Into Unscientific

the next day.

HKUST Life Medicine Building.

director's office.

"Xiao Xu, what are you talking about?"

Looking at Xu Yun who was tightly wrapped in a mask in front of him, Tian Liangwei lost his composure in a rare way:

"You said you proved the infinity of Mersenne prime numbers?"

Although Tian Liangwei is a solid biology practitioner, it does not mean that he knows nothing about the field of mathematics.

At least for the existing major mathematical problems, he can still be named.

Like the Goldbach conjecture.

Like the Riemann Hypothesis.

Such as twin primes and Fermat primes.

Another example.

Infinity of Mersenne primes.

Indeed.

Compared with the seven major problems of the millennium, Mersenne primes are far from being at the T1 level.

But this does not mean that Mersenne primes are a bad topic.

If Tian Liangwei remembered correctly.

He has several academician friends from the Department of Mathematics. For example, Academician Chen Shuxing, Academician Zhang Pingwen and others are doing research in this area.

In addition, millions of dollars of funding or supercomputing will be approved every year in China to find the latest Mersenne primes.

Think here.

Tian Liangwei couldn't help picking up the manuscript Xu Yun handed over, but after looking at the mathematical symbols on it for a few seconds, he slammed it back on the table:

"mmp, I'm blind, why am I looking for something to read math papers?"

Then he took a sip of water from the glass on the table, pondered for a moment, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

soon.

The voice of Zhang Rui, the dean of the School of Mathematics and the current executive vice president of HKUST, came from the other end of the phone:

"Hello, Dean Tian?"

"It's me, Lao Zhang, do you come over when you have time?"

"Uh, Dean Tian, ​​I'm fishing outside, why don't we talk about it tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is fine too. I heard from Xiao Xu that he proved the infinity of Mersenne prime numbers, so I wondered if I should let you come back and have a look."

".???"

After a few seconds.

Some murmurs came from the other end of the phone, "Do you still want this fish", "I'll sell it to you at a lower price".

But soon, these noises were overshadowed by Zhang Rui's high decibel:

"What did you say??"

after an hour.

Zhang Rui broke into Tian Liangwei's office in a hurry, and he couldn't see the gentle appearance before:

"Dean Tian, ​​what about the verification process?"

Tian Liangwei pointed to a thick manuscript on the table:

"Here."

The voice just fell.

Zhang Rui rushed to the desk without looking at Xu Yun, and started to check the documents with a pen and paper.

"First prove that there are no odd perfect numbers."

"σ(n)≠2{p^(a1+1/1)-1}/{p1-1}·"

"Well, how did you skip this step? Oh, consider the multiplication group"

"P={p1, p2,.}, ranked in ascending order, assuming that ∑p∈P1 converges, then an is the product of some different small prime numbers."

Zhang Rui checked the calculations in the office like no one else was there, but Xu Yun and Tian Liangwei were also very tactful and didn't interrupt him.

For a mathematician, interrupting the deduction is basically tantamount to helping a fisherman lose his hand while fishing, and it is easy to offend people.

that's all.

More than forty minutes passed in a flash.

finally.

Zhang Rui stopped his pen on a brand new piece of A4 paper.

He was silent for half a minute before writing a sentence:

"Therefore, the infinity of Mersenne primes can be proved."

Then he put down the pen in his hand, looked at the expectant Tian Liangwei, and nodded slowly:

"Dean Tian, ​​from my calculations this time, the result Xiao Xu deduced should not be a big problem."

"However, this is just a rough calculation. It is similar to a sketch. It can only confirm that there are no loopholes in the key principles, and it cannot represent the final conclusion."

"A difficult problem like Mersenne prime number requires a lot of real verification calculations. At the same time, once it is announced that it has been deciphered, there will inevitably be countless practitioners and enthusiasts in the industry and outside the industry to perform calculations."

"Generally speaking, it will take at least half a year to finally confirm that Xiao Xu's verification is correct."

Tian Liangwei nodded slightly to show that he understood.

As Zhang Rui said.

As one of the most important conjectures in mathematics, Mersenne prime numbers are claimed to be proved by many people every year.

Therefore, if such issues want to pass the final ruling, both the process and the time are quite complicated.

For example, Andrew Wiles who proved Fermat's theorem.

Andrew Wiles announced the proof of Fermat's theorem in June 1993, but in December of the same year he admitted that there was a problem with his steps, and he did not publish the correct second version of the proof until October 25, 1994.

At that time, he sent a complete proof of Fermat's last theorem to major mathematical societies around the world through his former student, Carl Rubin, a professor at Ohio State University.

But it was not until a year and six months later that the mathematics community officially recognized that his derivation was correct.

And Grigory Perelman who proved the Poincaré conjecture.

The hermit in the mathematics world has announced the relevant proof steps since November 2002, but it was not until 2006 that he was actually identified as having cracked the Poincaré conjecture.

Because the amount of calculation involved in this kind of problem is really too big.

It is so big that even if Xu Yun obtained Gauss's proof in advance that the odd perfect number does not exist, it still needs an hour of "wheat possession" to calculate the relevant results.

So even Zhang Rui dared to say it was a 'sloppy calculation' at this time.

Generally speaking.

After this proof comes out.

First, the school where the deducer is located will issue a statement, and then select a journal to publish the text or preprint.

At the same time, attach the relevant certificates to the school website or send them to established institutions such as the European Mathematical Society and the Oxford Mathematical Society, and then conduct a lengthy re-inspection.

Under normal circumstances.

Conjectures on bases such as Mersenne prime numbers must at least be verified by schools such as ETH, Weizmann, Oxford, Cambridge, Bonn, Max Planck Institute, Paris Six Big, NYU, and UCLA before they can be considered as final verification.

If it weren't for the fact that it was not convenient to go abroad due to the special circumstances in the past few years, it is reasonable to participate in some offline forums to accept 'torture'.

Of course.

Again.

Honor to honor, heat to heat.

Even if it takes ten years for the award to be finalized, it does not affect the fact that Xu Yun can get a lot of attention by relying on it.

After all, there are many institutions in China that are researching this direction.

There may still be a gap between the domestic mathematics teaching level and the international level, but there is no doubt about the ability to retest.

With the verification of domestic colleges and universities, the popularity can be stirred up in minutes.

At most, some sour people will say that this is domestic "self-indulgence" and "waiting for international organizations to slap you in the face".

Baobuqi can also involve some black history of domestic scientific research and even athletes' fraud.

On the whole, though, those remarks are nothing to worry about.

Think here.

Zhang Rui couldn't help but glanced at Xu Yun, and praised:

"Dean Tian, ​​your student is really limitless."

"With such an achievement at this juncture, our University of Science and Technology may really make a big news this time,"

Although Zhang Rui was amazed at Xu Yun's ability to verify the infinity of Mersenne primes, he did not exaggerate to the point of questioning.

After all, although Xu Yun only studied biology and physics, it does not mean that his mathematics level is very low.

The mathematical knowledge involved in physics these days is not just simple calculations, but requires a lot of in-depth concepts.

Like relativity.

Its basis is Riemannian geometry, and the full text is described by tensors.

You can't learn much without a foundation in mathematics.

There is an unlucky guy named Tianrui Shuofu next door, who is tossed to death by this thing.

So there must be some surprise in Zhang Rui's heart at this time, but it is far more than just making up some other pictures in his head.

To be one step ahead is a genius, and Xu Yun has been grasping this speed from the beginning to the end.

Then Tian Liangwei pouted his chin at the document in Zhang Rui's hand, and asked:

"Old Zhang, I don't know much about mathematics papers, so I have one more thing to ask you to come over today."

"I just want to ask you, how should Xiao Xu's article be published."

"How to publish it?"

Zhang Rui picked up the water glass on the table and took a sip of water, pondered for a moment, and said:

"Dean Tian, ​​this matter is actually quite complicated, and it will probably be divided into several stages."

"The first thing to do is to take these manuscripts to our number institute for a complete re-examination."

"Wait until there is no problem with the internal verification before proceeding to the next step."

Tian Liangwei nodded, the truth is not difficult to understand:

"No problem, but Lao Zhang, how long will this process take?"

Zhang Rui pinched Xu Yun's manuscript when he heard the words, and thought:

"Xiao Xu has about 70 manuscripts. I estimate that a detailed verification—not a rough calculation like I just did. It will take about six to seven hours."

"Well, I'll go back and arrange some manpower, and try to complete the re-inspection task by this time tomorrow."

Tian Liangwei originally thought that Zhang Rui would give an answer in two to three days, but he was a little surprised and naturally he would not choose to decline:

"Then thank you."

Zhang Rui smiled and waved his hands.

This is a two-way behavior. After all, Xu Yun's achievements are too heavy.

If there is no problem with Xu Yun's derivation process, then the School of Mathematics of the University of Science and Technology will also benefit from it, and he will naturally do his best.

Then he paused, and said:

"After the re-inspection is completed, we can officially release the announcement through the official channel of HKUST and send the verification email to major mathematics institutions."

"Also contact a top mathematics journal for expedited review—I personally recommend Annals of Mathematics."

Tian Liangwei was slightly taken aback:

"Annual of Mathematics?"

well known.

In addition to CNS in the field of journals, each discipline usually has its own so-called top journals.

For example, the "Four Great Journals" in the mathematics world.

The four journals are:

Annals of Mathematics:

Annals of Mathematics

New advances in mathematics:

"Inventiones mathematicae"

Journal of Mathematics:

"Acta Mathematica"

Journal of the American Mathematical Society:

"Journal of the American Mathematical Society"

In the field of mathematics, the status of the Big Four is basically equivalent to that of CNS to chemical physics.

Due to the large gap between the mainland mathematics community and the frontiers, the total number of papers published by domestic scholars in the four major universities in China, which does not include Chinese, has not broken through 100 from the founding of the People's Republic of China to 2022.

If domestic professors can have a paper published in the above-mentioned journals, basically there is no problem in evaluating doctoral supervisors.

Even Zhang Rui, a local mathematician who claims to have the best chance of winning the Wolf Prize, has only published an article on "Acta Mathematica" before.

Of course.

If Xu Yun's derivation process is sure that there is no problem, these so-called journal barriers will disappear in an instant, and may even turn the offensive.

Although it is not as exaggerated as a few major journals hugging their thighs and shouting "Dad choose me", the priority will inevitably be reduced countless times.

Then Tian Liangwei thought for a while and asked again:

"Then Zhang, if you vote for Annals of Mathematics, does arXiv need to think about it?"

arXiv.

Unlike regular journals, this is one of the most influential preprint websites, established in 1991.

At that time, a group of physicists wanted to communicate with each other about the articles they were about to publish. However, in terms of the network conditions and data storage capacity of that era, it was too difficult to communicate by email.

So this group of physicists became a shared platform LANL, which is the prototype of arXiv.

At the time operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory, it has now been taken over by Cornell University,

arXiv is currently the oldest and most comprehensive preprint website, covering mathematics, materials, physics, computers, statistics, astronomy, biology, finance and other fields.

This website is somewhat similar to the current post bar, and the threshold in the early stage is very low.

Whether you are a civilian or a regular army, as long as you can access the Internet, you can post content on it.

However, due to the large number of contributors, the website began to introduce a review system in 2004, and only materials science articles can still be exempted from review.

So far.

arXiv has collected as many as 1.7 million academic articles, the largest number in the industry.

Publishing papers on this website is equivalent to occupying a pit, and the results will not be snatched away-after all, the traditional publishing method takes a lot of time, from writing to peer review to online publication, typesetting and printing, it is very likely to spend several hours. months or even a year or two.

For example, Zhang Yitang, who was previously rumored to have broken the Landau-Siegel zero-point conjecture, is expected to publish his paper on arXiv within November. (So ​​recently I am reviewing number theory, hoping to catch up. If it is really published, I can share my humble opinion with you. I am still looking forward to it. Although there is a high probability that it will prove that zero does not exist, it will be a lot of fun if it does exist.)

"ArXiv?"

Zhang Rui touched his chin and said after deliberation:

"That's okay. After all, arXiv is a public site. Although it is bound to attract some civilians, there will undoubtedly be more professionals."

"Well, I'll go back and organize a small meeting to see if I can send a letter in the name of the University of Science and Technology and the Academy of Sciences, and try to get a batch of reviews organized quickly."

Tian Liangwei nodded:

"Okay, then I will trouble you."

Considering the urgency of the situation, Zhang Rui didn't chat with Tian Liangwei.

After briefly mentioning a related matter, he hurriedly left the office with Xu Yun's manuscript.

Xu Yun, on the other hand, was kept by Tian Liangwei for an extra ten minutes to make sure that his student status was fine before releasing him.

that's all.

Time passed day by day.

The condemnation of Xu Yun and HKUST on the Internet has become more and more powerful, and even spread to other irrelevant news below Zhanlou.

The general way of speaking is【Sorry for occupying the building, please pay attention to # Xu Yun##中国科大大 # incident, the school killed the PUA scum boy, what is the justice? 】

This kind of building within a building is full of diss domestic academic remarks, which seem to be a mess.

And in such an atmosphere.

Two days later.

A Weibo quietly appeared at the end of the hot search: # University of Science and Technology of China announced the proof of the infinity of Mersenne prime numbers # !