Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 49: The Mathematicians' Ball

　　Lunch break.

　　The conference team had provided a light buffet lunch of fruit and a variety of cutlets. Grabbing a ribeye steak and some salad from the food truck, Orion found a random place to sit and spread out those notes he remembered from this morning while enjoying his lunch.

　　There were many achievements from the conference, but excluding the more novel ones, his main focus of research was in the area of number theory. In particular, the study of twin prime numbers.

　　When discussing the proof of the twin prime conjecture with that bewilderingly confident Indian guy, although Orion didn't get anything substantial, perhaps he was infected by that optimistic mindset, so much so that that long-dormant inspiration bubbled up again from the depths of his heart.

　　"Algebra is only a tool for the study of number theory, it is not the only way ......", Repeating this sentence, Orion looked at the lines of equations in his notebook, recalling the "Zhang's Method of Proof" that Thomas Sr. had written down in his lectures, and fell into deep thought.

　　"By choosing the right lambda function ...... what if we thought about it differently?"

　　It takes a lot of courage to jump out of the existing framework and find another way.

　　After all, international mathematicians have already narrowed the number 70 million to 246 through Mr Zhang Yitang's method. As long as one keeps trying, by picking an appropriate lambda(n) function, it might be possible to narrow the gap to the number 2 one day ......

　　Probably?

　　But it's like Goldbach's Conjecture, climbing the last metre of a mountain is far more difficult than 'what's already gone underfoot' adds up to.

　　As he thought about this, a faint scent of perfume smelled.

　　A lady, carrying a dinner tray, sat down across from him and said in a casual tone.

　　"Thinking about maths?"

　　"Yes."

　　At the sound of the voice, Orion had guessed who the visitor was and didn't look up as he continued to think about that problem.

　　"There's a coffee party upstairs discussing the contents of Professor Deligne's presentation in the morning, not interested?"

　　"Not really interested ...... not something I'm working on right now." Orion shook his head, turning the page of his notes as he poked a small tomato with his fork and dropped it into his mouth.

　　Looking at Orion with interest, Molina says curiously, "Academic conferences are places for networking, which may only happen once or twice a year, and there's plenty of time for research, so why would you want to put your research on a maths problem at this time of year?"

　　Orion simply replied, "There is still plenty of time to attend maths conferences, but inspiration only comes a few times in a lifetime."

　　Molina stared blankly at Orion, then burst out laughing.

　　Orion looked up at her confused.

　　"What's wrong?"

　　"Sorry, nothing, just thought, you're funny person," Molina raised her goblet slightly, "Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir."

　　"Thank you."

　　He didn't know where the proverb was from, but he could hear that the blessing came from a place of goodwill.