Super God-Level Top Student
Chapter 982 - 376: Are You Willing to Respect Knowledge and Pay for It?

The seven-day Spring Festival holiday in the Year of the Snake quickly passed by in the blink of an eye.

From a human perspective, time really seems elastic. Holidays always flash by, while days spent tightening screws in the factory tend to feel like a lifetime.

It's not about relativity, purely a subjective human perception.

Fortunately, there are always those bigwigs who find going to work more comfortable than resting; they balance out this feeling.

However, such bigwigs are rare. A few truly turn their interests into a livelihood, while most hold managerial positions. Although the mentally strained in this world may lose hair faster, in most cases, their spiritual world is richer than those who labor physically.

Take Zhang Mingrui, for example.

Transferred from the Capital to Xilin, from the research institute to the university as a president, it's hard to say if it's a promotion.

Yet, he found a sense of youthful ambition and boldness again.

After ten years of chilling experiences, the passionate Chinese mathematician has eventually found a reason to strive once more.

In a sense, at this moment, Zhang Mingrui is somewhat similar to Xu Dajiang.

His academic pursuits have nearly reached an end, with his internal goal already set on a posthumous group reputation. Of course, there are differences; at least Zhang Mingrui's academic achievements significantly surpass those of Xu Dajiang, with more disciples in the Huaxia community.

After arriving in Xilin, Zhang Mingrui's most concerning issue is that Qiao Ze's latest paper on mathematical intertwining is too esoteric, somewhat surpassing this era.

What Zhang Mingrui doesn't know is that Qiao Ze's paper has already started to ferment abroad, with its influence brewing...

...

California, at the National Mathematics Research Institute behind the Berkeley Branch.

In a separate office on the third floor of the main building, Robert Stephen faced a thick stack of papers.

Yes, it's precisely Qiao Ze's latest paper.

Many traditional mathematicians are not accustomed to reading papers on computers, preferring paper and pen to mark problematic areas directly and jot down their thoughts for greater inspiration.

To be honest, these past two years haven't been good for Robert Stephen.

Since attending Qiao Ze's doctoral defense and asking a question that was ignored by Qiao Ze and scorned by peers, he has refused almost all invitations to meetings, leading a life confined between home and office.

For a long time, he became very sensitive.

Even when entering the research institute's building and seeing colleagues whisper and smile knowingly, he would assume they were mocking him behind his back, making his relations with many colleagues tense.

For this, he even consulted a psychologist for a while, and only after a tough psychological recovery did he seem to become even more obsessed.

There must be something wrong with Qiao Ze's paper; it's just that he hasn't found the flaw yet.

How could a young man, just twenty years old, solve these problems flawlessly, especially being of Asian descent?

Yes, even though many of Qiao Ze's points have been proven in physics, some correct conclusions might be based on erroneous reasoning.

Especially in number theory.

Flaws in proofs might be overlooked, but a systematic mathematical logic can collapse entirely if there is even one loophole.

Yes, during this period, Robert Stephen was indeed at odds with Qiao Ze's superspiral algebra theory.

He even abandoned his research projects, working overtime daily to study Qiao Ze's papers on superspiral algebra and transcendental geometry, as well as related papers by others in this new direction, trying to find contradictions in their proof systems.

Clearly, he hasn't succeeded yet.

But he has gained something; these deeply invested studies over the past year have made him one of the most knowledgeable Western mathematicians on superspiral algebra and transcendental geometry. He simply hasn't published any heavyweight papers, as his main goal was to find errors.

What he never expected was that, even before finding mistakes in the proof, another heavyweight paper co-authored by Qiao Ze and Edward Witten had appeared — The First Principle of Mathematical Intertwining?

Coincidentally, many conclusions about mathematical intertwining are built on the foundations of superspiral algebra and transcendental geometry. Many lemmas and theorem proofs directly cited things already proven in this algebraic geometry.

This made it relatively easier for him to understand the content of this paper compared to many other mathematicians.

Of course, this is only relatively speaking.

If Robert Stephen could let go of his obsession, he might have achieved more during this year of research. But the problem remains; this already unreasonably obsessive mathematician maintains his purpose for studying the paper purely — to find logical errors within.

Yes, Professor Stephen even had a dream.

In the dream, Qiao Ze was invited to deliver a sixty-minute report at a mathematicians' conference, and at the crucial moment, he presented evidence of errors in the paper, shaming this so-called Huaxia genius mathematician.

Well, this dream was somewhat restrained.

Because what truly disgraces an established mathematician is never the minor flaws in a theorem proof, but academic fraud or plagiarism.