Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
While Lu Zhou was writing the thesis, he did not know that the video of him writing on the whiteboards was trending on Twitter among Ivy League students.
However, it was also trending among high school “nerds”.
“Knowledge worship” did not exist in American culture. Most people’s attitudes toward knowledge were different.
If someone said “I don’t want to party, I have to do homework”, one would be labeled as a “nerd”.
The nerds were at the bottom of the food chain on campus. They would get bullied by students that did sports. Even the teachers would not like students who did not participate in extracurricular activities.
It was because of this that they were affected by Lu Zhou.
Even though it was only one pen.
Even though there was not even a gorgeous performance.
Even though he did not score a goal.
Lu Zhou still had the honor of the battlefield.
That last line that he wrote on the whiteboard…
And…
The waves of applause from the audience.
Only similar people would appreciate each other as they could feel the resonance from each other.
Youtube, comments section…
[Jesus Christ! This looks like a basketball game!]
[Yeah, this looks more exciting than the Super Bowl lol…]
[I’m a high school student, but because of skin color, gender, and academics, I was neglected by the cliques in my school. I want to be like them, I want to drink alcohol and get tattoos, but I never succeeded. So thank you, thank you for inspiring me and giving me the courage to study when I was about to give up.]
[I can’t believe I just watched someone solve a mathematics problem on Youtube, I must’ve gone crazy.]
[I couldn’t help but clap as well.]
[Please add some background music to this video.]
Of course, this was the comments section, so naturally, there would be a voice of hatred and ridicule.
[Isn’t he from the country that blocked Google?]
[Why is everyone clapping? He’s an Asian, so obviously he’d be good at mathematics.]
In America, it was racist to say that Asians were good at mathematics.
Of course, there were counterattacks.
[How about you try solving it?!]
[Yeah, dumbass!]
[He’s smarter than you’ll ever be!]
[F*ck you!]
[…]
The comments section was blowing up, which in turn, blew the video up as well. However, the video quality was too low to see what was written on the whiteboards, so people did not know what was going on.
No one knew who the guy in the video was.
On the other hand, Lu Zhou was writing his thesis in his hotel room, so he did not know that he was trending on Youtube.
The following day, once Lu Zhou had formatted his completed thesis, he attached it in an email and sent it to Professor Deligne.
Since Professor Deligne himself was also the editor for Annual Mathematics, the review process would be much faster than going through official channels.
Lu Zhou suddenly noticed four unread emails in his inbox.
They were all from Molina.
[I’m guessing that you didn’t go to the party… Do you want to get some drinks?]
[Fine, you’re probably writing your thesis. Reply to me when you see this.]
[Hey, did you sleep yet? Did you know that your presentation was uploaded to Youtube! It’s trending! Hurry up and get a twitter account.]
[… Okay okay, I downloaded WeChat. Give me your WeChat number when you see this email.]
F*ck!
Lu Zhou did not have the habit of checking his email regularly.
He replied to the emails before he turned off his laptop. He then stood up and planned to get something to eat at Palmer Square.
He had been living off on sandwiches from the hotel these past few days. The bacon and butter filled sandwiches tasted good for the first few times, but Lu Zhou quickly got tired of them.
The academic conference had already ended, and the staff from the Federal Mathematics Society had already left. Instead, many tourists were arriving at the hotel.
Lu Zhou bumped into Luo Wenxuan in the hotel entrance.
When Luo Wenxuan saw Lu Zhou, his face lit up. He quickly walked over and reached out his hand.
“Congratulations!” said Luo Wenxuan as he shook Lu Zhou’s hand energetically. He added, “I now know why Old Tang speaks so highly of you. You’re a genius!”
Lu Zhou coughed and said, “Stop exaggerating, I only proved one conjecture…”
Luo Wenxuan replied, “Stop being so modest, I feel so useless!”
He was obviously exaggerating. He was doing a PhD at Princeton, so he was obviously a genius himself as well.
Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and said, “Speaking of which, where did you go? I didn’t see you at the closing ceremony.”
Luo Wenxuan sighed and said, “We reached a bottleneck in our research. Since my supervisor went to Berkeley for a conference, I went to New York to watch a football game.”
Lu Zhou did not understand quantum mechanics very well.
So there was nothing he could do to help.
However…
Lu Zhou suddenly thought of something and he said, “Oh yeah.”
Luo Wenxuan replied, “What?”
Lu Zhou, “I remember you saying that how can there be seven different results from God’s six-sided dice. Have you thought about the possibility of the dice landing on two sides?”
“Landing on two sides? You mean…”
Luo Wenxuan suddenly frowned and started to think deeply.
Lu Zhou did not want to interrupt him, so he quietly walked away.
Inspiration was hard to describe in detail.
If one did not catch it in time, it would disappear.
This was Lu Zhou’s final gift to Luo Wenxuan as he would be leaving in two days.
