Chapter 243: Princeton’s Youngest Professor

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou did not expect that Professor Deligne would give him this big of a surprise at the dinner party.

He originally planned to get his PhD before the end of the year, but now it seemed that his plan was too slow. Annual Mathematics had not even published his thesis, and Princeton already awarded him his PhD and an offer for the position of a professor…

As Lu Zhou thought about it carefully, he understood Princeton’s decision.

Even if he did not solve Goldbach’s conjecture, his Group Structure Method was an excellent theoretical tool in the field of number theory.

Many university mathematics textbooks had made plans to incorporate it.

Lu Zhou could not help but think.

If his name was going to be in history, why did he not choose a better sounding name for his method?

Group Structure Method just did not sound cool…

If he called it something like the “Cosmic Theory”, it would be way better.

After Lu Zhou finished his graduation procedure, he took a photo of his degree certificate and doctor’s hat and posted it on Weibo.

His Weibo blew up again.

However, this time it blew up beyond his expectations.

[F*ck, a PhD should take 9 years, why do you get to do it in 3 months?]

[21-year-old full professor? Nutty, even younger than Professor Charles.]

[I think it’s more impressive that he got his PhD in three months.]

[No no, do you guys know why this dude graduated so soon? I heard that he proved Goldbach’s conjecture, and did a report at Princeton…]

[F*ck, no way?!]

[Pray to God Lu…]

[Lu Zhou, send us a photo. I’ll post it on my wall as good luck.]

[…]

Lu Zhou had not expected people to know about him solving Goldbach’s conjecture. It seemed that many foreign exchange students followed his Weibo.

After that, the discussion became more and more intense. Some people even took screenshots of the articles from the New York Times and Philadelphia Daily. Some people even posted the link to the thesis in arXiv.

Then…

“Princeton’s youngest professor” and “Goldbach’s conjecture” started trending online.

Due to Hua Luogeng and Chen Jingrun’s connection to Goldbach’s conjecture, the significance of this conjecture was beyond academics. It was politically involved.

What Lu Zhou did not know was that not only his thesis on arXiv was spread around online, it even blew up in the Chinese mathematics community. In fact, it even aroused the attention of political circles.

However, no one stood up to express their views, because they were all waiting for the results from Annual Mathematics.

At this moment, Lu Zhou had not realized the significance of his thesis as he had put all of his energy into the peer review of Annual Mathematics.

The six reviewers were all big names in the mathematics world and they pointed out many problems in Lu Zhou’s thesis. Lu Zhou had been actively revising every problem.

Fortunately, he was not like Wiles, who was stuck on an “obvious” problem for over a year.

The second week of the peer review…

Lu Zhou finally received feedback from the Annual Mathematics reviewers, and Evans handed him the file.

The words used by Faltings were concise. He had almost never praised anyone, but he summarized his opinion in one sentence, “Good proof.”

Henryk Iwaniec was nicer to young mathematicians. He wrote a little more, and even gave his expectations toward young mathematicians, “… The application of group theory in the thesis is shocking. I look forward to your future success. Regardless of the opinions of my peers, it seems to me that you have successfully proved this problem.”

Helfgott’s point of view was similar to another scholar from École Normale Supérieure. The two probably exchanged ideas, and they both had high opinions on the Group Structure Method.

Lu Zhou turned the page and read the final review comment.

Then, he looked at Evans.

Evans smiled and reached out his hand.

“Congratulations, Professor Lu, your thesis will be published in the next issue of Annual Mathematics!”

…

In the editorial office of the Washington Times, Keane Larter sat in his office chair. He scrolled his mouse while reading the news on his computer.

Suddenly he was attracted by a piece of news, and he was mildly surprised by it. He bit his tongue and spoke with a teasing tone.

“Oh, I can’t believe it, the Goldbach’s conjecture was proved by a chink?”

It was safe to say that America was extremely sensitive to racism. It was unacceptable to call racial slurs in public. However, the editorial department of the Washington Times was different as they did not employ Chinese employees.

At most, the Korean employees would chuckle.

It was worth noting that the Washington Times was different than the Washington Post. The latter was one of the largest and oldest newspapers in America while the former was founded in 1982 by a Korean guy called Sun Myung Moon.

This was interesting as even though this newspaper had been operating for over thirty years, it did not strengthen the US-Korea relationship. The main objective was to attack China and post smear remarks to boost their audience engagement.

However, because the political status of this newspaper was too extreme, this newspaper had been losing money for over 20 years.

This newspaper had drawn controversy for publishing racist content, including commentary and conspiracy theories about Barack Obama.

Bob, who was sitting nearby, walked over to the computer screen and said, “This is big… We have to interview him.”

“Not only do we have to interview, but we also have to help this Chinese guy do propaganda,” said Larter with a smirk as he closed the website. As he opened a document and started tapping on his keyboard, he asked, “Think about it, how should we write the press release? A chink solves Goldbach’s conjecture?”

Bob hesitated before he said, “We could get sued.”

Although their boss, Sun Myung Moon, did not like China, he did not like racial slurs either.

“I know what’s within the rules and what’s not…” said Larter as he waved his hand. He said, “Right now, I need inspiration.”

The female assistant Pereira was sitting at her desk on her computer. She suddenly said, “Remember the end of 2015? Professor Opiyem from Nigeria thought that he solved Riemann’s conjecture. He wrote to Clay Institute, but they still haven’t responded to this matter.”

She graduated from the Department of Journalism at Washington State University, so her level of education was much higher than her boss. Her boss was only admitted to the editorial office due to his political stance.

Therefore, Larter respected her views.

“I remember,” said Bob. He added, “I remember Daily Mail first interviewed him, but there was no follow-up.”

Larter spun around on his chair. He held his chin and asked: “…”

“I just checked on Wikipedia. Riemann’s conjecture is a guess that all prime numbers can be expressed as a function,” said Pereira. She spun her pen and said, “It says here that Goldbach’s conjecture is also related to the prime numbers, so… Is there any connection between the two?”

She was not very knowledgeable in pure mathematics, but she had a degree, so at the very least, she knew how to do a google search.

Larter’s eyes suddenly lit up.

She does make sense…

Bob said, “I remember that Goldbach’s conjecture is 1+1 = 2, right?”

“Oh, Bob, you uncultured swine. Even I know that 1+1 = 2 is Peano’s axiom. As for Goldbach’s conjecture… In short, it’s a prime number question,” said Larter as he laughed. He then stood up from his chair and said, “I’m flying to Nigeria immediately. You guys can start writing the press release. Just write… A Nigerian professor has been treated unfairly due to his skin color. The honor of Goldbach’s conjecture should be partly his, but the racism of America’s academia left him cold in the dark.”

What kind of news attracted the most attention in America?

News related to black people.

Americans loved to play identity politics.

Bob frowned and said, “But Lu Zhou isn’t white. Can you have racial discrimination between minorities?”

If the prover of Goldbach’s conjecture was a Caucasian, and the black person was ignored, then the news article would be sensational. If the Clay Institute did not give a reasonable explanation…

Even if they gave an explanation, it would just be labeled as an “excuse”.

After all, people would blame them for racism regardless of the mathematics.

The black academic was definitely considered a “vulnerable group” in America.

The problem was that Lu Zhou’s identity was a bit weird as he was also considered a minority in America… Even though the American academic community ignored a black person, they did not reward a white person.

This was not worthy of a news article.

The editorial department went silent.

Even Larter, who was ecstatic about this potential news article, went into deep thought.

Suddenly, Pereira, who was researching information, shouted with excitement.

“I know!”

She thought of a brilliant idea.

How to create a huge news story!

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