Two o’clock in the afternoon.
Still in the Jin Ling University’s old campus grand auditorium.
Even though there were one-fifth fewer people attending compared to yesterday, the scene at the venue was still quite lively.
Lu Zhou was standing on stage. He was writing on the blackboard while explaining at the same time.
Once the blackboard was filled, a staff member quickly dragged another one and neatly placed the blackboard on stage.
The staff went on stage five times in total, there were six fully written blackboards.
When Lu Zhou wrote down the last line of the equation for the general solution, the audience stood up in excitement.
Thunderous applause spread like a tidal wave, filling the entire report venue.
Edward Witten was clapping. He looked at the blackboards on stage and smiled. “Thank God I didn’t leave early. Otherwise, I would have missed this historic moment.”
Deligne had a warm smile on his face as he said emotionally, “Maybe his talents in other mathematics fields are much stronger than his algebraic geometry ability.”
Fefferman smiled and jokingly said, “Don’t be discouraged. He’s just not interested in algebraic geometry for the time being. Once he becomes interested, the entire algebraic geometry field will be shocked by his results.”
Deligne couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Hopefully that day comes.”
The applause gradually subsided.
It faded away, just like a tidal wave.
The audience in the venue sat back down when Lu Zhou stopped writing.
Lu Zhou looked back at the audience and cleared his throat. He then said slowly, “We have obtained the general solution for the Yang-Mills equations. This gives us a deeper understanding of the mathematical relationship of the interaction between microscopic particles and their existence or movements.
“From this point onward, I will try to explain the strong interaction mass gap from a mathematics perspective.”
When Lu Zhou heard the exclaims from the audience, he paused for a second before he continued, “Next up is the Q&A session.”
…
The solution to a proposition was different than the proof of a proposition.
The latter required a rigorous proof process of the idea; there was no room for any mistake.
The former didn’t require any proof process, even guesses were allowed by the academic community.Read more chapter on vi pnovel
Just like when Waring wrote “Depths of Algebra” and proposed that “every positive integer can be expressed as the sum of at most r powers of k, where r depends on k”. For example, he boldly predicted that every natural number was the sum of at most 4 squares, 9 cubes, or 19 fourth powers.
He didn’t provide a clear solution to these conclusions, and the proof of the existence of g(k) and the subsequent numerical solutions was solved by someone 150 years later.
Actually, even if Lu Zhou didn’t provide a perfect solution proof, it would be fine.
It would just leave the future generations in suspense, and the people in the next 50 to 100 years would, instead of using computers, try to prove this solution in a mathematical way, to test whether this conjecture was correct…
In short, after the Q&A session ended, the report also came to an end. The scholars visiting China went on their return flights.
Ten o’clock at night, Jinling international airport.
Edward Witten was waiting for his flight in the airport terminal. He picked up a magazine and was about to sit down and read it. However, he was immediately approached by a reporter.
“Professor Witten, what do you think about this report?”
“That was an excellent report. I would like to thank Professor Lu for bringing this report to us, and the hospitality from Jin Ling university. I already miss the uh… Jin Ling roast duck? I think that’s how you say it,” Witten said with a smile on his face.
The reporter smiled as well before immediately asking, “Then what do you think about the content of the report?”
Witten thought for a bit before replying, “There is no doubt that this is a milestone both in mathematics and physics. Finding a general solution for the Yang-Mills equations means that we can look at the microscopic world in a more profound mathematical point of view. This will reveal existing physical phenomena that we have not yet discovered.
“Looking at this from the view of a theoretical and mathematical physicist, I think this will be the most outstanding research result of the year.”
Reporter: “Even though the year has only just begun?”
“Yes, I am almost certain of this.” Witten looked at his watch and saw that it was getting late. He looked at the reporter and said, “If you have any other questions, make sure to ask them now. I have to board the plane in five minutes.”
If everything went well, he might be able to still attend the CERN conference.
However, compared to the experience he just had in China, the conference waiting for him in Switzerland seemed to be rather minuscule.
“I promise, this is my last question.” The reporter flipped through their notebook and found the most important question. They asked, “People have criticized Professor Lu for suddenly leaving the report, and they said that his action offended other scholars. As an internationally-renowned scholar, what do you think about this?”
“I’m not exactly internationally renowned.” Witten smiled and humbly said, “Compared to Professor Lu, I’m still lacking in the Nobel Prize department.”
He smiled and paused for a second.
“Normally speaking, unless something happens, no one would leave in the middle of a report. After all, the report affects whether his theorem is going to be recognized by the academic community. However, if he really had to leave during the middle of the report to do something, I personally think it is understandable.”
Reporter: “Do you think the accusations are unreasonable?”
“I think so, I mean after I saw the amazing results of the second report, I don’t really have any complaints.” Witten smiled and said in a relaxed manner, “Personally, I think that criticizing a scholar that has made outstanding contributions to the theoretical physics community and think that us scholars are as shallow as them…
“I think that’s the most offensive thing.”
