Since Lu Zhou made up his mind to report on the Navier – Stokes equation at the International Congress of Mathematicians, he didn't have time to waste.
It was already early April. If he wanted to make it to the conference in early August, he had to write his Navier – Stokes equation thesis in early July.
In other words, he was only left with three months at the very most.
In a situation like this, his only option was to work as hard as he could …
He flipped through the pages of the calendar, and it was soon June in the midst of his intense research.
As the conference got closer and closer, the International Mathematical Union sent more than one email reminding Lu Zhou that he should update his report content on the official website.
Normally, participants needed to register their report content before the conference and upload the report within a specified time limit.
In early June, Lu Zhou finally remembered this matter. He logged into the International Mathematical Union account and updated his information on the official website of the International Congress of Mathematicians, as well as the topic of the report.
Many people had already registered their reports half a year in advance. It was rare for people to wait until June.
Especially one-hour reports. Because the content of the report was usually relatively important, and the presenter was an internationally renowned scholar, it naturally received a lot of attention.
A few months ago, major mathematics forums were discussing what Princeton Professor Lu was planning.
Many people in the field of number theory logged onto the official website every morning and refreshed the announcement page. They wanted to be the first to see Lu Zhou's one-hour report topic.
In fact, Lu Zhou's one-hour report content on the official website met everyone's expectations.
When the entire mathematics community saw that the topic of the report was the Navier – Stokes equation …
On a well-known mathematics forum in Europe, a discussion began.
[The existence and smoothness of a three-dimensional incompressible Navier – Stokes equation solution? How is this possible?!]
[How many people have claimed to have solved the Navier – Stokes equation problem?]
[I can't even count …]
[Last time it was a scholar from Kazakhstan, this time it's a scholar from China. Are scholars from third-world countries that interested in a million dollars from the Clay Institute?]
[Let's wait for him to release the thesis. It's hard to say anything before we see the thesis. What if he really solves the Millennium Prize Problem? Just like how he solved Goldbach's conjecture.
[This is impossible! Navier – Stokes equation and Goldbach's conjecture were two completely different problems! One was partial differential equations, the other was number theory! No matter how much of a genius he is, it's impossible for him to reach the pinnacle in two completely different fields!]
The debate on the Internet was extremely intense.
It wasn't just the netizens discussing this on the forum. Many well-known scholars in the academic world also expressed a considerable degree of attention to this unexpected shocking news.
Naturally, Tao, who knew a little of everything, was one of them.
In fact, since 2007, his personal blog had been updating a lot about the Navier – Stokes equation. He had also published many related theses.
In the latest issue of his blog, Tao Zhexuan, who was passionate about commenting on hot topics in the mathematics community, wrote a blog post and expressed his own views on this matter.
[… Before reading the specific thesis, it is difficult for me to give a specific opinion on whether or not he can solve this problem. However, based on my understanding of him, even though he is passionate about taking risks, he won't do things that he isn't confident in.
[Also, around two months ago, I noticed his latest research results published in Annual Mathematics. A lot of people should know that the paper proposed a very novel differential manifold, the L flow.]
[I was confused about the specific use of the L Manifold at first. But after I did some in-depth research, I discovered that it could be a bridge between topology and partial differential equations.
[There is no doubt that this is a very interesting differential geometry tool. Ever since then, I had a feeling that it might be the key to solving the Navier – Stokes equation.]
The discussions weren't just concentrated on the Internet.
Two weeks after Lu Zhou updated his personal information and chose the Navier – Stokes equation as the topic of his report, a silver flight crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America.
Outside of New York International Airport, Leon dragged his suitcase off the plane and gave his old friend Fefferman a warm hug.
"Long time no see, my old friend."
"Long time no see!" Professor Fefferman patted his old friend's shoulder and smiled. "What brings you here?"
Standing in front of Fefferman was Professor Leon from École Normale Supérieure. As the 1994 Fields Award winner, his research had made outstanding contributions to the field of nonlinear partial differential equations and Boltzmann equations.
The Navier – Stokes equation had always been one of Leon's research topics. Even though he wasn't engaged in related research, he had always been paying attention to the research progress in this area.
After he saw that Lu Zhou chose the Navier – Stokes equation as the topic of his report, he immediately flew from Paris to Princeton to visit his old friend, who was the head of the mathematics department at Princeton.
"… The Atlantic monsoon, or rather, my curiosity." Leon put his suitcase in the trunk and sat in the passenger seat. He didn't even have time to put on his seatbelt before he asked, "Did you guys really research the Navier – Stokes equation?"
Professor Fefferman, who was holding the steering wheel, paused for a second.
He went silent for a second before he shook his head.
"… Sorry, I don't know."
This time, it was Leon's turn to be stunned.
He had a look of disbelief on his face.
"You don't know? Aren't you guys researching this topic together? "
"That's right." Professor Fefferman started the car and said, "We did collaborate on the Navier – Stokes equation, but about two months ago, we parted ways on how to solve the problem. Now, we're doing our own things …"
So far, he was still trying to solve abstract proofs.
As for which step Lu Zhou was at, he wasn't sure.
Leon: "…"
He studied it from two different lines of thought.
Only a genius could come up with this kind of collaboration.
Leon went silent for a second before he said, "Can you take me to see Professor Lu? I want to talk to him in person. "
Fefferman shook his head and said, "I'm afraid not."
Leon: "Why not?"
Fefferman sighed and said, "When he's researching problems, he likes to lock himself in his room. Once he goes into this state, unless his research makes satisfactory progress or there's an earthquake, I'm afraid no one can knock on his door."
Honestly, Fefferman suspected that even an earthquake couldn't do it.
Leon's face was full of surprise as he said, "This … is unbelievable."
Fefferman smiled and shook his head as he said, "I was just as surprised as you at first. After all, this is the 21st century. Other than Perelman, there are people who use this kind of cultivation method to research mathematics problems. Even Perelman only reduced his travel, not completely blocked the information from the outside world like Roland did. But now, I'm used to it. "
The professor hesitated and said, "Is he … a relatively solitary scholar?"
Professor Fefferman waved his hand and said, "Not really, I'm happy to get along with him. As for his unique research method, it became an interesting story in Princeton. Later on, I heard from the China students that this kind of research method is very common in China. "
Leon immediately asked, "What kind of research method?"
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