Chapter 413: Congratulations On Graduating

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

The next day, Lu Zhou ended his research retreat and went to his office at Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

As usual, his students were there.

When they saw Lu Zhou in front of the office door, they were all surprised.

Vera was the first to speak.

Her little mouth opened, and she said in an astonished tone, “Professor, your retreat is over?”

“I guess so…” Lu Zhou looked at Vera before he looked at Hardy, and he could tell everyone was surprised.

He then asked, “Why are you guys looking at me like this?”

Jerick murmured, “Because if you come out of the house, it means you’ve succeeded…”

Wei Wen said, “Which means you’ve solved the Millennium Prize Problem?”

“Nope, but I have made some in-progress results.” Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, “But I’m not here to talk about that, I’m here to talk about the Collatz conjecture.”

Qin Yue asked, “Annual Mathematics replied?”

“Yes, your thesis was brilliant and Professor Peter Sarnak, who was your reviewer, had a high evaluation of your thesis.” Lu Zhou smiled as he continued, “Your thesis will be in the next issue of Annual Mathematics.”

When Vera heard that the reviewer was Peter Sarnak, she had a surprised look on her face.

Professor Sarnak was one of the leaders of modern number theory. They had obviously heard of him before.

Not just that, but this big name was also one of the editors at Annual Mathematics. In addition, he was also one of the six reviewers of Lu Zhou’s thesis on Goldbach’s conjecture.

Lu Zhou paused for a moment before he continued, “As I said, the Collatz conjecture is your graduation thesis. I originally only expect you to make a little progress on the conjecture, and I really didn’t expect you guys to solve the entire conjecture. I have to say, your performance really impressed me.”

Qin Yue smiled and said, “It’s mainly thanks to the mathematics tools that you provided. We couldn’t have done it on our own.”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “Tools still require a smart person to apply them. You guys are talented, so you don’t have to be humble. I hope you guys can continue down the number theory path and achieve greatness in the additive number theory field.”

He adjusted his demeanor and continued, “You guys have now officially graduated!”

Clap clap clap…

The office was filled with applause with Jerick and Wei Wen clapping the loudest.

Especially Wei Wen, he was looking jealously at Qin Yue.

Being able to publish a thesis on Annual Mathematics for the proof of the Collatz conjecture…

It was no exaggeration to say that Qin Yue’s name would appear in the Thousand People Initiative.

Whether Qin Yue wanted to stay overseas or return to China, there would be various academic institutions that would offer him a salary he couldn’t refuse.

Lu Zhou paused for a second. As he looked at his three students, he said, “I want to hear about your plans for the future.”

Whether his students wanted to keep researching or go work at another university, Lu Zhou would do anything he could to help.

For example, he could write letters of recommendation.

In academia, having a recommendation letter from a well-known scholar could be the deciding factor in an interview. Even if the interviewee didn’t perform well, his application would be taken seriously…

Hardy smiled and said, “Professor, if you want, I wish to continue studying under you.”

Lu Zhou replied, “Why wouldn’t I want that? I certainly welcome you guys to study a PhD under me.”

Although Hardy was a bit naughty sometimes, his strength was still ok.

Anyone that could study a master’s in mathematics at Princeton was talented in their own respective fields of study. There were only “talented” and “extremely talented” students at Princeton.

Vera already told Lu Zhou her plans last year. She had even given Lu Zhou the application form. Qin Yue also planned to continue his studies at Princeton.

All three of his students planned on furthering their studies. Lu Zhou’s research team at Princeton would soon consist of a postdoc computational materials fellow, three PhD students, and two master’s students.

As for whether or not Lu Zhou wanted more students…

This depended on whether there were any new talents that could attract his interest.

After Lu Zhou finished dealing with his students, he made plans with Professor Fefferman to meet up.

He had a lot of research results to exchange with his partner…

…

A conference room at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Professor Fefferman read Lu Zhou’s manuscript and rubbed his chin.

“Differential manifold… Seems interesting.”

Compared to the abstract proof method, using a differential manifold to research the Navier–Stokes equation was undoubtedly a novel idea. Using a topology method seemed to be feasible.

However, Professor Fefferman had never done any research in this area. Therefore, he couldn’t give Lu Zhou a definitive answer.

Professor Fefferman read the manuscript in its entirety before he asked, “How did you think of it?”

Lu Zhou said, “I was inspired when I was running around Lake Carnegie.”

Surprised, Professor Fefferman looked at Lu Zhou before he said, “That’s surprising… I’ll have to go there more often in the future.”

Lu Zhou diverted the conversation by asking, “What do you think about this method?”

“I don’t know, I have to admit that this is an interesting idea. But I still prefer the abstract proof method.”

Professor Fefferman sighed and picked up a piece of chalk. He spoke while he was writing on the blackboard, “Over the past month, I have tried to improve the bilinear operator B’. This construct is very close to the Euler linear operator B in μ(t).”

[μ(t)=e^(t△)·μ0+∫e^(t-t’)△B(μ(t’), μ(t’))dt’]

[…]

The calculation process was very similar to that of more than a month ago, and the calculus framework was still the same.

The only difference was the construction of the B’ bilinear operator with respect to the obsolete <B'(μ, μ), μ>=0. Professor Fefferman used a very sophisticated method which made the B’ operator very close to the original B’.

However…

Lu Zhou felt like something was missing.

He thought back to more than a month ago, and he suddenly frowned when he felt that the calculations looked unnatural.

Lu Zhou stared at the blackboard for a long time before he finally spoke.

“I think I know what the problem is…”

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