November 25th.
It was raining heavily in North Rhine-Westphalia, and people couldn't help but worry about whether the Rhine River would overflow its embankment.
Located in the corner of the right bank of the Rhine River, an ordinary-looking research institute was suffering from this problem.
The grayish-black stone bricks were mottled with the passage of time. Under the baptism of the wind and rain, they let out a low mournful cry, like an old man leaning against a grapevine, gently panting for the few years that were left.
Of course, compared to the things that were really worth worrying about, this bad weather was insignificant.
As a witness of the glory of the Göttingen School of Thought and the inheritor of the Bourbaki School of Thought, it had been thinking about this world for nearly two hundred years, and it would continue to think.
However, this was probably the first time.
Because of a certain problem that bothered it so much …
The door opened, and an old man walked in from the outside of the research institute on the steps that were soaked in water.
Professor Faltings shook off the water droplets on his raincoat and handed it to his assistant. He had just rushed here from home. He rubbed his hands and walked toward the direction of the conference room.
It had been more than a month since Lu Zhou returned to Europe from China.
In the past month, many things had happened in the mathematics world.
The thesis on the proof of the Beilinson-Bloch conjecture published in "Future Mathematics" was the beginning. The research on motive and cohomology theory in algebraic geometry was directly pushed from the shore to the deep waters.
A large number of research results emerged in this field one after another, making people more and more convinced that Grothendieck's prediction of algebraic geometry was close at hand, and there was a high probability that it was correct.
If there were not too many accidents, perhaps in their lifetime, most people would hope to see that day.
The day that algebra and geometry were unified in a certain sense!
"Long time no see, Professor Faltings." A chubby old man saw Faltings walk in from outside the conference room. He smiled and enthusiastically extended his right hand to greet him.
"Speaking of which, it's been six years since I met you in Stockholm's Blue Hall, right?"
"How have you been, Sarnak, you're finally here." Faltings shook Sarnak's hand and glanced at his stomach that was like a tightened ball. He couldn't help but smirk. "Looks like you've been living a good life these past few years."
"Tolerably so," said Sarnak, laughing heartily, "your humour is as unpleasing as ever."
Professor Sarnak was the former editor-in-chief of Annual Mathematics. He was also the winner of the 2014 Wolf Mathematics Prize. A scholar who won this lifetime achievement award might not be the best academically, but he was definitely a world-renowned scholar.
As for why the former editor-in-chief of Annual Mathematics was here …
The reason was naturally the same as Deligné, who was silently flipping through the meeting minutes at the conference table. They were all sitting here for the same reason, for the same goal.
Almost all the top scholars of the Bourbaki School of Mathematics had gathered at this meeting.
This included Sarnak, Grothendieck's proudest student, Deligné, Faltings, who was known as the pope of mathematics, and Schulz, who was recognized by Faltings as the most promising scholar to surpass him …
Up until now, this meeting had lasted for three days.
"Since everyone is here, let's get straight to the point." Faltings walked to the conference table and sat down. He looked at the pouring rain outside the window and said slowly, "It's going to be winter soon. It's too uncomfortable to sit together like this."
"I agree with you." Professor Deligné finally finished reading the meeting minutes in his hand. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and said in a calm voice, "The thing I hate the most about Europe is that it's always raining at this time of year."
Faltings's proposal was unanimously approved by more than a dozen participants.
The conference on the topic of the Grand Unified Theory soon began.
The first to speak was Schulz. He reported his research on the morphism Hom (hX, hY) of smooth projective clusters over k and determined that it was a non-Abelian category.
This immediately attracted the attention of all of the participants.
Everyone knew that the Abelian category was the basic framework of homological algebra. If the morphism of smooth projective clusters over k was a non-Abelian category, then it undoubtedly denied the most likely way to solve the Grand Unified Theory, which was through the cohomology group and algebraic topology theory.
Although this result was somewhat depressing, it could prove that one of their ideas was not feasible, and it more or less saved everyone a lot of precious time.
At least now they didn't have to hypothesize various possibilities of Hom (hX, hY) while discussing an uncertain proposition.
The conference went on for a full two hours.
Basically, everyone unreservedly put their research results on the conference table for discussion until the conference came to an end.
Faltings looked at the scribbled notes in his notebook and nodded with satisfaction.
Compared to yesterday, they had made some progress today.
In addition to proving that using cohomology group and algebraic topology theory to study the morphism of smooth projective clusters over k was a waste of time, they successfully deduced that the category of smooth projective clusters over k was V (k) through algebraic chain theory. This verified one of Grothendieck's Grothendieck standard conjectures.
Normally, this exciting result would be enough for them to open at least a bottle of champagne.
This wasn't just an in-progress result of the Grand Unified Theory.
It was also an in-progress result of the Grothendieck standard conjectures.
However, not only did no one mention the champagne, no one even felt optimistic about this. Instead, they felt more and more anxious.
Algebraic chain theory wasn't a particularly complicated method. Faltings believed that if they could come up with it, then so could Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou hadn't published a single thesis in the past month.
This either meant that he had reached a bottleneck, or he was working on something even more amazing.
Faltings was more inclined to believe that the latter was more likely.
After struggling for more than a month, he no longer expected to solve this problem with his own or Schultz's power.
Maybe it was selfish, but it was definitely not for himself.
He now only hoped to gather the strength of the entire Bourbaki's School to overcome this difficulty, so that the glory of the school could continue, and not be overshadowed by the light of a brighter lighthouse.
If Lu Zhou really completed the Grand Unified Theory …
Unlike the Riemann conjecture, which made thousands of propositions into theorems, the Grand Unified Theory would connect thousands of theorems in a straight line.
This result would surpass all of the mathematical achievements in the 20th century combined.
And after completing this great undertaking, his achievements would undoubtedly reach the pinnacle of history …
The conference ended.
The participants got up and left.
Professor Faltings put away his notebook and was about to get up. He suddenly noticed that the screen of his smartphone on the table flickered, and an unread email popped up.
His index finger tapped on the screen. He picked up the phone and was about to take a look at who sent the email.
However, when he saw the email, he froze.
The email was short.
It was as short as six letters.
[Finish.]
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