656 Is This the Difference?

“This guy is literally lying!”

Zhao Huan said while watching Lu Zhou read the newspaper. She was feeling a little agitated.

She personally witnessed all the blood, sweat, and tears that Lu Zhou put into researching this problem.

But now, out of nowhere, someone was saying that Professor Lu stole the research results!

She thought this was outrageous!

However, unlike her, Lu Zhou was as cool as a cucumber. He even read the report with a look of interest in his eyes.

Lu Zhou finished reading the article and smiled. He then folded the newspaper and gave it back to her.

“Okay then.”

When Zhao Huan saw how unmoved Lu Zhou was, she paused for a second and couldn’t help but ask, “Do you not care at all?”

“There’s nothing to care about.” Lu Zhou picked up his pen and organized the draft paper on his desk. He said, “There’s no way the Chinese media will run this story, so it won’t bother me. As for the foreign media, I don’t have to care about it, people will vouch for me.”

People having similar ideas happened all the time in academia. However, saying that Lu Zhou stepped on his idea, was a bit ridiculous.

Jaffe’s thesis in Annual Mathematics had been published for more than half a century. Professor Brian definitely wasn’t the first person to have thought of this proof; he was just the first that almost succeeded.

Luo Wenxuan was the real person who provided Lu Zhou with this idea, so he was stoked to find his name written on Lu Zhou’s thesis.

As for why Professor Brian was acting this way…

He probably knew he was being illogical, but he just didn’t want to act logically.

After all, this was his chance to make a name for himself. Forget about an unknown scholar, even a Nobel Prize level scholar would be tempted by this honor.

Lu Zhou decided to forget about the Daily Mail article. He didn’t want to complain about Professor Brian’s slander. Instead, he focused his attention on studying the electrostrong interaction.

Even though he was closer than ever to the objective truth, he still needed a lot of time to solve this problem. Just like how the “symmetry breaking” method was first introduced in theoretical physics during the 1960s, but Weinberg took years to complete his electroweak interaction theory.

However, sometimes accidents could happen.

Even if Lu Zhou didn’t actively look for a solution, a solution would find him.

Lu Zhou had been receiving some strange emails. Some emails were interview invitations from media outlets, others were just plain hate messages. Thankfully, Xiao Ai helped him filter out the “spam email”.

However, Lu Zhou couldn’t just stay silent like this forever.

After some contemplation, Lu Zhou decided to let his assistant arrange some interviews with various foreign media outlets.

Just like Lu Zhou had expected, the second the interview began, he was asked a controversial question.

“During Professor Brian’s interviews with the BBC, the Daily Mail, and other media outlets, he insisted that you plagiarized his research… What are your thoughts?”

Lu Zhou chuckled.

“I don’t have any thoughts.”

The reporter said, “You… don’t have an opinion?”

“Yes.” Lu Zhou nodded and replied relaxingly, “If Mr. Brian can prove the Yang-Mills equations by setting a spacetime manifold, then I’ll give him all the glory of solving a Millennium Prize Problem.”

Lu Zhou was totally calm when he said this, like he didn’t care at all.

However, the reporter next to him was shocked.

All the glory of solving a Millennium Prize Problem!

Even though the reporter had never heard of someone transferring “glory” to someone else, this so-called “glory” would make Professor Brian one of the most outstanding mathematical physicists of this century…

Maybe Lu Zhou didn’t think it was convincing enough, so he looked at the reporter and said, “Of course, this is including the million-dollar prize money as offered by the Clay Institute.

“I’ll even pay him in advance.”

…

The interview was first broadcasted on the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Then it was reposted onto other major video sites, such as Youtube.

Because of the British media’s portrayal of the situation, the public was originally on Professor Brian’s side. However, after hearing some words from Lu Zhou, the public started to doubt Professor Brian.

Lu Zhou didn’t care about fame or fortune at all. There was no motivation for him to do something like this.

Maybe…

There was another side to this story.

Inside an office at the University of Oxford.

Professor Brian stared angrily at his computer screen as he watched Lu Zhou’s interview in its entirety. When he heard Lu Zhou say that he would give the prize money to him, he almost started to blow fire from his mouth.

There was no way Brian was going to swallow his pride.

“You better keep your word, Mr. Lu Zhou.”

Professor Brian closed his laptop and pulled out some paper from his drawer.

“I’ll give you the proof…

“This method is definitely feasible…

“You will pay for your own words!”

Time always flew by when one was immersed in research.

Even though Brian hadn’t done intense research for a long time, with his rage and anger as fuel, it made him extra energetic. Even though being overly emotional wasn’t a good thing, Brian turned it into drive and motivation.

A month passed by.

Professor Brian’s beard grew like a wild forest. He didn’t look like a gentleman anymore. He was almost unrecognizable.

A PhD student was sitting in the corner of the office. He looked at the professor and quietly whispered to himself, “The professor is insane…”

This PhD student used to study psychology before he went into physics.

According to his experience, this was clearly a sign of someone going crazy.

Another PhD student sitting next to him spoke as well.

“Sh, be quiet, don’t let Professor Brian hear you.”

The office was only so big, so Brian was bound to hear it.

However, Brian Caro didn’t care anymore…

His murky pupils looked straight at the crumpled pieces of paper. Professor Brian muttered to himself the same phrase that he had been saying for the past month, “This is impossible… This is impossible…”

However, this time, there was a trace of life in his voice.

He put down his pen and looked at the ceiling. He then said with a monotonic voice, “I proved it.”

The second he said those words, everyone in the office was stunned.

10 seconds of silence went by.

His assistant was the first one who dared to break this silence.

The young man in his twenties gulped and spoke in disbelief. His voice was trembling.

“You… p-proved it?!”

He proved it!

If Professor Lu was a man of his word, not only would Brian receive a million dollars, but he would also receive the honor of solving the Yang-Mills equations and become one of the greatest mathematicians of this century.

“Yes.” Brian looked at the draft paper and said in a self-deprecating tone, “I spent a month proving that the scalar spacetime field manifold cannot be used to research the strong interaction… A mathematical proof.”

Whether it was the invariant torus Euclidean space or the grid step size limit…

All of these mistakes were just manifestations of something deeper.

Luo Wenxuan didn’t see the whole picture, and neither did Brian.

The most crucial problem in Brian’s thesis was that the scalar spacetime manifold field itself couldn’t be used to study strong interactions. It was as if 1+1 could never be equal to 3, no matter how many factorizations he did, he would never be able to overthrow the Peano axioms.

Lu Zhou must have known about this since the beginning. That’s why Lu Zhou was so sure Brian couldn’t do it.

Brian finally realized this.

Even though he wasn’t as talented as Lu Zhou, he still proved this in a mathematical way.

Maybe he could call this the “Brian’s theorem” or a “non-standard theorem”?

In the midst of his self-deprecation, Brian had an epiphany.

It was at this moment, did he finally realized what Professor Lu was talking about.

“If Mr. Brian can prove the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap by setting a scalar spacetime manifold field?… Is that what you meant?” Brian said as he logged onto Youtube. He soon found Lu Zhou’s interview.

After he watched the video, he smiled bitterly.

“Is this the difference between him and me?”

Lu Zhou’s mathematics intuition alone was able to defeat something that Brian spent more than a decade on. In Brian’s mind, Lu Zhou was an absolute monster.

Why do I feel like…

I’m becoming more and more in denial.

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