Germany.
North Rhine.
The conference room at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics. The conference table was full of people, and it looked a little crowded.
Faltings sat at the conference table and looked at the expressions of the other participants. He had mixed feelings in his heart.
He never thought about this before.
The internal conference of the Bourbaki school, which was convened to solve the Grand Unified Theory, turned out to be a "review conference" for the final conclusion of the proposition.
It was like God's will, like from the beginning, he was destined not to get what he wanted.
The thing that made him both happy and worried had finally happened …
The scholars sitting at the conference table were abnormally silent.
On one hand, it was because they were shocked, and on the other hand, they didn't know what to say …
Even if they wanted to express their own opinions on this matter, they had to wait until they finished reading the thesis.
Because of this, from yesterday until today, the mainstream voices in the mathematics world had been quite silent. So far, no well-known scholars had expressed their professional views on this matter.
"I see."
Professor Fefferman was the first to break the silence in the conference room.
As he read the paper in his hand, his eyes narrowed into two crescent-shaped slits. His crow's feet were full of praise, as if he was looking at an exquisite piece of art.
"The deeper and more complex the truth, the more minimalistic the expression. The motive that we are studying, as we expected, is the common root of all beautiful cohomology.
"These beautiful properties remind me of Plato's cave metaphor. Do these properties all come from the same thing? Is it just the realization of the same abstract thing on different levels? Just like numbers and shapes, they are actually the same thing in an abstract sense. The only difference is the perspective we look at the problem from.
"… This is amazing."
As for why Professor Fefferman, who wasn't from the Bourbaki school of thought, was here, that was a long story.
He was originally in Paris attending an academic conference in the field of partial differential equations, but he suddenly learned about this amazing thing.
After a simple email exchange with Professor Deligné, he learned that the "review committee" was missing an expert in the field of partial differential equations, so he immediately rushed here from Paris.
He had already read half of the thesis on the way here.
And now, he had finally finished reading the remaining half.
He noticed that everyone was looking at him, so he placed the thesis on the table and shrugged.
"Generally speaking … I've finished reading this thesis. There are no major problems."
"Don't just look at me. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Tell me what you think."
Professor Deligne and Professor Sarnak looked at each other and said after a moment of silence.
"Why don't you say it? After all, he used to be my student. It's not convenient for me to jump to conclusions."
"So are you planning to kick the ball to me?" Professor Sarnak sighed and took off his glasses.
"For such an important proposition, even I can't give an immediate evaluation. Perhaps some words should be read a few more times, but since you've asked …"
After pausing for a moment, he cleared his throat and switched to a serious tone.
"To be honest, I'm shocked.
"Not just his understanding of the Langlands program and motive theory, but also his application of various mathematical tools in various fields … I didn't expect to have such an eye-opening opportunity at this age.
"Let's not comment on whether his argument process is complete or not, but the mathematical methods and frameworks he proposed in the entire thesis have probably surpassed all the achievements we have made in the field of algebraic geometry since the 20th century.
"It's more like a book than a thesis. After EGA, we have a new bible … No, maybe it's even greater. The bible tells us what to believe, and it's like an epic, connecting the past and the future. "
When Professor Sarnak said this, almost everyone at the conference table looked at him in surprise.
Especially Professor Deligné; he was so surprised that he was speechless.
He had worked at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study for a long time, so he was very familiar with this old man.
Even though Sarnak seemed easy-going, there were very few people who could receive positive comments from this guy.
Obviously, this wasn't just a positive comment.
Professor Faltings opened his mouth and spoke after a while.
"Comparable to EGA … Isn't that a bit too much?"
EGA, Grothendieck's "Foundations of Algebraic Geometry".
Even though the name sounded like a university textbook, it was actually the cornerstone of modern algebraic geometry and was regarded as a bible by scholars in this field.
In any case, it was a bit too much to compare this thesis to Professor Grothendieck's greatest achievement.
At least that was what Faltings thought.
Professor Sarnak shook his head and said, "It's not an exaggeration at all, my statement is already very conservative. In fact, what I want to say is that its impact on the future should be even greater than Euclid's "Elements of Geometry" … At least comparable. It's too early to discuss this. Let's wait and see, someone will witness my prediction in the future. "
Voices began to spread around the conference table.
Some people agreed with Professor Sarnak's point of view, while others thought this was too much.
The only undisputed point was that Lu Zhou did an earth-shattering thing.
Regardless of whether or not there was a scholar who could match his achievements, this thesis was destined to be a watershed in the mathematics world. Before it was born, there was another world, and after it was born, there was another world.
"This thesis …" Professor Schulz looked at the printed manuscript in his hand and said, "I can't make a conclusion right now. I'll have to go back and study it. Also … "
He paused for a second and spoke.
"Isn't putting this kind of major mathematical proposition on arXiv too informal? You should at least have a report. "
"I agree with you." Professor Deligné, who had been silent the entire time, nodded and said, "I'll send him an email later and give him some suggestions."
"Looks like I have to fly to Jinling again."
Professor Fefferman glanced at his watch and muttered to himself.
"If I knew this would happen, I would've just bought a ticket to Jinling."
Faltings: "…"
Schulz: "…"
Deligné: "…"
Wonderful Book House
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