Impressive!
It seemed like Lu Zhou didn’t give up just yet.
The people on Mathoverflow were all mathematicians, and even though they weren’t as impressive as Terry Tao, they were still respectable scholars.
This was their first time hearing someone stand up to a reviewer of Faltings’ caliber.
People had begun speculating exactly what would happen between Faltings and Lu Zhou.
[Is he going to face Faltings one on one?]
[It seems like Annual Mathematics is tied up in this mess.]
[Professor Lu used to work as a part-time editor for Annual Mathematics, I’m sure Annual Mathematics is fine with this.]
[Maybe they’ve been having academic discussions?]
[I’ve already registered! Already booked the hotel and flights to Jin Ling City! I have a feeling this report is going to be quite exciting!]
[Are they going to fight? I’d bet Professor Lu will win the fist fight (smile)]
[Professor Faltings might not even attend. I do think this is an important report, especially for scholars in the field of analytical mathematics. Regardless of who is correct, a report hosted by Lu Zhou is worth attending.]
[Did you guys know, the Jin Ling University website is down. The report tickets are going for US$1000 apiece on Ticketmaster.]
[WTF?!]
In fact, an hour after Jin Ling University announced the report session, their mathematics department website shut down due to traffic overflow.
The university didn’t exactly have the best servers. It could barely handle the students selecting their timetables, much less traffic from all over the world.
No one expected this academic report to be so popular.
Even though the computer science department had made preparations for this, they still couldn’t handle the uptick in visitor traffic. After they found out about the ticket resellers, they had to shut down the registration website. Each ticket request was now manually reviewed and required passport identification.
In other words, one would have to enter their passport details to register.
However, even then, the situation didn’t improve much.
Not just that, but the prices of tickets on Ticketmaster became even higher.
Most professors were muddled.
They had never seen this happen before.
Whenever it was their turn to host a report, they would barely sell any tickets.
They had never heard of report session tickets being sold out!
Dean Lu looked at the busy computer science professor, who was working on the servers. With a vacuum flask on his hand, he suddenly said, “Old Qin, our mathematics department is insane!”
Dean Qin: “Yeah…”
Dean Lu said, “Last time was in the auditorium as well, right? That wasn’t nearly as bad as this time.”
Dean Qin: “Yeah…”
Dean Qin didn’t know what else to say.
“The servers are fixed, we can restart at any time,” the computer science professor said. He had been working for the past five hours. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and said, “But judging by the traffic, I don’t know how long will it last.”
Dean Qin went silent for a second. He then sighed and said, “It should be fine… After the registration is finished, we’ll close the portal.”
“Okay.”
The computer science professor turned around and walked back into the server room.
On the other hand, at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Germany.
Professor Faltings was in the director’s office. He quietly finished reading Lu Zhou’s invitation letter.
As a well-known scholar in mathematics, he obviously didn’t have to scalp for tickets online. Not to mention, over the past three days, he had been having intense online debates with Lu Zhou. He was the person Lu Zhou wanted to see the most at the report.
A smile gradually appeared on Faltings’ face.
Even though this smile was full of arrogance, it was still a smile.
A bearded German PhD student was sitting across from Faltings, and he said, “Professor…
“I feel like, that person doesn’t respect you enough?”
Fletcher, the PhD student, was proud to be Faltings’ student.
After all, everyone who had graduated under Faltings had become a great mathematician. From Shinichi Mochizuki, who proved the ABC conjecture, to Zhang Shiwu, a well-known Chinese mathematician…
There was no doubt in Fletcher’s mind that Faltings was the greatest mathematician alive.
Especially since Grothendieck was no longer alive…
“It’s fine, Fletcher, once you get even close to his level, you won’t care about this kind of stuff.” Faltings closed his email and pushed his glasses up slightly as he slowly said, “I understand what he’s saying. If neither of us can convince one another, then we’ll have to see which one of us can convince the public.”
Fletcher’s eyeballs nearly popped out of his socket.
WTF?
I’m on your side, old man!
Why are you attacking me for no reason?
This is not the first time you’ve done something like this…
Faltings didn’t notice that he had offended his student. He continued, “Of course, I understand what he’s saying, but there are serious flaws in his argument. That won’t change. Apologies in advance, but I will have to embarrass him in public.”
Faltings stood up from his chair and adjusted his collar.
When Fletcher saw his boss walking out of the office, he quickly asked, “Professor, where are you going?”
“I’m going to sit at the cafe for a while, it’s time for afternoon tea… Oh yeah.”
As if he had forgotten something, Professor Faltings looked at his student and said, “Remember to buy me a ticket to Jinling, China.”
Fletcher looked at his boss in disbelief.
“You plan on… going?”
“Why not?”
Faltings looked at his student and spoke nonchalantly.
“Like I said, he’s going to pay a price for his inexperience and arrogance.”