Chapter 621: I Solved It
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The chalk on the blackboard stopped moving.
The explanation from Lu Zhou also stopped.
Everyone in the audience was stunned.
Lu Zhou’s hands hadn’t stopped writing for the past hour, and now that he suddenly stopped, everyone felt a little uncomfortable.
However, everyone knew that when someone was in an unusual environment, they were bound to perform worse than usual. Some people even witnessed old professors dozing off while reporting. Also, this was a major mathematical proposition. Not only did it test the reporter’s mathematics level and articulation ability, but it also tested the reporter’s mental endurance.
Everyone waited in silence.
However…
10 seconds pa.s.sed.
5 minutes pa.s.sed.
Lu Zhou still stood still on stage. He stared at the blackboard like he was thinking about something.
Seeing how he didn’t react for a long time, the audience began to worry.
Why hasn’t he moved yet?
Is he stuck in his train of thought?
Or did he… realize he made a mistake?
A lot of people looked like they were gloating, while others looked like they were concerned. After all, making a mistake during a major mathematics conjecture report was possible. It wasn’t like everyone could be correct every single time.
However, no one thought that an issue would arise during the reporting stage, as opposed to the Q&A session.
This almost felt like…
Lu Zhou used his own logic to tie himself to the floor.
The reporters standing behind the auditorium noticed the commotion in the audience. They felt like something big was going to happen. They secretly pointed the camera lens at Lu Zhou to get a close-up of his facial expression.
Laymen always liked to watch accidents happen.
Princ.i.p.al Xu and Dean Qin, as well as several other teachers who were also in the venue, started to sweat. The staff members near the stage were even more helpless; they didn’t know if they should inform Lu Zhou of the time or just stand there and wait.
Dean Qin clenched his fists as he mumbled, “What is he doing, isn’t he about to prove it?”
He had read the thesis, and he understood the thesis. With just a few more steps, he could prove the solution existence of the Yang-Mills equations. He didn’t know if Lu Zhou forgot or something, because Lu Zhou just stood there and… started to daydream?
Han Mengqi, who was standing at the corner of the venue, watched Lu Zhou on stage. She clenched her right hand and silently prayed for Lu Zhou.
Lin Yuxiang, who was standing next to her, looked like she just realized something. She smirked and looked a little mischievous.
In the audience.
Academician w.a.n.g s.h.i.+cheng was sitting in a corner of the venue. He stared at the blackboard and frowned.
The proof process was correct.
The rest of the proof should be easy. It would only take one more sentence to finish the proof. Lu Zhou just had to finish the PowerPoint presentation and begin the Q&A session.
For an internationally-renowned scholar, people wouldn’t ask him to clearly prove every step. He only needed to answer some of the more controversial steps.
While Academician w.a.n.g was thinking about the proof process, the man wearing gla.s.ses, who was sitting next to him, asked, “Is he… stuck? This is going to be embarra.s.sing for Lu Zhou.”
w.a.n.g s.h.i.+cheng stared at him and quietly said, “Shut up.”
The man immediately shut his mouth.
After all, w.a.n.g s.h.i.+cheng used to be the chairman of the China Mathematics Society. Even though he wasn’t famous in the international academic community, he was still quite famous, domestically speaking.
On the other side of the venue.
Professor Witten stared at Lu Zhou on the stage and looked at Professor Deligne.
“Is there a problem?”
Deligne’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t say anything.
Fefferman’s eyebrows were also furrowed, as if he was thinking about something.
As for Wiles, he wasn’t worried at all. He heartlessly smiled and happily answered Witten’s question, “Maybe his thought process is stuck. When I was researching Fermat’s last theorem, I fell into the same state… I know what he’s experiencing right now, we just have to wait for a bit.”
When he was researching Fermat’s last theorem, he first failed when he used the Iwasawa theory. He then changed to the Colivagin Fletcher method. Then he found out that the method had a serious problem when applied to a special Euler cla.s.s. This led him to abandon his claim of successfully proving Fermat’s last theorem.
That was until the last day of August when he suddenly came up with the idea of using the Iwasawa theory and combining it with the Colivagin Fletcher method. The final result was quite gratifying, to say the least. Wiles repaired the holes in his hopeless thesis and turned it into a proof for Fermat’s last theorem.
Wiles talked about how he was inspired by his daughter’s Lego blocks, and how desperate he was, and about how it was a sunny morning in Barabara…
Actually, he did have the right to brag.
As far as the conjecture itself was concerned, the proof of Fermat’s last theorem was the most brilliant mathematical achievement of the 20th century.
However, thirty years had pa.s.sed since then.
When Deligne heard him blabber, he merely ignored him.
Fefferman reached out and poked Witten with his finger.
Witten looked at him.
“What?”
“I’ve heard another version of this story.” Fefferman pointed toward Wiles, who was talking to Deligne. Fefferman said, “The last time he told me about this story, he said he was inspired by his wife’s breakfast.”
Witten: “…”
Ten minutes had pa.s.sed.
Lu Zhou still stood still on stage.
People even began to wonder if he was asleep, but Lu Zhou suddenly moved.
Moreover, he moved in a way that was unexpected.
He picked up the eraser from the table and began to erase the lines of equations on the blackboard. He then picked up the chalk and began to write down new lines of equations.
When Fefferman saw the lines of calculations, his pupils dilated, as if he knew something was coming, but he couldn’t believe it.
However, Lu Zhou’s movements confirmed his hunch.
Lu Zhou wrote down the last line of equations.
He turned around and threw the chalk onto the desk.
He went silent for a few seconds. He then faced the crowd and said in a positive tone, “I solved it.”
After that, to everyone’s surprise, Lu Zhou turned around and walked down from the stage.