Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 33: Astonishment

　　Princeton, New Jersey, an old bald white man shouted without looking back as he stuffed his suitcase with clothes.

　　" No time, please go find someone else! Right now, my teacher is lying in a hospital bed, and maybe this will be the last time I see him!"

　　The middle-aged man in a suit had an awkward smile on his face, but he was not angry at all. After all, standing in front of him was the famous Viscount Pierre Deligne, the prover of Weil's conjecture, the Fields Medal, the Crafoord Prize, the Wolf Prize, and last year's Abel Prize, basically all of the trophies in the mathematical world had been taken by him.

　　Even in the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, which houses mathematical geniuses from all over the world, can't hide his brilliance.

　　He, Davis, on the other hand, was just an ordinary editor of 'Annals of Mathematics', graduated from the journalism department of Johns Hopkins University, and had only studied a bit about mathematics.

　　In order to preserve the influence of the 'Annals of Mathematics' in the academic community, the editors of the journal department of the Johns Hopkins University Press were greatly worried.

　　Originally, if it was an ordinary paper on number theory, it would not have been worth Davis's attention. However, the coincidence is that this technical editor also has certain research on number theory, in the initial review of the submitted manuscript, immediately found this piece of paper's value is extraordinary.

　　There have been countless conjectures about the distribution law of Mersenne primes, yet none of them have been proved so far. One of the most mathematically beautiful, to the extent of an exact expression, is undoubtedly the famous Zhow's conjecture.

　　That is, when 2^(2^n) < P < 2^(2^(n+1)), MP has 2^(n+1)-1 prime numbers!

　　However, conjectures are conjectures after all. The day these conjectures are not proved, then they will always remain prince. When they are proved, they can be upgraded to become theorems and crowned to the throne!

　　Seeing Deligne's unmoved, Davis did not give up and continued to persuade, "Please, Viscount Deligne, in this field of number theory, your research is the most remarkable among the professors I have seen! After seeing this paper, you were the first person I thought of. For the sake of our years of co-operation, will you take a look at it?"

　　"All this flattery won't work on me," snapping the lid on his suitcase, Deligne sneered, "I know that without you telling me."

　　He wasn't usually this grumpy, at most slightly arrogant like the other geniuses at the Princeton Institute. If it was usual, and Davis personally brought an interesting paper to him, he would have to take the time to study it anyways.

　　However, in the case of interesting things, it also depended on the occasion.

　　His mentor, Mr Grothendieck, was now lying on the hospital bed. How could he be bothered to work on any maths problems? He'd like to fly to France right now.

　　Davis tried to convince, "Don't you want to bring a gift to Mr Grothendieck?"

　　"A gift?" Deligne said furiously, "Take a bunch of scrap paper over there? It might be better for me to buy a bouquet of flowers even in the street when I get to France!"

　　"I assure you that this paper is definitely not as bad as you think." Davis said in a sincere tone, "Wasn't it your teacher's lifelong wish to prove the Riemann Conjecture? The problem of the distribution law of Mersenne prime numbers has been solved, and we have taken another step ...... even if it is just a small one, towards this crown of mathematics! I still remember your words at last year's academic presentation that the road to the end of the Riemann Zeta function is dark and requires countless candles to illuminate it ...... Now, the matches are in your hands."