On the other side of the world.
The Princeton campus was shrouded in darkness. It was already late at night, and only a few libraries with night study rooms were lit up.
In an activity room of a library near the apartment, Vera placed a stack of papers on the table and flipped to a certain page. Her slender index finger swept through the lines of calculations and finally stopped in the middle. She spoke softly.
"… Page 27, line 11, there's a problem with the equations here."
Compared to three years ago, her height hadn't changed much. The only difference was that her ponytail, which used to be like a squirrel's tail, was now long enough to reach her arms. Her hair was combed into a Greek princess braid.
If she wore a long dress with lace edges, she might even be mistaken for a real princess. Unfortunately, her slender shoulders were wrapped in a very ordinary school uniform. This also caused her to be mistaken for a high school student who came to participate in an academic summer camp at certain times …
"Let me see … Oh my god, you're even stricter than my PhD supervisor." Molina, who had dark circles under her eyes, rubbed her eyebrows. She grabbed a pen from the table, stretched, and slowly sat up.
The feeling of staying up late was not a good feeling. It was a burden on her shoulders and lumbar spine. Even though she started school early, she received her PhD and became a lecturer at Princeton. She was not young at all.
At least, she was young compared to the girl standing next to her.
After being praised by her partner, Vera smiled shyly and said embarrassedly.
"Not at all, compared to Sophie Morel, I'm still far behind."
When Molina was still a PhD student, Sophie Morel was her supervisor. The two worked together for a long time on the critical line problem of the Riemann conjecture. However, after Sophie Morel lost the Nobel Prize in 2018, Sophie gave up on the Riemann conjecture. She switched to other research projects and was doing quite well.
Molina, on the other hand, was still working on this research project. Even though she went from a PhD student to a lecturer at Princeton, this did not change.
As for why she was working with Vera, that was a long story.
In short, the two were working on the same research project, fighting for the Riemann conjecture.
"No, that's because you're too humble. That coward can't complete a beautiful proof like the Collatz theorem, and it's impossible for her to find such a tricky problem … "Molina bit her pen and stared at the line of equations. She scratched her head and said in annoyance," Damn it, I should have thought of Odrízko's zero-point calculation earlier. "
"Bingo, Odrízko's zero-point calculation," Vera said softly. She wrote two lines of equations on a piece of paper and corrected the error. She said, "After the correction, it can be deduced that 40% of the non-trivial zeros are on the critical line … Congratulations, Ms. Molina, you found a method other than Levinson's algorithm and re-proved Conrey's critical line theorem."
She said the last sentence in a comforting tone.
However, she was not sure if this was comforting.
It took a month to come up with the idea and two months to try it out. The final result was a conclusion that was already reached in 1990.
The critical line dividing the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function was still at the annoying number 40%. If anyone could push it forward even a little bit, they would have a chance at winning the next Fields Medal or the Fields Medal after that.
However, after so many years, only its challengers had fallen. No one had been able to force this evil dragon to take a step back.
"But this is meaningless," said Molina. She sighed and said, "Maybe … Mathematics Chronicle will consider accepting our thesis."
Vera gave her an encouraging look and spoke softly.
"I think they will consider it. At least we found another way to use Odrízko's zero-point calculation."
Unlike other disciplines, mathematics research was not completely result-oriented. Sometimes, even though the answer was not perfect, if the process was interesting enough, it could still be published in the journal. Especially Mathematics Chronicle. Although it was no longer run by Princeton, Princeton was still relatively "lenient" towards theses produced by Princeton.
However …
It would be difficult for the top four journals like Annual Mathematics to get into the top journals.
"Maybe …" said Molina as she rubbed her messy hair. She said, "Maybe we should change our approach. I studied Sir Atiyah's notes and found his research to be very interesting."
Vera opened her mouth.
"Molina …"
Molina, who had dark circles under her eyes, tilted her head and said, "What?"
Vera said in a serious manner, "You really should rest for a while."
Although this may be a little disrespectful to the late Sir Atiyah, many people had such thoughts long before he passed away, and in the end, they returned resentfully.
"Don't worry about me, I'm fine …" said Molina as she touched her forehead. She said, "Maybe you're right, I should rest."
She felt like she was going crazy to start studying Sir Atiyah's thesis.
Vera opened her mouth slightly and finally sat next to her. After a moment of silence, she asked.
After a while, she asked, "Why are you … so obsessed with Riemann's conjecture?"
When Molina heard this question, she joked, "Just like why are you obsessed with that man?"
Vera blushed and hesitated for a while. She stared at the thesis on the table and spoke.
"I … I'm not as obsessed as you say. He just gave me hope when I was most helpless."
Molina: "But that was many years ago, wasn't it?"
Vera went silent for a while and nodded.
Indeed, she also knew that it was something that happened many years ago.
She wasn't even sure if Lu Zhou still remembered what she looked like.
Although she always remembered what he looked like …
"Me too." Molina smiled and gently sprayed the empty mug on the table. She said, "Mathematics gave me the same thing."
Vera looked at her with a puzzled expression.
"But why Riemann's conjecture?"
"Let's talk about this next time."
Molina stood up from her chair. However, because she was too tired, her body swayed and fell to the side. Fortunately, Vera immediately got up and held her, preventing her from tripping.
"Thank you," said Molina. She used her right hand to support herself and said, "If he doesn't want you, you can marry me."
Vera's face suddenly turned red and she quickly said, "Sorry … I didn't mean that."
Molina pursed her lips and smiled.
"I'm just kidding, don't take it seriously."
With that, she blinked, picked up the thesis on the table, hugged it to her chest, and quickly walked away.
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