Read Novel Full Chapter 247 - Princeton’s First Lecture
Chapter 247: Princeton’s First Lecture
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The report soon started. However, there was a small incident.
The protagonist of this report, Professor Enoch, seemed to be absent.
The atmosphere in the crowd was awkward.
Honestly, Lu Zhou was stunned. He wanted to talk to professor Enoch, but what now?
Larter was sweating as he explained on stage, “Professor Enoch has some personal stuff to sort out. I’m trying to contact him.”
“Although justice is an important issue, our time is valuable,” said a black man who was sitting in the front row of the venue said with a dissatisfied tone. He then asked, “I’m now doubting if Professor Enoch even takes this matter seriously?”
Honestly speaking, African Americans did not like their African brothers that much.
However, for their own interests, they had to take this matter seriously.
Larter started to sweat, and he cursed Enoch in his mind.
The report was about to start, but Enoch wanted to go eat some burger. It had been two hours and Enoch had yet to return.
Larter swore that this would be the last time he interacted with Nigerians. Nigerians really did not keep their word.
Suddenly, an unexpected voice was heard.
“Since Professor Enoch is a little busy, let me talk first.”
The main reason was that Lu Zhou did not want to waste his time. He just wanted to end this lecture.
Larter froze.
He did not think that Lu Zhou would solve his problem.
However…
Did Lu Zhou actually want to solve his problem?
It was too late.
Lu Zhou already walked on stage, and the people in the crowd obviously agreed with this proposal.
Larter reluctantly retreated to the side. He knew that if he objected, he would be booed off the stage.
As Lu Zhou stood on the podium, he was not nervous at all.
He was experienced in doing reports.
However, he had not expected that his first lecture as a professor would be at the Princeton Hotel.
Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.
At least it counted as practice.
He stared at the hundreds of pairs of eyes in the crowd and cleared his throat before he said,
“I can tell that you guys don’t trust me.”
The audience did not say anything. Many people either looked at their watch or looked around as they were clearly disinterested in it.
However, this was normal, and Lu Zhou had expected it.
He paused for a second before he raised his voice.
“Because the person standing in front of you is a Princeton elite, and you are the most distrustful of the elite. You are distrustful of their morality and academic qualifications. You are more eager to hear those neglected voices. So, I bet that in a few months, most of you will vote for a fat man named Trump, because he is the only smart person who tries to stand in your perspective and makes your voice heard… Of course, this is not what I want to talk about today.”
“Before the speech begins, please remember that I am a Chinese citizen.”
“Since you guys are so politically correct, let me ask this. When you read the Washington Times article, did you ignore my voice?”
Lu Zhou did not speak loudly, but it was impactful.
The crowd froze. They were speechless.
They thought…
Lu Zhou made sense?
Suddenly, no one looked at their watch anymore and they paid attention to the person standing on the podium.
Many people started to listen to him intently.
Lu Zhou smirked.
He already achieved his goal.
Larter kept calling on his phone.
“What is this black dude doing?”
He stuffed his phone into his pocket and looked at the stage.
Although he wanted to drag Lu Zhou off stage, he could not do it.
After all, he was the one that invited Lu Zhou.
And now, Lu Zhou was here.
Lu Zhou looked at the audience and continued, “I won’t use any difficult mathematics symbols today, and I won’t talk about anything that is difficult to understand… Of course, don’t mind it if there are a few difficult parts. After all, mathematics has to be explained through symbols.”
Lu Zhou did not have Hawking’s level of articulation.
However, he could still articulate some common things.
Lu Zhou turned around to the blackboard and wrote down two lines of equations.
[Riemann’s conjecture, π(x)=Li(x)+O(xe^{-1/15√lnx})]
[If Riemann’s conjecture is true, then π(x)=Li(x)+O(√xlnx)]
He then turned around and smiled at the audience.
“Mathematics is a very magical thing, so is the Riemann’s conjecture. Although you might not understand what I wrote, I can tell you that the first line of the equation forms the basis of number theory, the so-called prime number theorem. The second line is a more accurate formula for the distribution of prime numbers obtained by H.von Koch in 1901, based on the Riemann conjecture. Although this formula isn’t used in textbooks, it has already been used for over a century.”
“I can write a dozen more similar examples, but there are too many.”
“As for these two formulas, they are the most common ones.”
“In the world of mathematics, the common practice is to solve it first, then find applications. What kind of applications? Let’s say we prove Riemann’s conjecture, then…”
“As for why I mentioned Riemann’s conjecture, is because this answers Professor Enoch’s thesis. He proved a rather “interesting” point in his thesis. He builds around the ζ function under the condition of the Riemann’s conjecture. Under the prime number distribution system, is Goldbach’s conjecture true or false?”
Lu Zhou paused for a moment. He then smiled and continued, “The reason why I said it was “interesting”, is because till now, not a single person has considered this method. In fact, Hardy and Littlewood proved in the 20th century, that under the conditions of Riemann’s conjecture, weak Goldbach’s conjecture can be proved.”
“But take note! I’m talking about the generalized Riemann’s conjecture which is different than the actual Riemann’s conjecture.”
The crowd was confused. They obviously did not know what was going on.
They thought, “Then doesn’t it mean that the generalized Riemann’s conjecture can solve Goldbach’s conjecture?”
In fact, this was not the case.
As for why, basically, it was similar to using Newtonian physics to calculate objects traveling near the speed of light. It was ridiculous.
Lu Zhou smiled.
“The difference between GRH and RH isn’t easy to understand. Basically, GRH is the object of discussion, whereas RH is a more extensive Dirichlet L function.”
“The Dirichlet L function can barely prove Goldbach’s conjecture, maybe from a probability point of view… Anyone in number theory knows this.”
“This is just a matter of the history of number theory.”
Lu Zhou took a deep breath before he said slowly, “It’s worth noting that the 20th century was the closest anyone has gotten to prove Goldbach’s conjecture from GRH. Because it’s less than 20 years, or exactly 1937 since Vinogradov and Este Mann used the circle method, and without the help from the generalized Riemann’s conjecture, established the weak Goldbach conjecture.”
Then in 2012, Tao Zhexuan proved that “odd numbers can be expressed as the sum of up to five prime numbers.”
Then after a year, Helfgott completely solved the weak Goldbach’s conjecture and reduced this number to a calculable size.
This completely got rid of the GRH.
Actually, this type of situation was common in number theory. The birth of Theorem 1 by mathematician A drew a beautiful conclusion and attracted everyone’s interest.
Then mathematician B came out and tried to prove Theorem 1. If they could not solve it, mathematician C would then come out with a weaker Theorem 1 and established it.
Then theorems 1,2,3… were established. Everyone realized that these sets of theorems could be used to solve RH. The Clay Institute would probably replace RH with GRH.
Yes, history was full of routines.
It was precisely this cycle that advanced civilization.
Would some people reconnect things already proven by GRH?
Emm…
Although it was interesting, was there any meaning? If a student did this, then the professors would look at them with approval. If a professor did this, then he would be laughed at by his peers.
“Riemann’s conjecture is a very important thing. Maybe the Clay Institute will give Dr. Enoch a reply in the future, but this has nothing to do with me. I only explained the relationship between Goldbach’s conjecture and Riemann’s conjecture.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “If my explanation isn’t simple enough, I can make it simpler.”
“The primes numbers in Riemann’s conjecture are used for multiplication, whereas the prime numbers in Goldbach’s conjecture are used for the addition!”
This statement was not accurate, but it was close enough.
The audience smiled.
This explanation was a lot easier to digest.
Lu Zhou paused for a moment. He then smiled and said, “As for why Goldbach’s conjecture isn’t as important as Riemann’s conjecture, it’s because that for most people, prime numbers are used for multiplication! These two conjectures have different values, and they do not form a ‘system’. Even if you don’t know the difference between RH and GRH, you should know what Vinogradov did when he solved the three prime number theorem.”
“This is where your influence comes in.”
The stage was silent.
Lu Zhou looked at the pairs of persuaded eyes, and he knew that it was time to end his speech.
“Some conceptual things can’t be circumvented by a system. The whole of mathematics is shrouded in the ‘system’ of Peano’s axioms, but not all problems are as obvious as Peano’s axioms. Especially when you really understand it, you will find that ‘1+1’ and ‘1+1=2’ are actually completely different things. They are both prime number problems, but they are wildly different.”
“As for myself, I’m nothing special. I only stood on the shoulders of countless great mathematicians. Mr. Chen’s contribution to the large sieve method, Professor Tao’s discussion with me at Berkeley, etc, have all benefited me. Helfgott’s thesis opened a new door to the world of mathematics for me. They are all heroes of history. Although there might only be one name imprinted in history, their work cannot be summarized in three hours. Therefore, I want to sincerely thank them.”
“Even though my thesis only took 2 months time, the foundation was built a long time ago.”
Lu Zhou tried to use simpler language to convey his thoughts.
Larter might not be happy.
Lu Zhou was right.
He noticed that next to the podium, Larter was fuming.
However, this changed nothing.
America was different than China. The root of the populist problem came from the White House and Wall Street. They would never use simple language to convey ideas to ordinary people.
The solution to this problem was very simple.
Just speak normally.
If Lu Zhou wrote more than two lines of equations, the New York Times and other media headlines would look very different tomorrow.
However, Lu Zhou was confident now that he convinced more than half of the crowd.
Lu Zhou sometimes discovered that he was not completely ignorant in politics. Experiments and science taught him logic which was applicable in politics.
Maybe once he reached level ten for all of his subjects, the system would unlock all of its knowledge to him.
He believed that the day would come.
Lu Zhou sighed in his heart and put down the marker.
The moment he put down the marker.
The crowd applaused…