Chapter 613: Letter From Clay Inst.i.tute
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
When Lu Zhou submitted the thesis, he never thought that his Annual Mathematics thesis would cause such a sensation.
After all, that was only in-progress results, it was far from reaching the essence of the Yang-Mills equations. At most, he just took a step that others had not yet taken.
It wasn’t until Academician Lu kept asking him questions excitedly that he realized that the situation wasn’t as simple as he had thought.
The status of the Yang-Mills equations in the physics world was far higher than its position in the mathematics world.
For the mathematics community, it was just a difficult partial differential equation, but for the physics community, it was the first step toward the Grand Unified Theory, the holy grail of modern theoretical physics!
Therefore, even though it was a small step, it still shocked the entire world.
After all, ever since entering the 21st century, other than discovering some particles that had been predicted and verifying some pieces of the standard model, there hadn’t been any “new stuff” happening in the theoretical physics community.
Of course, theoretical physicists weren’t the only ones that were shocked, those laymen who had heard about this news through various channels were also amazed.
In some sense, those laymen were even more excited than the experts.
Especially after Professor Fefferman was interviewed by the Science magazine… The interview pushed the popularity to its peak.
This was so popular that when Lu Zhou was eating in the cafeteria, he could hear students that were obviously not physics majors, looking at him and whispering something about him.
This was just the tip of the iceberg.
After his number theory cla.s.s, he carried the textbook and left the cla.s.sroom. A group of people then surrounded him at the door.
Lu Zhou didn’t know where these reporters came from. They took out their cameras, microphones, and voice recorders before placing them right in front of Lu Zhou’s face.
“h.e.l.lo, Professor Lu, I am a reporter for Penguin news. It is rumored that you are challenging the Yang-Mills equations from the Millennium Prize Problems, is this true?”
Lu Zhou: “Yeah, and?”
“Professor Tao Zhexuan from the University of California once mentioned in his personal blog that the best way to solve a problem is to make Professor Lu become interested in the problem… What do you think about this?”
Lu Zhou: “Go ask him.”
The reporter who was squeezed to the back of the crowd was able to stick a microphone in front of Lu Zhou.
“Annual Mathematics published your paper. Does that mean you have solved the Yang-Mills equations Millennium Prize Problem?”
When Lu Zhou heard this r.e.t.a.r.ded question, he replied, “The proof of the solution existence is only an in-progress result, it doesn’t…”
“If the Clay Inst.i.tute gives you the million-dollar bonus, how do you plan to spend this money?”
Lu Zhou: “???”
Don’t they know how to listen?
The microphones were shoved in front of his face one after the other, causing Lu Zhou to be overwhelmed.
Thankfully, w.a.n.g Peng responded quickly and stood in front of him.
w.a.n.g Peng’s arms weren’t particularly beefy, but he was able to carve a path for Lu Zhou to get out of the crowd.
Ten minutes later, the school security heard about the news, and a group of security guards in black jackets came to kick these people out of the school campus.
Lu Zhou finally got rid of the relentless reporters and escaped to the mathematics research building. He sighed in relief and sat down in his office chair.
Lin Yuxiang, who was studying for her National Public Servant Exam, noticed his tired expression. She got up and walked to the water dispenser.
When Lu Zhou opened his laptop and was about to start working, she walked over with a cup of coffee in her hand and smiled.
“Are you tired? I made you some coffee.”
“Thanks,” Lu Zhou took the coffee and replied politely.
“You’re welcome.” Lin Yuxiang smiled and said, “I used instant coffee this time, I don’t know if you’d like it.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
“Perfect.” Lin Yuxiang put her hands together and looked at him with puppy eyes. She then said flirtatiously, “Well then… If you like it, I’ll make it for you every day?”
From her past experience, when she said something like this with her puppy eyes, even females would get b.u.t.terflies in their stomach, much less a loner that had never experienced love before.
However, while she was thinking about this…
Lu Zhou said, “You don’t have to make it every day, I’m not here every day.”
Lin Yuxiang: “…???”
Lu Zhou didn’t know if he said the wrong thing or offended her, but when Lin Yuxiang sat back down in a stiff manner, Lu Zhou felt like she seemed… frustrated?
Screw it, who cares.
Lu Zhou blew on his coffee cup before he took a sip. He put the coffee cup aside and opened arXiv. He then began to check the latest development in the research fields that he followed.
He had to admit that the theoretical physicists really were a lonely bunch.
He still remembered that for a few months after his 750 GeV discovery, arXiv exploded over this “mysterious particle” that was outside the standard model.
And the same was true now.
Various theses that included words like “L Manifold” and “Yang-Mills equations” began to pop up on the website.
What annoyed him the most was that after going through a couple of theses, he didn’t see anything notable.
In short, it felt like these theses were poorly written in a hurry, purely to contain the buzzwords…
Suddenly, a text bubble popped up on the lower right corner of the screen.
[Master, you have an email message!]
Email?
Lu Zhou saw Xiao Ai’s pop up and raised his eyebrows. He then clicked on the link in the bubble.
The email was sent from the Clay Mathematics Inst.i.tute, and the sender was Carlson, the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Inst.i.tute. They were acquaintances, so of course he still remembered Carlson.
In the email, Professor Carlson expressed his courtesy and thanks for Lu Zhou’s work. He also made a request. He hoped that Lu Zhou could present his proof to the international academic community in a report.
If Lu Zhou didn’t have the energy to plan the report, the Clay Inst.i.tute would be happy to help.
After Lu Zhou read this email, he thought for a bit. He then wrote a reply.
[I’ll seriously consider your proposal.]
Even though he didn’t have any intentions of hosting this report, after all, in his opinions an in-progress result wasn’t worthy of a report. However, after he saw the rubbish theses on arXiv regarding the L Manifold, he felt like he should stand up and explain his theory to the world in a more detailed manner.
If he could attract a group of talented people into his field, it would greatly benefit his research.
At the very least, he would be able to find theses worthy of reference.
Lu Zhou was thinking about how he should go about doing the report when he heard a knock coming from his office door. He then saw Princ.i.p.al Xu walk in.
“Um, Professor Lu.”
When Lu Zhou saw Old Xu’s fervent expression, he paused for a second.
“What’s up?”
Princ.i.p.al Xu smiled and said, “Nothing much, it’s just that… You just produced such a great research result, according to the convention of the mathematics community, shouldn’t you do a report or something?”
“This is a convention…”
Princ.i.p.al Xu immediately said, “Then what do you think about the big auditorium at the old campus?”
Lu Zhou immediately knew what the princ.i.p.al was talking about, so he smiled and replied, “That would be great, thank you.”
Princ.i.p.al Xu waved his hand and smiled.
“No worries, no worries! Oh yeah, what time do you think is appropriate?”
Lu Zhou thought for a bit before replying, “Let’s do it in May.”