Chapter 428: Give Me Some Inspiration

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Although this was the first time the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro had hosted various other international math conferences before.

According to Wang Shicheng, this was his seventh time visiting this city. Therefore, he was quite familiar with the city.

Wang Shicheng called his other Chinese mathematician friends, who came here to do a 45-minute report. The original squad of four became a squad of ten. Academician Wang led the way, and the squad went to a Sichuan restaurant near the hotel.

The owner of the restaurant was a Chinese person, and apparently, he used to work for China National Petroleum. He then found out it was more profitable to run a restaurant here; therefore, he resigned and started his own restaurant. Once his business started to take off, he migrated and started a family here.

The boss obviously knew Academician Wang. When he heard they were mathematicians who were attending the International Congress of Mathematicians, he immediately gave them a 10% discount.

When the owner heard that Lu Zhou was here as well, he removed the discount and said it was on the house.

Lu Zhou insisted on paying but the owner pushed his hand away.

The owner smiled as he said, “The entire Chinese community in South America is talking about Professor Lu from Princeton that won the first Fields Medal for our country. I’m honored for you to eat here; there’s no way I’m letting you pay! If you win the Nobel Prize, I’ll let you eat here with all of your friends!”

Secretary Cheng was standing next to them, and he said, “That might be a little difficult as there’s no mathematics Nobel Prize.”

Professor Zhang said, “Wait, no, Professor Lu might have a chance…”

Xu Chenyang nodded. “True.”

Although there was no mathematics Nobel Prize, Lu Zhou had a chance to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Last year, Lu Zhou won the Adams Chemistry Prize and the Hoffman Prize. This was a well-known fact among the Chinese mathematics community.

Secretary Cheng: “…?”

The owner was persistent, so Lu Zhou didn’t insist and accepted his kindness.

Everyone got to know each other at the dinner table. Wang Shicheng, the Chairman of the China Mathematics Society, raised his glass and gave Lu Zhou a toast.

“On behalf of the China Mathematics Society, I would like to congratulate you on winning the Fields Medal. Thank you for bringing this glory and honor to the Chinese mathematics community.”

Lu Zhou downed the glass of beer with Academician Wang and humbly said, “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do.”

Academician Wang smiled and said, “I know, research is the number one thing for us scholars. As for the awards, those are just the icing on the cake. Regardless, cheers.”

“God Lu, cheers. On behalf of myself,” Xu Chenyang said as he smiled and raised the glass in his hand. “Come to our Yan University International Mathematical Research Center some time. It’s the only research institute built in a Siheyuan style. It’s a good place to visit.”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Thank you, I will definitely go there when I can!”

Originally Lu Zhou didn’t plan on drinking too much, but this was a day worth celebrating; everyone was enthusiastic and Lu Zhou was having a great time.

Even though his alcohol tolerance was pretty good, but after a couple of rounds of beers, he was feeling a little dizzy.

But on the other hand, this was a chance for Lu Zhou to meet some of the big names in the Chinese mathematics community.

Like Xu Chenyang, God Wei, God Yun, Zhang Yuping, etc…

Although they didn’t win a Fields Medal, the Fields Medal wasn’t the only metric for measuring a mathematician’s achievements. These were respected scholars, and their work was essential.

They ate for a long time; Lu Zhou finally stumbled back to his hotel by 2 pm.

Lu Zhou was standing in front of the hotel lobby when he saw Schultz.

“The party is tonight, are you drunk?”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “I’m not.”

Schultz said, “That’s what a drunk person would say. Is your medal still there?”

Lu Zhou touched his pocket.

“It’s still here… I told you I’m not drunk.”

Schultz raised his eyebrows and said, “Okay then, let me test you.”

Lu Zhou said, “What question?”

Schultz smiled and said, “Let an elliptic curve E be defined on the finite field, a general case of the Hasse-Weil-L function should be the self-contained L function of GLn in the algebraic number field. These self-contained L functions can uniquely be decomposed into the product of the ‘standard’ L function.”

After Lu Zhou leveled up to mathematics Level 7, his mathematics-based memory had gotten immensely better.

The knowledge he had to read again to remember, whether it was from theses or textbooks, he could now remember clearly.

Lu Zhou felt like he had heard this problem before.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and burped.

“Very interesting, I think it’s an algebraic geometry problem… And then what?”

Schultz said in a serious tone, “No more and then, I just want to know why is this true?”

“My dear Schultz, I’m not Mr. Google, I don’t know why…”

Lu Zhou frowned and tried to concentrate. After a while, he shook his head and said, “Don’t know, this is too difficult. I have a feeling that solving this question might take me three months… or even half a year.”

Schultz’s eyebrows twitched when he heard this problem.

Half a year…

This guy really is drunk.

The question Schultz described was one of the many conjectures about the Artin-L function in the Langlands program; a classic algebraic geometry proposition.

Over the past year, Schultz had tried countless methods to try and solve this problem, albeit none of them had worked.

He didn’t think Lu Zhou could solve this problem either. He only wanted to hear Lu Zhou’s opinion on it as it might give him some inspiration.

Schultz took a deep breath and said, “Okay then, do you have any good ideas for this question? Any idea is fine.”

Lu Zhou frowned and thought for a while. Suddenly, he smiled and said, “You’ll have to prove that the self-defense L-function can be decomposed into the product of the ‘standard’ L-function. First, you have to prove that the decomposition of the L-function is unique… In this case, why not try to prove it using group representation or mathematical analysis? I think it’s worth a shot.”

Actually, Lu Zhou didn’t understand algebraic geometry very well; his knowledge of algebraic geometry was limited to what Deligne had taught him. He had never studied any of the more difficult algebraic geometry conjectures.

Because of this, Lu Zhou had always felt a little guilty. Even though he had Grothendieck’s manuscript, he never thought of going to France and taking on Grothendieck’s mathematical legacy.

Normally, Lu Zhou wouldn’t talk about things that he was not fluent in.

But when he was drunk…

It was a different story.

He would say anything that came to his mind.

When Schultz heard Lu Zhou’s gibberish, he sighed. He then shrugged and said, “I’ll get you some hangover medicine from the organizer…”

Group theory representation, analytic methods, that’s child’s play…

Wait a minute…

Schultz remembered his research bottleneck; he frowned and crossed his arms.

Lu Zhou saw that Schultz wasn’t speaking.

“… I’m just casually thinking, don’t take it seriously.”

“No… maybe it makes sense.” Schultz twirled his long hair around his finger and said, “Why not try a group theory method or an analytics method? You’re right, how did I not think of it…”

Lu Zhou: “…?”

The long-haired German bloke totally forgot about Lu Zhou’s hangover medicine as he walked away while muttering to himself…

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