The day after Christmas, the entrance to San Francisco International Airport.
Driving Orion to the airport, Tao got out of the car and opened the boot for him, smiling, "Have a nice trip."
"Thanks," said Orion with a smile as he dragged the suitcase out.
Over the past two days Orion had often discussed maths problems with this genius, and although there was a difference of almost twenty years in age, their personalities were unexpectedly compatible. When it was time to leave, Tao offered to take him to the airport, and Orion readily agreed.
Before the plane took off, Orion casually picked up a newspaper in the terminal, and was captivated by the headlines.
The Riemann Conjecture, a problem that has plagued the mathematical community for a century and a half, has been proved by Professor Opayemi Enoch of the University of Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria!
Orion: ????
What the hell?
You haven't heard of this at all?
Thinking he had missed the big news, Orion quickly went to the Arxiv website and searched for the paper.
However, before Orion clicked on the paper, he lost interest the moment he saw that the article was classified as [General-Mathematics]. Articles thrown into this classification are essentially worthless to read.
Orion: "......"
He finally understood why the Daily Mail had been blacklisted by Wikipedia at one point.
The proof of the Riemann Conjecture was not a matter of a million dollar reward, but would mean that thousands of inferences based on the Riemann Conjecture would be upgraded to theorems.
As a random example, a Swede named Koch proposed a more precise expression for the prime number theorem based on Riemann's conjecture, which is also known as the prime number theorem under strong conditions: π(x) = Lix + O(√x · lnx).
If the Riemann Conjecture holds, then this formula holds.
If the Riemann Conjecture is disproved, then thousands of formulas like it will be buried with it.
Orion scanned the paper briefly and closed the page.
Expecting to prove Riemann's Conjecture with a few symbols and knowledge of elementary mathematics was a waste of time.
As for why the Cray Institute had ignored the man, ignoring the paper without comment, Orion could probably guess.
Perhaps one day he would try to challenge the Riemann Conjecture, the crown of mathematics, but for now the important thing was to solve the problem at hand. Both Goldbach's Conjecture and the collaborative project with Professor Frank had already taken up a lot of his energy ......
......
After a ten-hour flight and a connecting flight, Orion walked out of the airport with his suitcase in hand.
Gordon University had always had a good academic reputation, but it was a little less prestigious. Part of the reason for this was that it hadn't been known for having any particularly famous people.
After Orion's rise to fame, the number of applicants to Gordon University's Maths Department in 2015 has risen considerably, and so has the number of applicants to other majors.
Predictably, the 2016 academic season will see another influx of fresh students bravely jumping into the maths pit on this beautiful campus.
Orion is very happy about this.
YOU ARE READING
Orion Crest, Series_1
Science FictionIt is a memoir that depicts the history of human civilization hundreds of years into the future. In the next hundreds of chapters, Orion guides humanity towards the stars. How would you feel if someone said to you that our earth, our solar sy...
