From Almighty Scholar to Chief Scientist

Chapter 270 The Mathematics World Has Been Stirred Again

Pierre Deligne's office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

At this time, Deligne was leaning on his chair, looking at a recently published mathematics paper.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the office door.

"Come in." Deligne said.

Then the door opened and Enrique Pompieri entered.

Seeing this old friend come in, Deligne stood up with a smile and asked, "Enrique, why come to me when you have time?"

Seeing Deligne like this, Pompieri smiled and said, "You don't know?"

Deligne was taken aback: "Know what?"

"It seems that you really don't know, so it's a coincidence that I came here."

Pompieri laughed, and then said, "Do you still remember the interview you did after the last International Congress of Mathematicians?"

"After the International Congress of Mathematicians? Interviews?" Deligne was taken aback. This happened three years ago. For an elderly man like him, it is still difficult to recall, and he has received quite a lot of interviews. The world's top mathematicians like him basically receive invitations for interviews or lectures every day, so he doesn't remember very clearly about those interviews.

Of course, Deligne still had an impression of the interview after the last International Congress of Mathematicians. After all, that interview was about Lin Xiao.

That meeting, which brought together many top mathematics masters in the world, and many well-known figures in the mathematics field, received an invitation from the International Mathematical Union to report at the meeting, and the world's smartest game was played there.

However, no matter what, among the hundreds of reports, only the report of that young man is still fresh in people's memory. The determination of the distribution of Mersenne prime numbers and the proposal of Lin's conjecture made that report enough to be listed as a representative of the International Congress of Mathematicians. One of the most important reports in history.

After all, not many mathematicians go to the International Congress of Mathematicians to report such mathematical breakthroughs. Most of them report on their past research, or discuss future hot spots.

For example, when Deligne’s mentor, Grothendieck, was invited to give a one-hour speech at the International Congress of Mathematicians, he predicted that he would make new developments in algebraic geometry, and finally rely on his foundational nature of modern algebraic geometry Work, and then established his name as the emperor of mathematics.

Of course, I remembered it when I remembered it, but why did Pompielli mention this matter?

So Deligne said, "Remember, is there a question?"

Pompieri laughed: "Do you remember what you said in that interview?"

"Just to talk about something related to Lin Xiao, his Lin's conjecture or something... Could it be that what you want to say has something to do with Lin Xiao?" Deligne quickly responded and asked.

Pompieri laughed and said, "Do you still remember when you talked about Lin's conjecture, how many years did you say before it could be proven?"

"More than 20 years, um... it should be 25 years." Deligne replied, and then he couldn't help but look at Pompieri, and asked with a surprised face: "Don't tell me, Lin's conjecture was taken Prove it!!"

Seeing Deligne's appearance, Pompieri suddenly laughed.

"Binggou! That's right!"

Deligne's eyes widened, and he stood up suddenly from his seat, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"How did Lin's conjecture be proven so quickly?"

"Impossible, absolutely impossible! Who proved it?"

Seeing Deligne like this, Pompieri laughed even louder, and stopped after a long while because he was almost out of breath.

Deligne looked depressed, and said angrily: "You old guy, I can't kill you by laughing."

Pompieri waved his hand, and after the breath came over, he said, "It was Lin Xiao, Lin Xiao proved it."

Deligne was taken aback for a moment, "Lin Xiao? Really?"

"Of course it's true, he just posted it on arxiv today."

"Oh, that's all right."

Deligne waved his hand, sat back in front of his seat, and then started to operate the computer.

Do nothing else, of course, to log in to arxiv.

"This young man has finally published another mathematics paper, and it's Lin's conjecture. He is willing to return to the embrace of mathematics."

Pompieri couldn't help laughing: "Didn't he also publish a paper before? The submodular form also brought us mathematicians a surprise."

"But didn't he go to work on that semiconductor again?" Deligne shook his head and sighed: "He should be... 22 years old this year, right? If such a genius can keep studying mathematics, it will be great for us. How useful is the development of the mathematics world? If you want to say who in the mathematics world has the best chance to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, I guess it will be Lin Xiao."

"It's a pity, a pity."

Sighing, he also opened arxiv at this time and found Lin Xiao's paper.

Looking at the title and Lin Xiao's name, just relying on Lin Xiao's reputation in the mathematics world, it is not difficult for people to feel a sense of trust in this mathematics paper with an awesome title.

This is the influence of a top mathematician, because of various past deeds, so that even when he announces that he has solved a problem, others will believe it without even looking.

Deligne couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's amazing."

Pompieri also walked to the side, looked at the page that Deligne opened after downloading the paper, and said, "It's really amazing."

Then he sighed again: "But I'm just worried that he solved Lin's conjecture. In fact, he is solving some problems on semiconductors. Do you know where Lin's conjecture is needed for lithography machines?"

"How do I know, I don't study this thing." Deligne replied without paying attention, and continued to read this paper.

When Pompieri saw him like this, he also shook his head, stopped talking, and read the paper beside him. Although he had already read it once, reading it again could help him deepen his understanding.

Although he is quite old, after all, there is no limit to learning. When he is old, when he dies, he also hopes to leave this world with the most knowledge in his head.

Of course, it takes a lot of time to read this paper. After all, the whole paper has more than 30 pages to say the least, which is because the content is very concise.

When Lin Xiao sorted out the thesis, in order to hurry up, he did not write every step in detail like before, but omitted a lot of content with words such as "obvious" and "well-known". .

So this is also a challenge for people who read papers. If they don't have enough knowledge, they may not be able to understand them.

This can be regarded as a kind of "bullying" in terms of IQ. After all, if you want to understand a big guy's mathematics paper, you must first be prepared to ask the teacher about the "obvious" and other content in it. Maybe even my own teacher can't understand it.

Of course, there are also many cold jokes about the "obviousness" in these mathematics circles, such as: when Andrew Wiles said it was obvious, it would be obvious in about two years—because when he announced that he had proved When Fermat's Last Theorem, he actually had to wait two years before he could actually prove it.

Of course, it is easy for Deligne to understand. After all, he is the proud disciple of the founder of modern algebraic geometry. Lin's conjecture is an important conjecture in algebraic geometry. Of course, he has done a lot of in-depth research.

So just like that, as the pages were turned, until the end, Deligne sighed, "His mathematical ideas, as well as the ability to realize his ideas, are still the same as before."

"It is really wonderful to be able to connect the form of layers with elliptic curves!"

After reading it again, Pompieri became more aware of the strength of Lin Xiao's paper.

He also admired: "Yes! If it were me, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do this step at all."

"It's topology, it's algebraic geometry, and it involves cohomology... Oh, it's amazing. If that old Langlands guy is here, he will definitely jump up excitedly and realize the Langlands program. One day is approaching again!"

"Yes."

Deligne nodded, unifying the mathematics world!

What an exciting thing for mathematicians like them.

And Lin Xiao took a more important step for this.

Weil's Rosetta Stone is also a little clearer again.

Deligne said with emotion: "Before the twentieth century, mathematics was still very 'simple', and there were many mathematical geniuses, like Gauss, who could be called all-round geniuses in their time."

"However, since the twentieth century, our mathematics has developed better and stronger, group theory, algebraic geometry, fiber bundles, cohomology, modular forms and layers..."

"So many new mathematical theories have also made our field of mathematics so complicated, and the division of labor has become more and more detailed. Just studying one thing is enough to make people sink into it completely. Even what I am studying now is limited to algebraic geometry, and little research has been done on other theories."

"So I always think that there will be a lot of geniuses in our mathematics world, but there won't be an all-rounder like the past era."

Geniuses could appear in past eras, and of course geniuses can appear in this era, and we must know that human beings are getting smarter and smarter. In addition, human beings today will no longer lack food. They have sufficient nutrition since childhood, so their brains develop when they grow up. Therefore, the average intelligence of human beings in this era must be higher than that of people more than 200 years ago. several times higher.

Therefore, there are actually more geniuses in this era, no matter in terms of statistics or evolution.

"It's just that I didn't expect that such an all-rounder in mathematics really appeared in this century."

Deligne sighed: "If my teacher is still there, he will be very happy."

Pompieri smiled and said, "You probably overlooked one more thing."

"Oh? What's the matter?"

"Lin Xiao is not just an all-rounder in mathematics."

Deligne was taken aback for a moment, and then realized what Pompieri meant.

After all, Lin Xiao is not only good at mathematics.

Instead, it also includes physics, and even a little bit of material chemistry, and an important breakthrough has been made in the mechanical structure.

Now he has transformed into a chief designer of lithography machines for a potential superpower.

Thinking of this, Deligne sighed deeply again.

"Why sigh?" Pompieri couldn't help asking.

"It's a pity that he didn't come to Princeton to study as a graduate student. Otherwise, I would have accepted this student."

Pompieri couldn't help laughing: "Then he became a student of Professor Searle, and he was considered equal to you."

Deligne said angrily: "You want to take care of it?"

"Hahaha!"

Pompieri laughed again.

The laughter spread and was heard by people outside, but after hearing Pompieri's voice, they were very curious, what caused Professor Pompieri to laugh so happily?

Of course, the doubts are all doubts, and these people turned around and studied the papers proving Lin's conjecture-this kind of big event in the mathematics world, it is normal for mathematicians at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton to pay attention.

And, not just mathematics, but physicists too.

In physics, algebraic geometry and topology can be used in many places, not to mention those very basic functions. Lin's conjecture is of great significance to their research.

In addition, those scholars who previously assumed that Lin's conjecture was established and came up with dozens of propositions, now, as long as Lin's conjecture is confirmed to be true, these dozens of propositions will become theorems, and these scholars They will also enjoy the honor, so these scholars are even more excited.

On the Internet, there are even more people discussing it.

On the international mathematics forum mathoverflow, there have been dozens of posts discussing the proof of Lin's conjecture, and the post with the most discussions was initiated by Terence Tao.

Terence Tao: "I have finished reading Lin's thesis, and now I just want to say: Lin is the real mathematical Mozart!" 』

The people who commented below are basically mathematics professors from world famous universities.

For example, Professor Shing-Tung Yau from Harvard University commented: "Lin's work can only be called great."

For another example, Professor Laurent Laforgue of the Paris Ecole Normale Supérieure also said: "I really can't imagine that such an important conjecture will be solved three years after it was proposed, let alone the answer made by the proposer."

Under Professor Laforgue's comment, someone said with a smile: "At the International Congress of Mathematicians, I still remember Lin jokingly saying that even if he has a wonderful way to prove Lin's conjecture, the blackboard is too small to fit. up.Looking at it now, maybe what Lin said at the beginning was true? 』

In addition, a professor of mathematics from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich began to express depression: "Oh!Falk!I was originally invited by this year's International Conference of Mathematicians for a 45-minute report to share my research on Lin's conjecture, but now it turns out that the conjecture has become a theorem, and what I want to share has become meaningless. 』

Seeing the professor's unfortunate incident, many people commented with sympathy and gloating: "Hahahahaha, it's okay, the deadline for the manuscript is nearly four months away, don't worry!" 』

"Now we can switch to sharing Lin's Theorem!"it's the same!ha ha ha ha ha

……

Of course, apart from these bigwigs in the mathematics world, most of the commenters on this post are students and the like.

"Thank you Lin!My graduation thesis is expected!There was one step in my dissertation that I couldn’t get through, but after using Lin’s conjecture...the theorem, I can easily prove it. Now I only hope that Professor Lin’s thesis can be passed as soon as possible! 』

"Professor Lin is my idol!" 』

『Physics Ph.D students come here to leave a comment: My supervisor studies quantum topology, and he almost kisses Professor Lin's photo now!Because Lin's theorem is very helpful to his subject.』

"..."

……

The originally calm mathematics world, once again seemed to be stirred up, causing an upsurge.

[PS: I will go home from university in the next few days. Due to special circumstances, it may take a few days to get home. Updates cannot be guaranteed. After returning home, make sure to devote yourself to the code and have no distractions]

【PPS: Except if you want to travel next month o(*￣3￣)o】

(End of this chapter)