From Almighty Scholar to Chief Scientist

Chapter 78 Inspiration in Chat
Hearing Professor Pompieri's words, Professor Chen Qiusheng was stunned again, and asked again: "What are you looking for... Lin Xiao?"

"Yes, Lin-Xiao." Professor Pompieri nodded, repeated it in Chinese with a little English accent, and then apologized with a smile: "Maybe I still can't speak your Chinese names very well."

"No, no, what you said is very standard." Professor Chen Qiusheng waved his hand, then turned to look at Lin Xiao next to him, and said, "Lin Xiao."

Lin Xiao had heard the old professor calling his name a long time ago, but he was very puzzled, why did the Fields Medal boss seek him out?
He stood up and shouted: "Pompi...Professor Pompielli, I am Lin Xiao."

It was the first time he had a conversation with a foreigner in English, and he was still not used to it, including the names of people, but it was no problem to introduce himself.

Professor Pompieri looked at him, and when he saw Lin Xiao's young face, a smile appeared on his face, "Can I have a chat, please?"

Lin Xiao thought for a while, finally nodded and said, "My honor."

"Hehe, excuse me then." Professor Pompieri nodded.

Then Lin Xiao stepped over Sun Yu and the others, and walked in front of Professor Pompieri under their eyes.

Professor Pompieri stretched out his hand, and under the eyes of countless people around him, he stretched out his hand to Lin Xiao and said, "Mr. Lin, nice to meet you."

"Just call me by my first name."

"Hehe, we don't need to talk about these things. I didn't come to you to get entangled in such things." Professor Pompieri waved his hand.

"I have read the "Annual of Mathematics" in May this year. In "The Proof of the Fibonacci Sequence Existing Infinitely Many Prime Numbers", you solved the problem that I spent several months studying. So I'm here to thank you specifically for solving this regret for me!"

Lin Xiao couldn't help being stunned, so it was for that paper?
Isn't it just an "Annual Journal of Mathematics", dozens of papers are published every year...

Cough cough, this is a bit too much.

He smiled and said modestly: "It's just luck. Compared with you, this achievement is still insignificant."

"No, no, no, that's not insignificant. No matter how many people want to achieve your achievements." Professor Pompieri shook his head with a smile, and said, "Of course, if you just solve this problem, I will at most I will only express my gratitude to you in my heart, but the key is the method you used. I have considered it and studied it for a period of time, and I am very confident that this method can be successful. Professor Berger bet a dollar that I would make it, but after months of trying, it still didn't work."

"Well, you should know Professor Selberg, right?"

Lin Xiao nodded.

He wrote that paper, and of course he also had to know Professor Selberg.

Atle Selberg, a master in analytic number theory, was also the winner of the second Fields Medal in 1950. He completed the elementary proof of the prime number theorem, and Lin Xiao used the prime number theorem in his thesis .

Professor Pompieri said with a smile: "Now that you have succeeded, it can be regarded as making up for my regrets, and it also proves that the direction I chose was correct."

Lin Xiao knew that there was such a deep-seated reason, and he said with a smile: "It seems that you can win back that dollar now."

Pompieri waved his hand: "That probably won't work. In one month's time, he will be the 11th anniversary of his death. The bet happened more than 30 years ago. In addition, when the time comes, I will send you Printed out that paper, and then burned it to him that day—this seems to be a traditional custom in your country of China, but now the United States has also learned it."

Lin Xiao was taken aback for a moment, listening to Pompieri's words, he almost thought that Professor Selberg was still alive.

"Feel sorry."

Pompieri shook his head: "I'm not sorry, if I burn your paper to him, if he can receive it in heaven, I believe he will be happy too, because he also conducted research on this issue at the beginning, of course he Didn't make it either, lost $1 to me too, we owe neither of us."

"So that's the case."

Lin Xiao nodded, feeling rather interested in their bet.

When Professor Pompieri talked about this former friend, he seemed to be interested in it for a while, and then asked: "Do you know what method he wanted to use at the beginning?"

"What?" Lin Xiao asked curiously, of course he didn't know.

"Modular form theory! He expressed every prime number in the Fibonacci sequence, and then used lattices to represent these partially ordered sets, and then found the function of these lattices, and then he..."

Professor Pompieri said it like this, as if it was a familiar treasure.

However, what he didn't notice was that Lin Xiao fell into deep thought while listening to his words.

Modular formalism?

as a function of the lattice?

If he expresses the Mersenne primes in Mersenne numbers with lattices, wouldn't it be...

He had learned about this aspect of knowledge, and at this moment, he felt as if an inspiration burst out in his mind, but when he wanted to grasp this inspiration, the inspiration was fleeting.

This is also because his knowledge of modular formalism is not deep enough.

Modular form theory is a category of analytic number theory. He has learned about it in his own book, but there is not much ink on it in the book, so he still needs to know more.

At this moment, he had a faint guess in his heart that there was a key key, right here!

"Huh? Lin, what are you thinking?"

At this moment, seeing Lin Xiao's appearance, Professor Pompieri stopped his narration and asked.

Lin Xiao came back to his senses and said, "The modular form theory you mentioned has inspired my recent research."

"Oh? You are here to participate in the IMO competition, do you still have time to study other new things?" Professor Pompieri became interested, "What are you studying?"

"Now I have summarized the method in my paper, and then I want to use it to solve the problem of Mersenne prime number distribution, but I have encountered some difficulties, and now I need to continue to develop this method. The modular form you mentioned On, let me find a little direction."

"It turned out to be a Mersenne prime number?" Professor Pompieri was surprised, and then said with a smile: "Then I hope you can bring a little surprise to the mathematics world again."

"Oh, by the way, if you need to see Selberg's manuscript, I can send you a scanned version. His other manuscripts are stored in the Flint Library of Princeton University, but this part of the manuscript Because he didn’t get any results, he gave them to me before he died.”

　Thanks to kirky for tipping 100 starting coins.

　　PS: It is ready to be put on the shelves on April 4st, and Riwan is ready to go, and I am begging for the first order on that day, I am very grateful.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)