible dance skills, so he gave Maria a mathematics problem to distract her.

After all, he was new to dancing. He only learned from watching TV.

Maybe, he should take the time to learn these things.

Lu Zhou felt like maybe one day he would come back to this place.

Maybe for another reason…

After the dance party ended, the guest started to leave.

The scholars had to present their reports tomorrow, so they did not want to waste too much time on the dance floor.

Lu Zhou dragged his tired body back to the hotel. He threw his suit on the chair and laid in bed.

Today was the most tiring day of the year.

Even solving Goldbach's conjecture was not as tired as today.

However, he also felt a sense of happiness.

It was not just because of the honor of winning a Crafoord Prize, but also because of the $500,000 USD prize money…

Lu Zhou was about to put the medal aside when he suddenly remembered something important.

He had not shared his joy with his fans.

How could he forget…

Lu Zhou smiled and got up from his bed. He walked to the window casually.

He then took a photo of the night scene. However, there was a gold medal that appeared inside the photo.

This time, Lu Zhou added a caption, revealing the mystery of his previous Weibo post.

[Fascinating night scene. Hopefully, I'll come back. 26/5/2016, Stockholm.]

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Within three minutes of the Weibo post, the comment section was flooded.

[Nobel?!]

[Crafoord Prize, the legendary mini Nobel Prize! It's issued by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and mainly awarded to subjects not covered by the Nobel Prize. Not a single Chinese scholar has ever received this award before… Pray to God Lu.]

[I'm still doing my mathematical analysis assignment, I want to cry.]

[God Lu! Are you still doing a giveaway? Can you help with my thesis? Can I write your name as a co-author for my PhD thesis? Please!]

[The person that said Lu Zhou wasn't humble bragging… Come out! I'll knock you out!]

[The saddest thing is that I'm your age and I'm still in my undergrad.]

Lu Zhou looked at his fans' comments and smiled.

As expected, sharing the joy with other people was a wonderful thing.

Lu Zhou was satisfied. He placed his phone on the bedside table and buried his head in the pillow.

The next morning, flags of Sweden, China, the United States, and New Zealand were fluttering on the doorsteps of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

A long queue had already formed two hours before the report began. The moment the door to the venue was opened, the auditorium was packed with thousands of people in less than ten minutes.

Lu Zhou, who was in a suit, was the first to get on the stage. He started a one-hour report of his Goldbach's conjecture proof.

The content of the report was similar to what he did in Princeton. The only difference was that the number of viewers was on another level.

After all, Lecture Hall 1 of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study was no comparison to the auditorium that could be filled by thousands of people.

Lu Zhou scanned the venue. Not only were there thousands of people sitting here, but many were standing in the first row.

He cleared his throat and grabbed the microphone before he said, "I will try to keep this short and leave more time for the QA session."

"With regards to Goldbach's conjecture, I have to start from the Group Structure Method…"

…

After the reports and academic exchanges, the third day of the report came to an end. The final part of the Crafoord Prize celebration ceremony came to an end.

However, Lu Zhou's participation in this report was not high.

Other than his own presentation and two mathematics reports, he listened to two astronomy and astrophysics reports.

Lu Zhou was not knowledgeable in astronomy at all. He could only understand the theoretical physics parts.

However, Professor Roger Branford, the winner of the astronomy award, also knew that his research field was esoteric. He elaborated his ideas in a plain and simple language for the audience to understand.

Lu Zhou spent the rest of the time visiting various tourist attractions in Stockholm.

He had hardly rested over the past six months. Now that he finally had a vacation, it would be a waste not to use it.

Not to mention, with the free five-star hotel to stay in, his trip to Stockholm was almost perfect.

Three days after the report conference, the organizer would choose the Best Report Award and Best Thesis Award.

Without a question, the report on Goldbach's conjecture was the most eye-catching and most prominent.

However, this type of award would not be given to Lu Zhou and nor would it be given to other invited scholars.

After all, other people should be given a chance.

Therefore, when Lu Zhou stood on stage, it was not to receive a prize.

Lu Zhou held a certificate and a $100,000 krona (around $10,000 USD) check. He then handed them over to a mathematician from Brazil in recognition of his outstanding report on the Shevale Single.

Although Lu Zhou felt like this scholar was not much older than him, Lu Zhou felt weird giving him this honor. He then remembered that all mathematicians under the age of 40 were classified as young mathematicians, so he ignored this weird situation.

Not to mention that the award winner did not care about this at all.

The young Brazilian was not dissatisfied to receive an award from a guy younger than him. He shook Lu Zhou's hands with excitement and only released it after a long time.

…

Time of joy was always short.

The report conference ended on the fourth day of Lu Zhou's trip, and it was time to say goodbye to this beautiful city.

At night, Academician Staffan personally drove him to Stockholm Airport.

"You still have your room for two more days. Don't you want to stay for a bit longer?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Maybe next time. I still have people waiting for me in my home country."

Staffan smiled and said, "If you come back next time, make sure to give me a call."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Lu Zhou carried his luggage into the airport and looked at his flight information. There was still another hour until the plane takes off, so he found a place to sit down.

Sitting across from him was a Chinese woman in her thirties, and she was holding a squealing child.

The little kid in her arms looked around and suddenly made eye contact with Lu Zhou.

"Mom, this guy looks like the guy on the book!"

This child is cute.

Lu Zhou smiled and reached into his backpack. He then pulled out a piece of gold coin made from chocolate.

The chocolate gold coins at the Nobel Prize dinner were used by the physicists as "chips" for bets.

The Crafoord Prize was similar to the Nobel Prize, and there were also gold coins available. The packaging was different but Lu Zhou could not tell a difference in taste.

He did not immediately give the chocolate away.

The mother patted the back of the little girl and said, "He's a lot older, so call him uncle!"

The little girl tilted her head, "Uncle?"

"Nice, good girl!"

Lu Zhou's smile gradually faded, and he stuffed the chocolate back into his bag.

F*ck sake!

I'm not giving it anymore!

However, the child's unintentional words caught his intention.

After the mother left, Lu Zhou walked up and picked up a magazine from the shop nearby.

He did not expect to see his photo on the cover. It was a good photo.

The photo seemed to be taken at the report… However, he did not remember when he took the photo.

"[Figure]?"

Lu Zhou was interested. He then flipped through the magazine.

Wiles was also in mathematics before. Although this magazine had little to do with mathematics, he was curious about how the public saw him.

When Lu Zhou read the lines of words, he suddenly smiled.

This is too…

[25 most attractive people of 2016]

Among the 25 people, there were athletes, singers, doctors, policemen, and even princesses… There was only one professor, which was him.

He knew that the public thought he was handsome!

Otherwise, why would he be on the cover and not someone else!

Without a doubt, this was logical!

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Chapter 254: Triumphant Return

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The news traveled faster than the plane. Before Lu Zhou could fly back, the news was already rampant in China.

The first report was naturally the CTV interview.

However, this was different than the previous news broadcasts. This time, CCTV actually treated him as a piece of trending news. They placed him on the main channel and spent one minute broadcasting the Goldbach's conjecture and Crafoord Prize.

Most people who knew about Chen Jingrun's "12" was familiar with Goldbach's conjecture. However, most people did not know about the Crafoord Prize.

After all, no one in China had ever won this award, so there was no publicity about it in China. Only people in the industry knew about this award. As for the rest of the people, they had better things to do.

However, now that a Chinese person had won the award, the situation was different.

Fundamental science was a relatively weak area in China compared to applied science. Although a Crafoord Prize was not as significant as a Nobel Prize, it was still quite respected in the field of natural sciences.

The emergence of a distinguished young scholar was enormous for the nation's self-confidence and driving force. Even though the effect could not be seen on paper, it was subtly affecting the entire field.

In the small town of Guangneung, Lu Zhou's family sat around the table while they ate.

The news was playing on TV.

Moreover, it happened to be an interview between Lu Zhou and CTV.

When Xiao Tong heard the familiar voice, she looked up. The moment she saw her brother's face on TV, her eyes suddenly widened.

"F*ck… Bro?!"

"Stop swearing! You're about to go to University. Be more elegant."

Fang Mei criticized Xiao Tong, but she was not very angry because her attention was focused on the TV as well.

As for Lu Bangguo, he was completely stunned. He had even stopped eating.

"This kid… Did he win the Nobel Prize?"

Xiao Tong said, "Dad, are you blind? He won the Crafoord Prize."

"Hey, don't call your dad blind…" Lu Bangguo chided. However, he could not contain the smile on his face.

He stopped eating and went to look for his phone to call his son.

No answer the first time.

The second time, Lu Zhou picked up.

"Hey, you're doing pretty well for yourself. How come you didn't tell us?"

When Lu Zhou heard the familiar voice, he had just got off the plane. He smiled and said, "I wanted to give you guys a surprise."

Lu Zhou felt that it was boring to tell the news over the phone. His dad probably did not even know the difference between the Crafoord Prize and the Nobel Prize. The TV would show his interview anyway, so he wanted to surprise his family.

"I just got off the plane… Someone is calling me, I have to go. I'm going back home in two days anyway."

Lu Bangguo smiled and said, "You're pretty busy, aren't you? Who's calling?"

Lu Zhou, "I think the school, bye."

Lu Zhou was actually right, the phone call was from the University of Jin Ling.

However, it did not matter if he picked up or not. The second he picked up, he saw Dean Qin on the phone as well as several students who were holding a banner at the airport entrance.

[Congratulations to Lu Zhou, a mathematics professor at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, who conquered the Goldbach's conjecture and won the Crafoord Prize.]

The banner was so huge that Lu Zhou could not even pretend to not see it.

Also, it was not just Principal Xu and Dean Qin. Lu Zhou even saw Secretary Liu and some people in suits that he had never met.

It did not matter whether they were strangers. As a famous scholar, he had to spend some time dealing with politicians.

Due to Lu Zhou's status was a Crafoord Prize winner, he was heavily promoted by government propaganda. 2 years ago, he was only a potential Fields Medal winner.

As an internationally renowned scholar, many rules did not apply to him.

When Principal Xu saw Lu Zhou, he shook his hand tightly.

"Professor Lu Zhou, you have brought such great glory to the University of Jin Ling and our country. On behalf of all the teachers and students at the University of Jin Ling, thank you!"

Lu Zhou smiled humbly and said, "Principal, you're too kind. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do as a scholar."

Principal Xu was a scholar. Even though he was not in the field of mathematics, he studied information security. As a scholar himself, he knew that Lu Zhou did not want to waste time on the celebration, so he did not linger around the airport for too long.

The principal said a few kind words and introduced Lu Zhou to Secretary Liu and the other city politicians.

There were also two politicians from the province. They were representing his importance to the country.

Not only that, the provincial leaders even leaked a message; that even the central government valued Lu Zhou greatly.

The provincial politicians only smiled and did not give any specifics.

Lu Zhou did not stay at the airport for too long. He quickly got on his personal ride sent by the school.

Dean Qin and Principal Xu were riding along in Lu Zhou's car.

After some small talk, Dean Qin cleared his throat and changed the topic.

"… Here's the deal, after some discussion with our school and department, we want to give you an honorary professor title. Are you interested?"

Honorary professors were different than visiting professors or special professors. The former was only a title, while the latter two had actual work contracts and faculty positions.

With University of Jin Ling's reputation and historical heritage, having a title of honorary professor would definitely be beneficial to Lu Zhou. However, University of Jin Ling's mathematics department was quite weak, which was a bit unfortunate for Lu Zhou.

However, Lu Zhou did not care. After all, University of Jin Ling had taught him so much. He was proud to be a University of Jin Ling alumnus.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Of course, but the process wouldn't take too long, right? I'm going back to Jiangling in a few days."

Xiao Tong was about to take the college entrance examination, so Lu Zhou had to visit her. He would rather sort out the formalities after he got back to America.

He took a month long vacation from Princeton, so he had tons of time.

Dean Qin smiled and said, "It won't take too long. Most of the documents have already been prepared. We can give you the honorary professor certificate after your report!"

Lu Zhou nodded and smiled as he said, "Then, thank you so much."

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Dorm 201.

After Lu Zhou left, the four-person dorm became a three-person dorm. Although one of their friends was gone, the three students did not feel lonely. Instead, their lives were even richer and more eventful.

If winning the Cole Prize boosted Lu Zhou into the sky, then winning the Crafoord Prize boosted him to the moon. Lu Zhou's status in the eyes of mathematics majors reached a whole new level.

Especially those master's students who watched Lu Zhou go from an undergrad to a master's student, then a PhD. They could not help but feel jealous.

Due to this, every exam there would be people praying to God Lu.

These people would sit in Lu Zhou's chair in his dorm, and muttered some words. Then after a while, once they thought that they have absorbed Lu Zhou's energy, they would happily leave to study.

This kind of ethos was not restricted to the mathematics department as even the computer science department jumped on the bandwagon. This was because some computer science students remembered when Lu Zhou published nine theses at once.

Even though until this day it was still a mystery why Lu Zhou had to published nine computer science theses, there were still computer science majors who were worshiping him.

Therefore, although Lu Zhou had not sat in his chair for a long time, it never collected dust.

Most of his "worshippers" wiped the chair clean.

Since there were so many people coming, Huang Guangming and Shi Shang joked about turning it into a church and taking donations.

Of course, they were only joking.

Suddenly, the dorm room door was pushed open.

A familiar voice came from the door.

"201, your god is back…"

The atmosphere was inexplicably quiet.

Pairs of eyes stared at Lu Zhou and he was almost embarrassed by it.

"Uhh… Is there something on my face?"

He thought that his friends would start bantering with him, but the brothers of Dorm 201 responded weirdly.

Liu Rui, "Liu Rui…"

Huang Guangming, "Zhou."

Shi Shang took a deep breath. He then stood up and with a voice that trembled with excitement, he said, "You came back…"

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Don't be so sentimental, I'm almost embarrassed to come in."

The school arranged a five-star hotel for Lu Zhou to stay at. Although he was personally against wasting money on extravagant things, since the school had already booked it, he could not do anything.

However, before going to the hotel, he wanted to get together with his brothers.

After all, he had not seen them in a while.

…

The fish restaurant outside the school.

The waiter brought the grilled fish on the table and looked at Lu Zhou.

Maybe he wondered why Lu Zhou looked familiar to the guy on TV, or maybe he wondered why Lu Zhou came back.

However, he did not say anything. Even though he did not know Lu Zhou's name, but he had grown familiar with him over the past three years.

The food and beer arrived.

Everyone had not seen each other for a long time, so everyone wanted to chat.

Shi Shang asked Lu Zhou about life in Princeton.

After all, Princeton was the holy place in mathematics. Everyone listened intently.

Especially Liu Rui, he had plans for studying abroad for his PhD.

Once Liu Rui finished a bottle of beer, he said emotionally, "Once I graduated, I plan to continue to study."

Lu Zhou, "Applied mathematics?"

"Yes, but not really," said Liu Rui as he shook his head. He paused for a second before saying, "I want to study functional analysis at Yan University."

Lu Zhou, "Functional analysis is a widely used subject. It's applicable both in the real world and laboratories. I also wanted to do research in this area, but I changed to number theory instead. I wish you the best!"

Lu Zhou and Liu Rui toasted.

It was obvious that Liu Rui matured a lot.

Maybe Lu Zhou influenced him subconsciously, or Liu Rui made an effort to change. In short, Liu Rui no longer thought of himself a genius anymore, but he still had a passion for study.

Huang Guangming loved to talk about his life plans.

"I want to do research as well, but I can't do mathematics anymore. I plan on switching majors."

Lu Zhou, "Switching majors?"

"Yeah," said Huang Guangming. He scratched his head and smiled, "I'm pretty good at calculations, but I can't deal with the harder theories. I plan on doing a master's in accounting or something. My family recommended this as well, and they said that this major is popular."

Shi Shang sighed and said, "You're all going into further studies. It seems that I'm the only one graduating."

Lu Zhou asked, "You're not studying?"

Logically, Shi Shang's family had the most money.

"Not studying anymore," said Shi Shang as he shook his head. He smiled, "I'm sick of it. It's time for me to go into the real world. As a man, I have to give Ya Jing a good future."

Ya Jing was Shi Shang's girlfriend. Lu Zhou met her a few times. She was a good girl.

It was obvious that Shi Shang matured emotionally.

Lu Zhou, "You guys plan to get married?"

"Yeah," said Shi Shang as he nodded. He then said in a relaxed tone, "I'll marry after three years. In these three years, I'll put int my best effort to buy a house."

For fresh graduates, it was insanely difficult to buy a house in three years without any help from their parents.

However, Lu Zhou admired Shi Shang's confidence.

Lu Zhou raised his glass and said, "Well I wish you success in your career. Don't forget to send me a wedding invite."

The two toasted and Shi Shang said with a smile, "For sure!"

…

The four friends were up drinking late. Lu Zhou took a taxi to the hotel before he passed out in his room. The next morning, a phone call from Dean Qin woke him up.

He suddenly remembered that he had a report to do in the afternoon.

Lu Zhou took a shower and ate some food at the hotel buffet. He returned to his room and put on his suit. The car that came to pick him up arrived.

A long time ago, the system reward item enhanced his metabolic capacity. Therefore, he was less prone to hangovers.

He wore his suit and walked out of the hotel looking fresh. No one could tell he was out drinking all night yesterday.

Lu Zhou sat in the school's car and arrived at the University of Jin Ling campus. He adjusted his tie and walked into the large auditorium.

The report was naturally on Goldbach's conjecture.

Like Sweden, this auditorium was filled with thousands of people. Lu Zhou had already experienced this before, so he was very calm.

Not only were people from University of Jin Ling present, but there were professors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Aurora University, Yan University, Shuimu University, and a couple of other universities.

Especially Shuimu University, they almost sent their entire mathematics department.

The report was halfway through and many people from Shuimu were almost in tears.

They could see signs of the large sieve method in the Group Structure Method. They could see their predecessors efforts living in a new theory.

Large sieve method never came to a conclusion or end, like how people thought the ancient Greece method created by Ertosto could not be changed.

The old theories were never outdated. It just needed to make some changes to accommodate new problems.

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Chapter 256: Finally Got The Patent

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"… Based on the paper published by Professor Zellberg in 1995, I further improved the large sieve theory using topology. Then, in order to expand the Polignac's conjecture, I introduced a group theory method.

"The main step is in the first three lines of the second thesis page. As for some of the group theory foundations, I will explain that later."

Pairs of eyes stared at Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou sensed that people were looking at him. He turned the Powerpoint Page and continued to speak.

"We record S1(q,α)=e(αm3/q), C1(q,α)=e(αm3/q2), brought into Td(n,q)=S1(q,αd3) ·C1(q,αd3)·e(-an/q)/qψ2(q), the order δd(n)=Td(n,q) can be obtained."

"This step is crucial. It comes from the 2013 weak Goldbach's conjecture proof from Helfgott."

"However our goal is different than the circle method. We are not trying to perform Fourier analysis in the number theory function. Instead, we are trying to approximate the distribution of prime numbers."

"Next up is the "Group Structure Method"…"

Actually, Lu Zhou was not the first person to try to integrate the circle method and the large sieve method. Just like he was not the first person to use topology in a number theory problem.

Helfgott had tried similar methods, which were seen in his 2013 thesis.

Although he mainly used the circle method, there were some conclusions that used large sieve method.

In an interview, Helfgott said that the two methods were like two sides of a coin. How one used the methods depended on how one threw the coin.

Since it was the essence of the whole thesis, Lu Zhou carefully explained the core theory of Group Structure Method.

The analytic number theory field in China had made outstanding contributions to the world of number theory. However, since the death of Mr. Hua Luogeng, the entire industry died down. It was like an army without a general.

Although they said academia could be done with no money and status, there was just no fresh blood coming into the field.

Of course, there were other reasons as well. After Old Hua's death, the later generations could not innovate based on Old Hua's theories, and the knowledge output thus stagnated.

If someone wanted to make China's analytical number theory field return to its glory, they would have to add something new.

Lu Zhou hoped that the professors who listened to his report would bring his theory back to the classrooms of Shuimu University, Yan University, and Aurora University.

Reviving an academic field, or building one, could not be done with just one person.

If someone solved a mathematics problem through his theory, he would feel honored.

Lu Zhou believed that the Group Structure Method had more applications than Goldbach's conjecture. Many problems revolving around the prime numbers could be solved with this method.

"… Then we use Bombiere theorem, on page 29 of the powerpoint. Then through this crucial step, we get the last expression.]

[Px(1,1)P(x,x{1/16})-(1/2)Px(x,p,x)-Q/2-x(log4)…(30)]

From here, the formula was no different than Mr. Chen's thesis.

The Group Structure Method was derived from the large sieve method.

At last, it came full circle.

"… From the equation (30), Lemma 8, Lemma 9, Lemma 10, we can finally prove the theorem 1, that is, the Goldbach's theorem."

The moment Lu Zhou finished speaking, applause filled the auditorium.

Lu Zhou bowed toward the professor and scholars. He then turned around and quietly walked off stage.

Backstage…

In the lounge, Lu Zhou saw Professor Feng Keqin from Shuimu university. He was one of Hua Luogeng's closest disciple.

The old man's eyes were a little red. He took a deep breath and spoke in a steady tone, "Your speech and thesis were shocking… Thank you!"

Lu Zhou smiled and said humbly, "You're too kind. I have read your introduction to algebraic number theory textbook at the library of the University of Jin Ling. It greatly inspired me."

"I wrote that book a long time ago, but I can't keep up with the times anymore," said Professor Feng with a smile. He then looked at Lu Zhou as he said sincerely, "Actually, I'm writing a textbook on number theory. Your speech has inspired me, and I want to write the contents of your speech into the textbook… Is that okay?"

Writing a textbook was a very time-consuming thing. It required a large consumption of documents and research.

Most people would not write textbooks until they were very old, and could not do research anymore. Lu Zhou would never want to write a textbook.

However, someone had to write the textbooks.

Lu Zhou agreed immediately.

"Of course you can."

…

The next day in the same auditorium, Lu Zhou received a PhD from the University of Jin Ling and the title of honorary professor.

As a result, his journey at the University of Jin Ling had finally come to an end.

However, before Lu Zhou departed on his new journey, he had one more important thing to do.

Before he went to Stockholm, he received a call from his patent agent. The patent agent, Han Tianyu, told him that the patent documents had been processed, and asked Lu Zhou when he could collect them.

Lu Zhou made an appointment and found the patent agent called Han Tianyu. From Han Tianyu, Lu Zhou obtained the international patent authorization documents.

Therefore, he had obtained patents from most major countries.

His patents basically covered 80% of the global market. If someone used his technology, he would benefit from the product.

As for some of the smaller countries, Lu Zhou was not interested in applying for a patent there.

Since most of them were developing third world countries, Lu Zhou could always apply later.

Maybe by then, he would have come up with another better and more improved technology.

"The next step is to write a thesis and promote this technology," said Lu Zhou as he looked at the patent documents. He then said, "Chemistry… I'll have to depend on you to make money."

He made up his mind.

Once he was done with his vacation, he would start writing the thesis back at Princeton.

It was not only for money. It was because a fat mission reward was waiting for him.

After I finish writing the thesis, should I post it in Science or Nature?

This is a question worth considering.

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Chapter 257: Preparing For An Interview

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After finishing his duties in Jin Ling, Lu Zhou returned to his hometown by train. He reunited with his family and taught Xiao Tong some techniques to score in the exams.

After all, Lu Zhou got into the University of Jin Ling with his own abilities. Although he did not know much about liberal arts, he still knew some exam techniques.

He could not help her gain marks, but at least he could prevent her from losing marks.

The rest was up to Xiao Tong.

It was soon June 7th.

This was a happy day for some and a sad day for others.

Lu Zhou wore a raincoat and rode a bicycle. He passed through the rain and stopped in front of high school.

"We're here, get off."

Xiao Tong was under the raincoat. She stepped off the bicycle and carefully avoided the puddles.

"Brother…"

"Do your best," said Lu Zhou as he looked at his poor sister. He patted her head and said, "I'll wait here for you."

Xiao Tong nodded and strengthened herself mentally.

"Okay! I'll try my best!"

She opened up the umbrella and walked toward her school in the rain.

"Remember to double check!"

Xiao Tong disappeared in the pouring rain. Lu Zhou could not help but smirk.

When he was in high school, Xiao Tong was in middle school.

There were only two bicycles in the house. One was for his father and the other one was for him.

Every day, Lu Zhou would send Xiao Tong to school. That was until he left for college, and Xiao Tong started to ride by herself.

Lu Zhou did not notice that his sister was growing up so fast.

Maybe it was a good thing that he left for college.

Xiao Tong could not always depend on her brother. She would not have matured so quickly if Lu Zhou was always by her side.

"Do your best."

Lu Zhou stood under the bicycle tent and took out his phone.

He agreed that he would wait under this tent until Xiao Tong was done with her exams.

He looked at the time. There was still half an hour before the exam began.

Lu Zhou was yawning when he suddenly received a WeChat message.

Meng Qi: [Teacher! Please, I'm about to go inside, I'm so nervous. Can you wish me good luck? ._.]

When Lu Zhou saw this message, he smiled and typed a reply.

[Do your best! I hope your dreams come true!]

He then sent it.

Meng Qi did not respond.

Just when Lu Zhou thought she had gone into the exam room, he suddenly received a reply.

It was only one sentence.

[Thank you!!!]

…

The college entrance examination ended smoothly.

Xiao Tong was confident to get 590, maybe even a 600 if she got lucky. It all depended on the exam marker. After all, the liberal arts were very subjective.

After the exam, Lu Zhou and Xiao Tong did some research.

According to the 2015 University of Jin Ling entrance scores, 600 was not enough for quantitative majors, but it was enough for liberal arts majors.

Regardless, Xiao Tong first major life event was finally over.

After her exam, she completely changed her lifestyle. She would lay on the sofa playing Mobile Legends all day. She was even too lazy to hang out with her friends.

Sometimes, Lu Zhou would look at his sister and reminisce.

Being young is nice…

After she goes to university, she will find out that these two months are the happiest months in her life.

Xiao Tong turned over and saw her brother looking intently at the computer screen.

"Brother, if only I had a big brain like you…"

Lu Zhou could tell that she just lost a game.

"I'm not all brains. Many things are practiced through hard work."

He remembered that his score was only 640 something. Although it did not rank high in the state, for a small school like Jiangling High, it was pretty nutty.

After Xiao Tong lost again, she tossed her phone and sat up from the sofa. She stood next to Lu Zhou and looked at the computer, "Brother, what are you playing?"

Lu Zhou glanced at her, "Organizing interview materials."

Xiao Tong tilted her head and asked, "Interview?"

"Yeah," said Lu Zhou as he nodded. He then added, "The new semester in Princeton is about to begin. I'm already a professor now, so I have to take at least one student."

Strictly speaking, most of Princeton's offers were sent out in March and April. It was already June, so most of the students that received an offer were already planning to move in.

However, there were exceptions. Some professors who had not found any students would post their information on the website of the Admissions Office. Therefore, there were still some students that enrolled at a different time.

When Lu Zhou posted his information on the Princeton admissions website, his email was filled with letters.

Most of the letters were from students.

They were trying to make connections with Lu Zhou.

Most of the letters had horrible CVs, and there were almost no academic achievements.

However, judging from these letters, a lot of students were interested in Lu Zhou's research. Especially after he proved Goldbach's conjecture and won the Crafoord Prize, the interest toward him exploded.

Some people even tried to make connections a year in advance.

Thankfully, Xiao Ai helped him. As his assistant, it identified letters that were not related to enrollment and threw them in the trash can.

Honestly speaking, Lu Zhou did not want to get the leftover students. He would rather wait until August and interview people for the spring semester.

However, his office was too empty. It was too shabby.

Lu Zhou decided that he had to find at least two students, and familiarize himself with the work of professors.

Xiao Tong tilted her head and asked, "Can you interview at home?"

Lu Zhou said, "Of course you can. Many supervisors use Skype for interviews. The busy supervisors would even interview on the phone. Unless the supervisor was stubborn, most of them didn't need to interview face to face."

The interview was mainly a way for supervisors to get a deeper understanding of the student. After all, many qualities could not be reflected on paper.

Xiao Tong looked the resumes with Lu Zhou. Her eyes suddenly lit up.

"Oh, the girl with long hair is so pretty. I think she's good, just pick her!"

Lu Zhou nearly spat his water out.

"You think this is Tinder?!"

Xiao Tong was confused, "Then how are you going to choose?"

"Set a lower limit for academic grades, then look at resumes. The good ones get an interview, the bad ones get deleted, simple as that. Go go go. Go and play. Don't bother my work," said Lu Zhou as he waved his hand.

"Oh, selfish!"

Xiao Tong made a funny face and left.

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Chapter 258: What Kind Of Students Are Needed

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou flipped through a few resumes and found out just how competitive America Universities were.

Ten resumes in a row and not a single of them had a GPA lower than 3.7. That was an A!

If it was in China, a 3.5 would be considered a genius.

Even though dumb students did not dare to apply to Princeton, these resumes were almost too good.

It was like inflation. If everyone had high marks, no one had high marks…

Since academic grades did not mean anything, Lu Zhou could only look at other achievements.

Students with thesis writing experience and research experience were preferred. Lu Zhou did not care about social work, sports, and recommendation letters. Despite most American professors caring about these things, Lu Zhou had his own way of judging.

Finally, after some consideration, he picked out ten resumes. All of the candidates were well rounded.

He liked Vera Pulyuy from Berkeley the most.

An IMO gold medalist was worthy of any university. He briefly talked with this girl at Berkeley before and had a good impression of her.

However, Lu Zhou had not expected her to finish her undergrad at such a young age.

Maybe she was the next Tao Zhexuan?

Interestingly, one of her three recommendation letters were from Tao Zhexuan, who taught as a professor at the University of California.

In short, Lu Zhou kept this resume.

Since it was Lu Zhou's first time, he planned to recruit three master's students. Then each semester he would decide if he wanted to recruit more. It was a nuisance to have students at different stages of research.

One of the spots were given to IMO gold medalist Vera, so there were two more remaining spots for the nine resumes.

In order to prevent Xiao Tong from annoying him, Lu Zhou arranged all of his interviews in the morning.

Xiao Tong never woke up early.

Before noon?

Impossible.

The first round of interviews was mainly for Chinese students. He would definitely recruit at least one Chinese student. If he could, he would have given this spot to his schoolmates from the University of Jin Ling, but the timing did not work out.

Lu Zhou opened Skype and began the first interview.

The first interviewee called him at the pre-arranged time.

A young lady with bangs and round glasses appeared on the computer screen. She looked beautiful and elegant, but that was not the main point.

Lu Zhou looked at her resume and cleared his throat.

"Liang Shuyu, right?"

Liang Shuyu smiled. She was not intimidated by Lu Zhou. She nodded and said, "Yes!"

Lu Zhou, "What do you plan on doing after graduation."

Liang Shuyu said, "I plan on doing a PhD. After that, I want to do scientific research. I want to contribute to the world of science…"

Lu Zhou looked at the bottom right corner of his computer. He noticed that she spoke for exactly three minutes.

Lu Zhou looked at her strangely and asked, "Then, why did you choose number theory?"

With no surprise, he received a standard answer.

"I read Mr. Hua Luogeng's "Theory of Prime numbers", and Joseph H. Silverman's "Introduction to Number Theory". Since college, I have been interested in number theory. After I saw that you solved Goldbach's conjecture on TV, and received the Crafoord Prize, I felt very excited. From that moment onwards, I made up my mind to follow you and to explore the mystery of prime numbers."

Lu Zhou was embarrassed at this ass kissing. He then said, "Then briefly explain the Group Structure Method…"

If you worship me this much, this should be easy.

However, something awkward happened.

The lady was stunned at this question.

However, she responded quickly. She muttered some stuff but did not hit the major points.

Clearly, she came well prepared and acted like she was very interested in Lu Zhou. However, she did not really get into Lu Zhou's work.

This was not a big deal. If she knew all of Lu Zhou's theories, Lu Zhou would not have anything to teach her.

However, one of Lu Zhou's requirements in students was honesty.

He wanted students that were genuine and sincere.

Lu Zhou sighed in his heart. He then smiled warmly and said, "It's fine if you don't know. Some things are esoteric. It might be difficult for you. Let's end this here. I'll tell you the result in a week."

Liang Shuyu's eyes lit up. She thought she had a chance, so she smiled and said, "Thank you, professor."

The video call ended.

Lu Zhou drew a cross on her resume and placed it aside.

There was no chance.

The interviewee reminded him of President Lin from the Student Union.

Although he did not hate President Lin, he did not want to have someone like her in his laboratory.

As for her master's degree motive, Lu Zhou guessed that she wanted to come to Princeton and pad her qualifications. After that, she would return to China and join the Thousand People Initiative.

Honestly, Lu Zhou wanted to say, "If you're going to play the political route, then go and become a politician. Don't come to me."

There were very few Chinese professors are Princeton, so this spot was valuable!

Lu Zhou took a few minutes to rest before he started the second interview.

This interviewee was a guy.

Unfortunately, Lu Zhou did not receive a single application from a student of the University of Jin Ling.

Lu Zhou cleared his throat and said, "Qin Yue, right?"

Qin Yue quickly nodded and nervously said, "Yes!"

Lu Zhou looked at Qin Yue's nervous face and knew why he was leftover.

Honesty was the first element in an interview. However, just being honest was not enough. Interviewing also required the ability to express one's talents.

Otherwise, they could not even do a presentation report on stage. It would be a waste of time to train them.

However, Lu Zhou decided to give him a chance, mainly because his academic grades were pretty good.

What was rare was that this guy published a thesis as an undergraduate student. Although it was an average thesis, for an undergraduate student, it was pretty impressive.

Lu Zhou said, "Introduce yourself."

Qin Yue sat up straight as he said nervously, "I'm Qin Yue, 23 years old…"

Although he stuttered at first, he got better by the end. Lu Zhou then asked a few technical questions to test knowledge in the number theory.

In general, this guy was a very talented student and a good character. Even though Lu Zhou thought that he was a little shy, that confidence could be built.

When Lu Zhou saw that the time was nearly up, he said, "Let's end the interview here. I'll email you the result in a week."

When Qin Yue heard Lu Zhou, he felt relieved. He then nodded and thanked Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou looked at Qin Yue's bitter smile and thought that Qin Yue did not even have hope in himself.

After Lu Zhou ended the video call, his pen hovered on Qin Yue's resume.

Should I keep him?

In the end, he did not draw a cross. He simply wrote a line of comment and placed the resume aside.

There were still so many candidates. He wanted to choose after interviewing everyone.

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Time quickly passed.

In late June, the college entrance examination results were released.

The whole family gathered around the computer. Xiao Tong was worried and it showed on her face.

It was like they were watching the Super Bowl.

Xiao Tong looked nervous as she turned to her brother for help.

"Brother…"

Lu Zhou patted her shoulder and said calmly, "Don't be scared, you weren't scared when turning your paper in, why would you be scared to receive it?"

"What…"

Xiao Tong hesitated for a bit. She then took a deep breath and entered her candidate number.

The score appeared on the screen.

Xiao Tong froze immediately.

It was not because it was lower than her expectations.

But because…

620!

Xiao Tong screamed out loud in excitement.

"Brother! I got a 620!"

"Nicely done, sis."

When Lu Zhou saw this score, he nodded with approval as he sincerely felt happy for his sister.

The 2016 liberal arts minimum entrance score was 520, and she was 100 points above the minimum.

Although it was not high enough for Yan University, it was definitely enough for the University of Jin Ling.

"Haha, good job daughter," said Lu Bangguo as he patted Xiao Tong's head. He then laughed and said, "I'm going to buy alcohol."

Fang Mei looked at him and said, "Drinking in the morning… Are you still going into the office?"

Lu Bangguo said, "I'm not going, I took today off!"

Both of his children were admitted to the university. He felt like he was at the top of the world. How could he not drink on this happy day?

The only thing was that Lu Zhou had been overseas for so long, but still did not bring a partner back.

Old Lu wanted to have a grandson!

It was like an early Christmas in the family.

Lu Bangguo was still ecstatic the next day, and he proposed to have a celebration feast with his friends and family.

However, Xiao Tong did not want to waste money, so he had to give up on the idea.

At night, Lu Zhou organized the interview schedule for tomorrow. As he looked at his sister who was laying on the couch, he asked, "Did you think about what major you want to apply to?"

Xiao Tong put down her phone and seriously thought about his questions before she answered.

"I know!"

Lu Zhou, "Yeah?"

Xiao Tong nodded and said firmly, "I'm going to major in finance!"

Finance was part of the liberal arts department at the University of Jin Ling. Although it needed a certain mathematical foundation, as long as one did not go into financial research, it would not require too much mathematics.

The most valuable thing was that Xiao Tong made up her own mind without help from her brother.

Lu Zhou was proud of her.

Lu Zhou nodded with approval and said, "It's good to have a direction. Can you explain what finance is?"

Xiao Tong's eyes lit up and she said, "Finance sounds like it has to do with money!"

Lu Zhou: "…"

What are you talking about…

Did you do any research at all?

Finance obviously has something to do with money!

Lu Zhou said, "Actually alchemy is a good major as well. It has to do with gold."

Xiao Tong was confused and she asked, "Really?"

Lu Zhou said, "Kidding."

Xiao Tong: "…"

…

Some people were happy, some people were sad. That was the reality of the college entrance examination.

Students gathered in the computer room of Jinling High School.

Back then, you had to fill in the college application form, then the school would enter it online for you. However, the students could enter the college application form themselves now.

Han Mengqi looked at the computer screen and bit her lips. She did not move the mouse for a long time.

Fortunately, she got an A for both of her two science subjects. She got above the minimum requirements for the University of Jin Ling.

Normally, her score would be good enough, but it would depend on how many people applied for it.

Mathematics…

University of Jin Ling's mathematics department isn't very strong…

Not a lot of people will apply right…

Han Mengqi gulped. She made up her mind and applied to University of Jin Ling mathematics department.

As for the option to accept other majors, she did not want to accept, but in the end, she checked the box.

"I hope I get in…"

The girl closed her eyes and clenched her fists as she prayed silently.

…

Lu Zhou stayed in China until July. It was about time his vacation ended.

Although he wanted to wait until Xiao Tong's college acceptance letter, it was very troublesome to extend his vacation. Plus he had some stuff to take care of in America, so he did not want to stay for long.

After a 12-hour flight, Lu Zhou finally arrived back at the small town of Princeton.

For most American students, it was still summer vacation. Their vacation would last until the end of August.

However, for master's students, their summer vacation time depended on their supervisors.

In some sense, American supervisors had much more power than Chinese supervisors. American supervisors could expel the master's students. In China, only the university had the right to expel students.

There was a different power dynamic.

Lu Zhou obviously was not going to be like those heartless supervisors, but he would not be chill either.

His requirements for his three master's students was for them to arrive at school before 15th July. If there were visa issues, he could extend the time to August.

Before Lu Zhou could assign them jobs, he had to meet with them face to face.

Lu Zhou placed his luggage in his apartment and went to the Institute for Advanced Study.

As he walked upstairs, he bumped into Edward Witten. Edward was surprised to see Lu Zhou.

"My friend, you are finally back."

Lu Zhou was confused by Witten's welcome and he asked, "What happened?"

Edward Witten smiled and only said two words.

"Gravitational waves."

When Lu Zhou heard the words, he finally realized what Witten said.

In February 2016, the researchers of the LIGO project team announced that they had successfully detected gravitational wave signals from the merger of two black holes using LIGO's two detectors.

The related thesis was recently published on arXiv, and it was being reviewed by theoretical physicists around the world.

Although Lu Zhou was on vacation for the past month, he was not completely out of touch with the academic community. He had always paid attention to new theses on arXiv.

Even though not every thesis on arXiv was useful, if the number of thesis in a certain field suddenly increased, that meant something had happened.

It was like the 750 GeV last year, the trending topic this year was gravitational waves.

Lu Zhou was somewhat envious as he said, "It's an amazing discovery…"

Compared to his "insignificant" 750 Gev discovery, gravitational waves was undoubtedly more shocking.

"Yeah, it's enviable," said Witten emotionally.

The detection of gravitational waves filled in the last piece of the puzzle in Einstein's general theory of relativity.

If Einstein was still alive, he would definitely earn another Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery.

After all, he won the Nobel Prize because he explained the photoelectric effect and not because of the general theory of relativity.

However, this was obviously not possible anymore. Since 1974, the Nobel Prize Committee ruled that Nobel Prizes were only for living people.

Witten had the most emotion toward gravitational waves.

The experiment was done 100 years after the theory was invented. If the same happened with string theory, he would never see a string theory experiment in his lifetime.

There was no doubt that the next Nobel Prize in Physics was going to MIT's Rainer Weiss and his collaborators.

After all, the discovery of gravitational waves would be engraved in human history.

Witten cleared his throat and said, "LIGO invited me to help them do data analysis on the gravitational waves experiment. I'm guessing that since you don't have a research project right now, are you interested in joining my research project? If you're interested, I can get my students to book flights for you right now."

Lu Zhou thought about it for a second. He then rejected this tempting proposal and said, "Gravitational waves aren't within the scope of my research. Unfortunately, I can't help you. I'm going to get pretty busy over the next few days."

The reward mission from the system gave him a lot of freedom, but it would be more efficient if he allocated his time toward materials science.

The reward mission was more valuable than the gravitational waves research project.

Even though the gravitational waves sounded significant, the number of experience points might be less than 10,000.

Witten said, "Materials science?"

Lu Zhou nodded, "Yes."

Witten sighed and said, "Okay then, it seems that you already have plans. I wish you good luck."

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