The Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
Professor Fefferman’s office.
Professor Sarnak looked at Professor Fefferman, who was sitting behind the desk and staring at the paper in his hand. He asked curiously, “What are you reading?”
Professor Fefferman turned a page and didn’t look up. He spoke casually.
“In-progress results from LSPM.”
“In-progress results from LSPM?” Professor Sarnak was taken aback for a moment. His whole person suddenly seemed to be struck by lightning. With a shocked expression on his face, he said, “Already? Where are they at?”
Fefferman was already indulged in the amazing proof process. He had no time to talk to him, so he spoke dismissively.
“The printer is right there, print a copy and see for yourself.”
Without taking a break, Professor Sarnak immediately walked to the printer and printed out a copy for himself.
Sarnak held the warm papers with the smell of fresh ink. It took about an hour for him to quickly read through the paper.
When he finally put down the paper in his hand, his face was filled with shock.
“Amazing…
“It’s almost equivalent to—”
“A new language of mathematics.” Professor Fefferman, who had also finished reading the paper, took a sip of cold tea and said, “Although it is a simple version, it is sufficient to describe the ABC conjecture. Now… The person who came up with this idea is simply a genius, and the person who manifests it is a devil. It is hard to imagine that such an amazing result was actually made in two weeks.”
“What is even more unimaginable is that they would choose to upload such an important in-progress result,” Professor Sarnak said as he looked at the paper.
The result of this paper was very close to the final proposition of the ABC conjecture. They had passed the refinement of Baker’s theorem to the conclusion [d
That was, if a+b=c and gcd(a,b)=1, then max(|a|, |b|, |c|)≤(rad(abc))^2.
How nutty was this weak form?
In a nutshell, anyone who had studied number theory could easily use this weak form to prove that Fermat’s equation x^n+y^n=z^n did not have a positive integer solution for n>6. Thus proving Fermat’s Last Theorem!
In other words, if the weak form of the ABC conjecture had been born twenty or thirty years earlier, then Wiles wouldn’t have been nearly as famous.
It was precisely because of this, in Sarnak’s opinion, this in-progress result was only a layer from the final answer. The proof of the ABC conjecture was closer than ever before!
“This is not a big deal.” Professor Fefferman smiled when he heard what Professor Sarnak said. He continued, “Even if the proof of the ABC conjecture from this weak form is only one step away, do you think someone can beat them to the finish line?”
Professor Sarnak paused for a second; an awkward smile appeared on his face.
“You’re right…”
Having Professor Lu on the team was enough to prevent this from happening. Not to mention that, besides him, there were also outstanding young mathematicians like Schultz, Perelman, and Shinichi Mochizuki in the LSPM team.
If someone wanted to find the final answer before these four people, it would be as difficult as proving the ABC conjecture from scratch.
In this way, Sarnak’s worries seemed to be superfluous.
“I am looking forward to it more and more now.” Professor Fefferman said with a smile, “My instinct tells me that, at the end of this month, we will be able to find a conclusive answer for the ABC conjecture.”
“The end of the month?” Professor Sarnak frowned. “But there is only one week left until the end of the month. Although their strength is indeed strong, and they’re close to the final proof, but…”
“Do you want to bet on it?”
Professor Sarnak coughed.
“Um… No, thanks.”
…
The early morning of April 29th.
It had been almost four weeks since the establishment of the LSPM research group.
Lu Zhou woke up and got out of bed. He went to the bathroom to wash up, then ate the omelet and sandwiches prepared by Xiao Ai before leaving the house.
The retreat ended on the 28th, or more specifically, 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon.
He hadn’t gotten a good rest recently, so he got up a little late today. He arrived at the library at nine o’clock, which was rather late.
His three teammates had been waiting here for a while.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
“It’s fine, we were still guessing whether you would wake up before noon or not. I didn’t expect that you were only an hour late…” Schultz smiled carelessly and jokingly said, “Seriously, how about you go back and sleep for a while? You haven’t had much rest these days. We only have the last step left in our work. It can be done a day later.”
“It’s fine.” Lu Zhou said with a smile, “Although this proposal is tempting, I prefer to finish everything and then enjoy the leisure time slowly… Let’s end this quickly.”
Three hours went by.
Everyone reported their research progress in turn and wrote on the whiteboard what they were responsible for.
The fragmented clues were like pieces of a broken-up puzzle. When they were recombined, all of the clues were connected.
When Shinichi Mochizuki looked at the last line on the whiteboard, his face was full of disbelief.
“I originally thought that this would take at least a few days to organize, I didn’t expect…”
Schultz: “Didn’t expect everything to go so smoothly?”
Shinichi Mochizuki nodded.
“Yep.”
“This is a good thing.” Lu Zhou had a sense of accomplishment. He looked at the whiteboard that almost covered the entire wall of the activity room and said, “It shows that we have touched the essence of the ABC conjecture itself.”
Shinichi Mochizuki frowned. He was lost in thought.
“What is… the essence?”
“It’s hard to describe what it is. Even I have to digest it for a while before I can sort it into a language.” Lu Zhou smiled and continued, “And I’m sure that the four of us think of the essence in different ways.”
If possible, he intended to finish this work before going to Mars.
Perelman, who had not spoken yet, suddenly said, “I can understand what you are saying… In fact, I also feel this way.”
Schultz nodded.
“It’s vague… but the essence does exist.”
Shinichi Mochizuki did not speak. He just frowned and fell into deep thought. Although Lu Zhou’s statement was very mysterious, he seemed to have felt a similar way.
Lu Zhou looked at the clock on the wall next to him and spoke with a smile.
“It’s about time for lunch.”
They could sort out these things on the whiteboard and publish them after lunch. After that, they could put an end to this cooperation project.
“Wait a minute.” Schultz raised his hand and suggested with a smile, “This is the ABC conjecture. To commemorate this great and glorious moment, I propose that we leave an autograph on it together!”
Shinichi Mochizuki hesitated and said, “Signatures? But wouldn’t they all be erased in the end?”
“Not necessarily.” Lu Zhou said with a smile, “I’m sure our dean will be very happy to keep the whiteboard intact.”
Although Perelman was not very interested in such meaningless things, he wasn’t against it either.
Therefore, the four people left their signatures on the whiteboard. They then stood in front of the whiteboard and took a group photo as a souvenir.
After this, Lu Zhou left the library and went to the cafeteria.
It happened to be the time at which lectures were ending. The cafeteria was full of students who had just finished class. It was so crowded that they could hardly find a place to sit.
Lu Zhou’s “special seat” in the corner of the cafeteria was taken, but Lu Zhou was not the picky kind of person. After queuing up for a meal, he casually found an empty seat and sat down.
After busy working all morning, his stomach began to growl.
Lu Zhou couldn’t wait to pick up the chopsticks. When he was about to start eating, he suddenly heard an excited conversation from the students next to him.
Student A: “F*ck! Did you watch today’s news?”
Student B: “I saw it! It’s nutty!!!”
Student C: “What news? What are you guys talking about?”
Student A: “That prehistoric relic on Mars! How do you not know this? Do you not go on the Internet?”
Student C: “I… I just sent my phone to be repaired. What is it? Prehistoric relic? On Mars?”
Lu Zhou: “…?!”
The f*ck?!
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