Germany.
North Rhine.
The conference room at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics was crowded. People sat shoulder to shoulder at a meeting table.
As Faltings looked around at the participants, he felt a range of emotions.
He never expected this to happen.
The internal meeting of the Bourbaki Group, which was intended to exchange research on the Grand Unified Theory, turned into a “review session”…
It was almost like a god was playing jokes on him.
This made him both happy and worried…
The scholars sitting at the conference table were silent.
They were too shocked to think properly, nor did they know what to say…
If they wanted to express their opinion on this matter, they would have to read the paper first.
Because of this, the authoritative voices of the mathematics community had stayed quiet. Not a single well-known scholar had expressed their opinion on this matter.
“I see…”
Professor Fefferman was the first to break the silence.
He looked at the paper in his hand and grinned. He had a look of approval on his face as if he were looking at an exquisite work of art.
“The deeper and more complex the truth, the more simple the expression. The Motive, like we expected, is the common source of all types of cohomology.”
“This reminds me of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Is reality an imperfect reflection of a perfect ideal? Is it just the manifestation of the same abstract concept at different levels? Numbers and shapes are the roots of the universe, but just like the wave-particle duality, they are the same. It just depends on how we observe it.”
“This is amazing…”
Even though Professor Fefferman was not part of the Bourbaki Group, he was at this meeting.
He was originally attending a partial differential equation conference in Paris, but he suddenly heard of the amazing news.
After he briefly exchanged information with Professor Deligne through emails, he learned that the “review committee” still lacked an expert in the field of partial differential equations. Thus, he immediately came here from Paris.
He read half of the paper on his way to Germany.
But now, he had finally finished reading the remaining half.
He noticed everyone was looking at him. He placed the paper on the table and shrugged.
“Roughly speaking… I’ve finished reading the paper, and there aren’t any obvious problems.
“Don’t just look at me, I know I’m not the only one who has finished reading it… Tell me your opinions.”
Professor Deligne made eye contact with Professor Sarnak. After a moment of silence, Deligne spoke.
“You go first. He was my student, so it’s hard for me to make an unbiased judgment.”
“So you’re passing the buck to me?” Professor Sarnak sighed as he took off his glasses.
“For a major proposition like this, I can’t immediately give an evaluation without reading over it a few times. But if you insist…”
He cleared his throat and spoke in a serious tone.
“Honestly speaking, I’m stunned.
“Not just because of his understanding of the Langlands program and the motive theory, but also his application of various mathematical tools in different fields… I didn’t expect to see this within my lifetime.
“I won’t comment on the completeness of his argumentation proof, but the value of the mathematical methods and frameworks he put forward in the paper might have surpassed all of the achievements we have made in the field of algebraic geometry.
“This is more like a book than a paper. This will replace the Elements of Algebraic Geometry as the new bible… No, the bible is grounded on belief, and this is objective truth; this is like the code to the universe.”
Everyone at the conference table looked surprised.
Especially Professor Deligne; he was speechless.
Deligne had been working at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study for a long time, and he knew Sarnak very well.
It was extremely rare for Sarnak to give this kind of evaluation to anyone.
Obviously, this was more than just a nod of approval.
Professor Faltings opened his mouth and spoke.
“Replacing Elements of Algebraic Geometry… Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
Elements of Algebraic Geometry, Grothendieck’s book.
Even though the name sounded like a university textbook or lecture notes, it was actually the sample of modern algebraic geometry, which was regarded as a bible by scholars in its respective field of research.
Regardless, it was a bit too extreme to compare an unverified paper with Professor Grothendieck’s biggest achievement.
At least that was what Faltings thought.
Sarnak shook his head and said, “It’s not extreme at all. In fact, I’m being conservative. The influence of this paper is comparable to Euclid’s Elements… But it is too early to debate about this. Let’s wait and see, someone will prove me right in the future.”
Whispers were heard around the conference table.
Some people agreed with Professor Sarnak, while others thought he was exaggerating.
One thing they all agreed on was that Lu Zhou created an earthshattering paper.
Regardless of whether they could equate this paper with another history work of mathematics, this paper was destined to revolutionize mathematics.
“This paper…” Schultz looked at the copy in his hand and said, “I can’t make a conclusion straight away. I have to do some research, also…”
He paused for a second and spoke.
“Isn’t it kind of informal to post a major mathematics proposition to arXiv? We should at least have a report conference.”
“I agree.” Professor Deligne nodded and said, “I’ll email him and tell him to do so.”
“Looks like we’re taking a trip to Jinling again.”
Professor Fefferman looked at his watch and spoke.
“I should have just bought a ticket to Jinling instead, why did I come to Germany…”
Faltings: “…”
Schultz: “…”
Deligne: “…”