People were jealous of the million-dollar money; they were also surprised to hear that he had solved three of the seven millennium problems.
That’s right.
This was his third time winning the award.
After mathematicians heard the news, they were in disbelief; they didn’t know what to feel.
It was almost like this award was established specifically for him.
While the Internet was discussing this million-dollar bonus and what problem would be solved by Lu Zhou next, the Chinese visiting group in France finished their tasks.
The ignition of the fusion power station in Cadarache was quite successful. After learning from their mistakes in St. Petersburg, East Asia Energy specially arranged technicians to cooperate with French electrical engineers to install an additional insurance on the electrical grid.
After the successful ignition, the Cadarache fusion reactor core would account for 80% of the total power in the French power grid, completely replacing the outdated nuclear fission power technology.
The responsibilities of the Chinese were done, the rest was up to France themselves.
After the French President bid farewell to them, the visiting group took the special plane back to Beijing.
The Chinese president on the plane looked at Lu Zhou reading a notebook. He spoke emotionally.
“Academician Lu, you’re such a hard worker, even studying on the plane.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “This is not really work, just a hobby.”
The president asked curiously, “Is this Professor Grothendieck’s notes?”
“Yeah…” Lu Zhou nodded and said, “There are some interesting questions inside, and I’ve only been able to solve four out of the ten.”
The president: “If even you can’t solve all of them, they must be very tricky.”
Lu Zhou sighed and said, “Yeah, they’re quite difficult.”
The old man nodded.
After a while, he suddenly spoke.
“Speaking of which, what’s the thing you told Director Li about?”
Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, “He told you?”
The president smiled and said, “I was just curious. If it’s classified, you don’t have to tell me.”
Lu Zhou: “… It’s not classified, I’m just not certain about it.”
The president looked at Lu Zhou’s hesitant face and quickly said, “It’s fine if you’re uncertain. Everyone is uncertain in the beginning. If you tell me, maybe I can help you.”
Of course the president was curious. From nuclear fusion to aerospace engineering, everything Lu Zhou worked on turned into a huge success.
Now that Lu Zhou was talking about his next mysterious big project, everyone wanted to know what it was.
Lu Zhou looked at the curious president. He knew he wouldn’t be able to quietly read his notebook on this flight.
He sighed and closed his notebook. He then asked in a serious tone, “Okay then, what do you think our country lacks the most?”
“Talent!”
“I’m talking about technology wise.”
The president thought for a while before saying, “In terms of technology… It should be our information technology, which is lacking in competitiveness. Even though the Dragon series of chips were successful, when I talked with the experts from the Institute of Semiconductors at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, they told me that we still have a long way to go. Especially in high-end chip technology. We started too late, and we’re still lacking in experience…”
Lu Zhou had a smile on his face when he heard this.
As expected, directly asking the “customer” was the easiest way to know what to produce.
Lu Zhou already had a rough idea in his mind on what to use the general points on.
Lu Zhou spoke without hesitation.
“That’s what I wanted to say! High-end integrated circuits!”
The old man paused for a second when he heard Lu Zhou.
I guessed it?
What a coincidence.
…
He had already collected Grothendieck’s notes, but he didn’t receive a pop-up for completing his mission. There must be some elements that he had yet to complete.
These elements should be solving the mathematical problems left in the notebook.
After Lu Zhou returned to his home in Jinling, he locked himself in his study room with the piles of materials and notes delivered from France. He began to dive into the problems on the notebook.
These problems were certainly difficult, but that didn’t discourage him. After talking with Professor Helfgott, Lu Zhou felt a rush of inspiration.
Not academic inspiration.
But inspiration regarding the understanding of this notebook.
Looking at this from the perspective of a civilization, if they really wanted to establish contact with Earth, then the information contained in this notebook should be far less simple than a complete language. There must be something hidden in it; a message they wanted to convey.
Lu Zhou thought of the dream Professor Abel wrote about in his diary.
Lu Zhou had a feeling; he felt like there was a connection between these two.
He felt like he was getting closer and closer to the truth.
Including where the system came from.
And what exactly was the Void…
After spending half a month using Grothendieck’s notes and materials, Lu Zhou was finally able to solve all of the problems.
However, the result was not what he expected.
The final result was not a series of lengthy equations, but instead, it was a condensed abstract number “n” based on motive theory.
He looked at the long decimal representation of this number, and the only thing he could prove was that it was an irrational number.
Lu Zhou looked at the lowercase “n” on the paper as he frowned and began to think.
“Maybe I should find a linguist for help?
“Wait a second…”
The pen in his hand suddenly froze.
A possibility appeared on Lu Zhou’s mind.
“If they really want to talk to us, and if they sent us information, they must know something about us already…”
A light bulb lit up in Lu Zhou’s head. He immediately grabbed his phone from his pocket, took a picture of the draft paper, and said, “Xiao Ai!”
A text bubble popped up on his phone screen.
[Yes, Master? (๑•̀ᄇ•́)]
“Enter these calculations into the computer and convert n into binary numbers. Don’t stop the calculations until I tell you so!”
Lu Zhou spoke with excitement.
“Then, decode it and read it back to me!”
