125: Chapter 125 Shocks the Mathematical Circle

"I read a paper on arXiv today signed by Zhao Yang. Although the author is unknown (seems to be an undergraduate from China?), his handling of Sieve Method weights shows astonishing creativity.

The 'smoothing weighting' technique he proposed may provide new tools for us to understand the distribution of prime numbers in short intervals. I have already tried applying his method to polynomial prime number problems, and the preliminary results are exciting..."

Terence Tao's blog has great influence in the mathematics community; many experts, scholars, and students in the mathematics department pay attention to it.

Because he often posts about frontier research and inspiration in mathematics, and he himself enjoys using this platform, as soon as this blog post was published, it instantly attracted a lot of attention.

"Holy cow, Terence Tao actually reads undergraduate papers?"

"Twin primes! This is a very important field in the study of prime numbers! Is there going to be a breakthrough?"

"An arXiv paper... and an undergraduate from China... Is this really the Terence Tao we know? Could it be some kind of hacked account?"

"Uh, sounds interesting, I'm going to download it and take a look!"

"Hey, Zhao Yang? I think I've heard this name before! That's right! The author who was highly recommended by the editor-in-chief in the field of image sparsity on TIP recently, it seems to be Zhao Yang too! Right! I checked the author bio! It seems he is also a freshman! Could it be the same person?"

"Indeed, I read that paper too. There are many algorithms in it, and the mathematical level is indeed very good. It really looks like it could be the same person!"

"Then this paper is even more interesting!"

The comment section began to buzz with discussion. Many people quickly shifted from their initial skepticism to discussing Zhao Yang, this freshman. Who exactly is he? A newly emerged genius?

Many people started going to arXiv to download Zhao Yang's paper. Because of Terence Tao's words, the download count for Zhao Yang's paper began to grow crazily.

Zhao Yang was unaware of the discussions on the foreign internet, or rather, he was too busy to care for the time being.

In mid-December, the US government officially announced a bailout plan for Citibank, and at the same time, the Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest rates at the ultra-low level of 0-0.25%, ushering in an era of zero interest rates that would last for several years.

Once the news broke, us stocks soared.

The Citibank stock that Zhao Yang had bought earlier rebounded from $3 to $7 in just one week, more than doubling. General Electric (GE) also rose by 40%.

As for the Apple and Amazon stocks he had heavily invested in, although the gains were not as exaggerated as the financial stocks, they still rose steadily by 25%.

Zhao Yang was not greedy.

The moment Citibank doubled, he decisively liquidated all his positions in financial stocks. Because he knew that the impact of the financial crisis was far from over; the current rebound was merely a flash in the pan under policy stimulus, and there was still a long process of deleveraging ahead.

But he locked in his positions in Apple and Amazon. Not only that, Zhao Yang used all his US stock funds to buy Apple and Amazon.

Because these two companies would weather the bull and bear markets, they were the kings of the next decade; they would almost only rise and rarely fall. Buying at the current price, it was basically impossible to lose money; they would definitely rise.

The total amount of Zhao Yang's us stocks, plus the funds deployed in Vanke and Gree in the A-share market in his domestic account, brought his total personal assets to nearly 250 million RMB.

It was a lot of money, but the most critical thing was not how much money he had right now; this money was currently self-multiplying at an extremely fast speed.

The stocks he purchased were all quality assets that, as long as they were held for a few years, would easily increase tenfold or more!

After finishing his stock market operations, Zhao Yang skillfully opened his email.

Without any surprises, he received a letter from the editor of Acta Mathematica Sinica, stating that his paper had been accepted. The journal editor had a very high opinion of his paper.

"Ding! User has successfully published a second-tier mathematics paper!"

"Ding! User gains +15,000 Mathematics Experience! Gains +1 Random Lottery Attempt!"

The system notification sound rang in his ears, and Zhao Yang was slightly stunned.

A trace of surprise appeared in his eyes.

He had previously published a second-tier paper in the field of Informatics, but had only gained 3,000 Informatics Experience and 5,000 Mathematics Experience. He didn't expect that this second-tier paper would actually grant him 15,000 Mathematics Experience directly!

It seems that the system's evaluation criteria should not just be based on the journal dimension alone, but likely combined with the quality of the paper itself. As long as the paper's quality is high enough! The experience points gained will not be low!

Thinking of this, a hint of a smile appeared in Zhao Yang's eyes. Interesting!

Let's draw first!

"Ding! User has successfully drawn +5 energy potion!"

The system notification sound in his ears made Zhao Yang feel a bit helpless.

Has the system gone haywire? It feels like he hasn't been able to draw anything good lately! Although energy potion is not bad, how many bottles of energy potion has he drawn by now?

Zhao Yang shook his head and opened his arXiv account. He saw the skyrocketing download count of his paper and many private messages in the background.

He was stunned for a moment, then quickly opened Terence Tao's blog and discovered that he had been recommended by Terence Tao.

Zhao Yang's eyes lit up. This is a good thing!

Being able to expand his circle and attract enough attention means that when he publishes his proof regarding the twin prime conjecture, he will also be able to attract enough attention immediately.

By then, it is estimated that journals will directly invite him to submit his work. Once reviewed, it will likely be accepted directly! By then, he will be able to complete the system tasks relatively quickly without waiting for that long process!

Thinking of this, Zhao Yang was very happy.

As the end of the term approached, the atmosphere on campus became tense and oppressive.

The Library was packed, and students were standing everywhere reciting their books. Although Zhao Yang did not need to review, he still maintained his habit of going to the Library every day to read papers.

That noon, just as he left the cafeteria, Zhao Yang was stopped by Gu Qing.

"Great genius Zhao, would you do me the honor of having a meal?"

Gu Qing was wearing a pink down jacket, wrapped in a white scarf, and holding two exquisite paper bags in her hand. Having not seen her for half a month, she seemed to have lost some weight, her chin was sharper, but she also appeared even more moving and delicate.

"A meal? I just ate." Zhao Yang patted his stomach.

"My treat! Let's go eat something good off-campus!"

Gu Qing, without giving him a chance to refuse, pulled Zhao Yang's sleeve and walked towards the school gate.

"To celebrate your paper being accepted, and also to... celebrate that I have finally been initially recognized by my uncle!"

When saying this, Gu Qing's eyes flickered, and she dared not look into Zhao Yang's eyes.

"Alright." Zhao Yang smiled and did not refuse.

A Sichuan restaurant off-campus, in a private room.

Steaming hot boiled fish and Mao Xue Wang were served. Gu Qing poured Zhao Yang a cup of barley tea, looked at him, and her eyes were somewhat complex.

"Zhao Yang, do you know? Now everyone in the School of Life Sciences is saying that you are going to switch to mathematics and won't return to the laboratory anymore."

Gu Qing's voice was somewhat downcast, "Although my uncle says he supports you, I can see that he really wants you to go back."

Gu Qing did not dare to look at Zhao Yang; in fact, Gu Qing was the one who wanted Zhao Yang to return to the laboratory the most. For the past half month, Zhao Yang had not returned to the laboratory, which made Gu Qing very uncomfortable.