Chapter 1030 From Another Universe

In the early twentieth century, Hilberts speech on Riemanns hypothesis began a new century-long journey on Riemanns hypothesis.

And the small boat that was mathematics, had now become a giant battleship.

At last, this century-long journey of exploring the limit of the human mind had finally come to an end.

Capturing the attention of everyone in the world, this report that answered the age-old proposition finally began.

The report venue was packed with people.

Even the largest lecture hall in the Corinthia hotel couldnt accommodate all of the conference attendees, as well as people who traveled from thousands of miles away.

People brought in chairs, some sat on the floor, and others even sat on their suitcases

The reporters were standing in the last row, and there were only a couple of cameras.

In order to prevent the report from being disturbed, the ICM conference organizing committee only granted limited press access. Therefore, only major media outlets such as BBC, CTV, and Columbia Television had their reporters inside the lecture hall.

The venue was chaotically noisy.

Almost everyone was talking about the report and the thesis Lu Zhou uploaded on arXiv yesterday.

Suddenly, there was a sound of a door opening.

The door near the stage opened, and everyone watched as a figure steadily walked into the lecture hall.

Everyone spontaneously became quiet.

Everyone was looking at the man.

They were all waiting for him to begin the report

Lu Zhou was about to begin his sixty-minute report, but when he looked at the crowd, he changed his mind.

I know you guys probably have a lot of questions about Riemanns hypothesis. When I first walked in, I noticed someone sitting in the front row resisting the urge to stand up Im sure he has a lot of questions.

The crowd chuckled, easing the tension in the air.

Lu Zhou looked at the blushing young man in the front row and spoke.

Im supposed to begin this report, but due to its special nature, I plan on using the first five minutes to answer some of the audiences questions, to make it easier to understand the report. If you guys have any questions you want to ask before the report begins, you can raise your hand.

Before he could finish speaking, numerous hands went up in the air.

Lu Zhou looked around and pointed at someone.

The Indian guy sitting in the front row stood up.

This scholar was in his thirties, and he wore a pair of glasses and had curly hair. He came from a field that mathematicians looked down uponartificial intelligence. He immediately asked a question.

Is Riemanns hypothesis proven?

Everyone in the audience began to listen intently.

Even though the scholars outside of the field of analytic number theory were also concerned with the method Lu Zhou used to prove Riemanns hypothesis and how his tools could affect other mathematics branches, they were more concerned with whether or not the hypothesis was proven at all.

They wanted to hear it from Lu Zhou himself.

With everyone staring at him, Lu Zhou nodded.

Yes, I am confident that from today onward, it has become a theorem.

There was a commotion in the audience.

Most people looked surprised.

Generally speaking, the more famous the scholar was, the more they cared about their reputation. A famous scholar wouldnt claim to have proven a famous mathematics proposition unless they were 100% certain.

After all, if they were wrong, their reputation could be ruined.

The late Sir Atiyah, who once claimed to have proven Riemanns hypothesis, had his thesis frequently rejected in his later years. Mainly because he often claimed to have proven things without giving an explanation. Even arXiv refused his proof of Riemanns hypothesis.

This meant that Lu Zhou had no way to back out of this, so people were surprised by his courage and confidence.

The Indian guy sat down. His question was followed by a mathematics professor from Columbia University.

What happens now? What happens to the field of analytic number theory? I mean Throughout the twentieth century, weve made countless breakthroughs in the field of number theory, including Fermats last theorem. Many of these tools stem from research on Riemanns hypothesis. Now that Riemanns hypothesis has been proven, what does this mean for the future of the number theory field?

This question was much more complex than the previous question.

Lu Zhou pondered for about five seconds and spoke.

I can answer your question, but Ill do it at the end of the report.

Lu Zhou looked at the clock on the wall and cleared his throat.

Its time to begin, leave your questions at the end.

I promise to answer all of them.

Lets get straight to the point.

Lu Zhou turned toward the whiteboard and picked up a marker.

Then, he wrote down a line of text

[Proof: All non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function are located on the line of Re(s) = 1/2 on the complex plane]

He didnt make any special opening remarks.

However, everyone watched the whiteboard intently.

The report on Riemanns hypothesis

Had officially begun!

In the audience.

Tao Zhexuan, who was sitting next to Professor Fefferman, stared at the line of text on the whiteboard. He suddenly exclaimed, Hes changing his report content!

Of course! Professor Fefferman looked at him strangely and said, The entire mathematics world is concerned about this matter, he cant just pretend like nothing has happened.

Tao Zhexuan said excitedly, No, until a few minutes ago, I wasnt sure if hes going to talk about it.

Professor Fefferman opened his mouth and spoke.

Your worries were superfluous. From what I know about him, he wouldnt joke about this kind of thing.

While the two were speaking, Lu Zhou continued to write; his pen danced on the whiteboard as he wrote down lines of equations.

[(s)=2(1-s)(2)s-1sin(s/2)(1-s)]

[]

After he proved the first lemma, he began proving the next.

More and more calculations began to occupy the board. The concepts gradually became more and more complicated.

Academician Wang, Zhang Wei, Xu Chengyang, and Yang Yongan were all shocked.

Yang Yongan was amazed by the speed of Lu Zhous writing, and he couldnt help but exclaim, So fast!

Zhang Wei, who was sitting next to him, said, Looks like he really plans on finishing the entire paper within sixty minutes.

In fact, everyone thought that this report would have to be extended.

After all, judging from the paper on arXiv, 60 minutes wasnt enough time to explain the entire paper. There were too many complicated lemmas and corollaries.

But now it seemed otherwise.

If Lu Zhou continued to write at this kind of speed, it would take him around 40 minutes to finish explaining the entire thesis.

Xu Chengyang said, Incredible Does he not have to think at all?

Lu Zhou didnt even have a copy of the thesis in his hand.

What was incredible was that Lu Zhou even wrote down a brief explanation on certain steps, explaining why he wrote down this equation and how it was related to the problem.

It felt like

Lu Zhou had memorized the entire proof.

Zhang Wei said, Maybe hes remembered all of the steps.

Yang Yongan looked at him.

That is ridiculous.

Qin Yue, who hadnt spoken yet, suddenly said something, Its not ridiculous for him at all.

Academician Wang, Yang Yongan, and Zhang Wei all looked at Qin Yue.

Qin Yue paused for a second and continued, From what I know, he doesnt have to remember the steps at all.

Academician Wang Shicheng frowned and said, So hes proving it on the spot?

Im afraid so. Qin Yue nodded and said, For him, solving a problem he already once solved is a piece of cake.

Jesus Christ

That means once he learns something, hell never forget it

No wonder this guy is the best mathematician of our time.

The two other Fields Medalists sitting in the crowd were also shocked by Lu Zhous presentation.

I cant believe this Professor Akshay rubbed his nose and said, By introducing a differentiable manifold into the complex plane The method he used is completely beyond my understanding of differential geometry.

Schultz, who was sitting next to him, said, Hes doing a good job.

Akshay said, This is surprising.

Schultz: Why?

Akshay stared at the ceiling and said, I dont know how he thought of this. I dont know if you feel this way, but it feels like a light is shining down from heaven, guiding the way for us.

Schultz stared at the ceiling as well and chuckled.

Theres nothing strange about this. We have no idea how long hes been stuck in this maze. It seemed like he wasnt going to be satisfied with sharing his in-progress results at this conference.

So, I know what you mean. Because I feel the same way about those formulas, they are so obscure and difficult to understand. Just like how Grothendiecks works have become the bible of algebraic geometry. But when we try to copy Grothendiecks thought process, its like

Schultz paused for a second.

He was looking for an appropriate analogy.

Meanwhile, the first whiteboard on stage had already been fully written. A hotel staff member dragged another whiteboard on stage.

Lu Zhou picked up the marker and began writing again.

Schultz finally thought of it.

He spoke.

Its like they come from another universe

Like those equations dont belong in this universe.