250: Chapter 250: Call for Submissions to the *Annals of Mathematics*

This sentence was the most authoritative certification of Zhao Yang's work.

Those present were the world's top mathematicians, and those sitting in the first row were scholars of the founding level for various major branches of modern mathematics.

But after Professor Deligne finished speaking, not a single person in the entire No. 1 Lecture Hall raised any objection to this conclusion.

Because over the past hour or so, everyone who had doubts had already thrown out the most tricky questions they could think of.

It turned out that even top mathematicians of the caliber of Faltings and Shing-Tung Yau, who searched frantically for loopholes in Zhao Yang's paper with a scrutinizing or even critical eye, found that those so-called problems were all easily resolved by Zhao Yang.

Every answer Zhao Yang provided was accompanied by extremely rigorous lemma support and calculation processes.

There were no issues with this proof.

In the defense session that had just passed, all the world's top mathematicians, including Professor Deligne, Faltings, and Professor Andrew Wiles, who was sitting slightly to the side, had acknowledged Zhao Yang.

Professor Andrew Wiles sat in his seat, looking at Zhao Yang on the podium with undisguised envy in his eyes.

Wiles's mood was extremely complicated.

He couldn't help but recall his own experience. Back then, in 1993, he had given a three-day series of lectures at the Isaac Newton Institute at Cambridge University, announcing to the world that he had completed the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

At that time, he was equally high-spirited, believing he had ended that three-hundred-year-old mathematical nightmare.

As it turned out, the proof manuscript was submitted for peer review. Just two months later, reviewer Richard Taylor discovered an extremely hidden and fatal flaw in his Euler system construction.

Wiles knew that feeling all too well. The moment he learned of the loophole's existence, he truly felt like the sky was falling. He spent over a full year under near-desperate high pressure before he managed to use Iwasawa theory to patch the flaw, finally completing the true proof in 1994.

Since then, Wiles had come to a conclusion: proving a century-level conjecture might be difficult, but wanting to present a flawless proof right from the start was something even more difficult, even contrary to common sense.

In fact, as early as a few months ago, when Professor Wiles heard that Zhao Yang had temporarily changed his report topic for the International Congress of Mathematicians from the twin prime conjecture to Goldbachs Conjecture, he was rationally very pessimistic about it.

Because he had experienced it himself. The derivation process for such an S-level conjecture was extremely vast and complex, involving the intersection of dozens of different mathematical fields. Even if the researcher themselves believed they had solved it perfectly, as long as the paper was released and subjected to the magnifying glass scrutiny of thousands of top brains worldwide, there was still a very high probability that someone would find a logical gap.

And the proof of a conjecture of this level had a structure like an extremely precise building block tower. Once a loophole was found at the base, it often couldn't be fixed by mere patching; instead, the entire system would come crashing down—it was a systemic, fatal issue.

Professor Wiles still clearly remembered the feeling of suffocation when a flaw was pointed out after he announced he had solved the Fermat Conjecture years ago.

Yet now, Zhao Yang actually dared to skip the months-long journal peer-review period and, without any room for buffer, announce and defend his proof live in front of so many of the world's top mathematicians.

Such a practice was nothing short of crazy in the academic world. If there were even a slight calculation error or a lack of rigor in defining a certain integration domain, even if his previous logic was correct, he would definitely be unable to save face on an occasion like today and might even become a laughingstock in the mathematics community.

But the result completely exceeded Professor Wiles's expectations and shattered his existing cognitive framework.

Despite the repeated nitpicking and extremely high-intensity questioning from so many top mathematicians, they simply could not find even a single structural problem in Zhao Yang's proof. There wasn't even a minor error in a calculation symbol.

It was clear just how terrifying Zhao Yang's ability truly was.

How on earth did he do it? Did he have a supercomputer that never made mistakes installed in his brain?

The look in Professor Wiles's eyes as he watched Zhao Yang was full of wonder.

After a brief silence.

Professor Deligne, sitting in the first row, looked at Zhao Yang on the podium and extremely solemnly extended the highest-specification academic manuscript invitation.

"Zhao, without a doubt, your paper will be recorded in the Annals of Mathematics as a milestone in the history of Analytic Number Theory."

Deligne's voice spread throughout the hall via the microphone.

"On behalf of the editorial department of the Annals of Mathematics, I formally solicit a manuscript from you. In the next issue, we will open a special feature column for you, waiving all conventional queuing and review processes."

The Annals of Mathematics is the foremost of the world's four top mathematical journals. Being able to bypass the regular process and have a special issue opened directly was the highest pass given by the entire academic community to this achievement.

The moment his words fell.

The entire No. 1 Lecture Hall erupted in a burst of thunderous applause loud enough to blow off the roof.

This was no longer polite, ceremonial applause, but a heartfelt expression of shock and admiration. All the mathematicians, regardless of nationality or the school of thought they previously studied, all stood up spontaneously at this moment.

Thousands of people stood, their applause converging into a massive wave of sound that echoed under the dome of the lecture hall. They were all applauding the young man on the stage who had ended the historical '1+1' proposition.

Amidst this deafening wave of sound.

Zhao Yang stood on the stage, his expression remaining calm.

Almost at the same time, deep in his mind, the system began to sound a dense series of system prompts.

"Ding! Detected that the User has completed a one-hour academic report at an international top-level academic conference. Task completed!"

"Ding! Detected that the User has completely solved a world-class mathematical problem (Goldbachs Conjecture, S-level difficulty) and received unanimous recognition from the international mainstream academic community. Gold-level task [The Boundary of Knowledge] completed!"

"Double task experience settlement in progress..."

"Ding! Congratulations to the User, you have gained +100,000 Free Experience Points and +3 random lottery draws! (Report task reward)"

"Ding! Congratulations to the User, you have gained +500,000 Mathematics Experience Points! (S-level conjecture basic reward)"

"Ding! Congratulations to the User, you have gained +100,000 Mathematics Experience Points! You have obtained +1 random designated Diamond-level item! (Gold-level task reward)"