Chapter 241 - Victory Champagne
Chapter 241: Victory Champagne
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=p1+p2. Life Cn={∏p|x,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 Q&A session, but the Q&A 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 Q&A 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…