"Ah, the Fields Medal winner at the age of twenty-two, I'm afraid no one will be able to break that record. By the way, do you think he'll attend the World Congress of Mathematicians the year after next?" Pierre Deligne asked out of the blue.
Antoine Lefevre shook his head and said wistfully, "I'm not quite sure; in fact, I've had very few interactions with Qiao Ze. It's Professor Dugan and Professor Whitten who have more contact with Qiao Ze, but I guess he probably won't come. Professor Whitten once mentioned to me that he is very reluctant to attend academic conferences and dislikes wasting time on communication and exchange."
"To value time at just twenty years old... But what exactly is he pursuing? The truth?"
Pierre Deligne's sigh made Antoine Lefevre pause.
He really didn't know how to answer that question.
At twenty, he was still at the University of Paris.
If he had written a paper he felt good about at that time, he would most likely have wanted the whole world to know about it.
If someone had offered to host a major presentation for him at Princeton, he would have been ecstatic from the moment he heard the news, unable to sleep and revising his paper over and over again, just to present the most perfect version of himself at the presentation.
And yet, Princeton had already invited Qiao Ze to hold three presentations, but each time, the hopeful invitations were decisively rejected.
The fame and recognition he had not completely seen through at nearly fifty, a young man had seen through...
"All right, I came here just to ask. You know, it's the Goldbach Conjecture, although my work doesn't deal much with this area, it's still the Goldbach Conjecture... it represents an era! I'm honored, I haven't died yet. Go ahead and read the paper," he said.
Antoine Lefevre didn't catch that pass, nor did he know how to.
Indeed, this was the Goldbach Conjecture, solving this problem could probably represent the arrival of a new era...
At least in mathematics.
Thousands of miles away in Huaxia Xilin, at the same time, Qiao Ze and Su Mucheng had just entered the office when they heard Dou Dou's notification.
"Daddy, Professor Zhang from Yanbei University called you. He also sent you three emails at dawn, and I've replied to them for you."
Technology changes life.
But the two were already so used to it that they even found it a bit noisy.
"Dou Dou, he sent the emails at dawn, why didn't you tell your dad in the morning?" Su Mucheng said offhandedly.
"Because Dad said, there's no need to report these trivia to him at home," Dou Dou immediately responded with impeccable logic.
"Oh? Dou Dou, not bad, you're learning to talk back now, aren't you?" Su Mucheng glared at the camera, and the office hastily quieted down.
Qiao Ze took out his phone, preoccupied.
Indeed, the screen was flashing.
He answered the phone, and the first thing from the other side was, "When did you start studying number theory?"
"I haven't studied it specifically?"
"You haven't studied it specifically and you solved Goldbach's Conjecture?"
"Is there a necessary connection?"
After hearing Qiao Ze's response, the other end was silent for a good while.
Probably because Qiao Ze's reply had plunged him into confusion.
Yes, Zhang Hongcai was truly confused at this moment.
At Yanbei, he had seen too many mathematically gifted prodigies.
After all, this was Huaxia's top academic institution.
Among his generation, there were many stunning math talents, even referred to as Yanbei's golden generation.
Tao Zhexuan, Yun Dawei, Xu Chenyang, Zhu Yunwen...
Although everyone had made good progress in their respective fields, they were still reasonable.
Qiao Ze's talent was completely unreasonable.
Not to mention anything else, how many times had he stayed up all night because of Qiao Ze?
"It's fine, I'm hanging up." When Qiao Ze's voice came through the headset, it also awakened Zhang Hongcai from his daze.
"Wait, so the automatic reply from your artificial intelligence last night was serious? You really succeeded just by casually trying to prove it while you were resting your brain?"
Goodness, Qiao Ze was a bit unsure of what Dou Dou had replied to Zhang Hongcai last night.
After thinking, he could only reply positively, "It can't be said to be casual trying."
"So you took half the day and seriously proved it? I stayed up all night reading part of your paper, and to be honest, I couldn't find any faults, and I applaud your fundamental theorem of natural number mapping. It's a great theorem, and it will have a place in the realm of number theory no less significant than Newton's laws of motion."
Qiao Ze, don't be like that, really, I would really like it if you told me this was the result of long-term research, otherwise I would truly feel like a waste!"
Look at what he's saying...
"The fundamental theorem of natural number mapping you mentioned was indeed something I had studied before. That afternoon, I wasn't considering that topic; it was later added by Uncle Li to make it understandable for everyone."
"Oh, so you really only took an afternoon to prove Goldbach's Conjecture?"
Meaningless conversation was starting to irritate Qiao Ze.
"It's fine, I'm hanging up."
"Wait, there's a problem with the paper, I've marked it, and I've sent it to your email. Could you take a look when you get a chance and reply to my email?"
"Are you a reviewer?"
"No, but Academician Wang gave me a copy to take a close look at."
"Oh, okay. Is that all?"
"Also, after the paper is published, would you consider coming to Yanbei for a sixty-minute presentation?"