351: Chapter 351 Global Mathematicians Gather!

The few people present briefly discussed the invitation list, the technical plan for the conference live stream, and security requirements.

Zhao Yang had no objections to the list and only adjusted two or three people on the subsequent discussion group list.

After all details were finalized, President Wang had the school office report to the competent authorities that very evening, and early the next morning, Peking University officially released the announcement regarding the special report meeting on the P vs NP problem on its website.

The content of the announcement was brief, but the amount of information was immense.

The report meeting would be held at the Centennial Memorial Hall of Peking University, and Zhao Yang would personally resolve everyone's questions about the paper!

He would also answer questions from the international expert panel and attending scholars. The conference invitations would cover the world's top mathematicians and experts in related fields.

At the very bottom of the announcement was a list of scholars confirmed to be invited. Names like Prof. Fefferman, Prof. Witten, Faltings, and Pierre Deligne were naturally all on it, followed by a long string of fields medal winners, members of national academies of sciences, and leaders in relevant fields from mainstream international universities, totaling nearly two hundred people.

Once the news came out, it caused an uproar both domestically and internationally.

Seeing this luxurious list on the domestic internet, netizens went crazy.

Three entries related to the report meeting suddenly squeezed into the top twenty Weibo hot searches.

# Zhao Yang P vs NP report meeting #

It went straight to the top, followed by a dark red "Explosive" tag.

"This list is too terrifying. Prof. Fefferman, Prof. Witten, Faltings, and Pierre Deligne—pick any one of them, and they are figures who have left their mark on the history of mathematics.

Now they are all flying to Yanjing to listen to a report by a young man from the Dragon Kingdom. I have never seen such a scene in my life; it's too awesome!"

"Speaking of which… what exactly does P vs NP mean… I've been hearing about it every day, but looking at this, I have no idea what it means!"

"Let me explain simply: P is 'problems that can be calculated quickly.' For example, if you have a pile of numbers to sort from smallest to largest, no matter how many numbers there are, a computer can sort them for you in a reasonable amount of time. NP is 'problems where you can quickly check if the answer is correct, but calculating it might be very slow.' For example, a huge jigsaw puzzle—you could randomly piece it together until the end of time, but if I give you a picture of the finished product, you can see at a glance whether I put it together correctly or not."

"Then what is P vs NP trying to prove?"

"It's trying to prove: Can those problems that 'can be quickly checked' also be 'quickly calculated'? If P = NP, then you don't need to piece the puzzle together blindly; there must be some clever method to piece it together quickly. If P ≠ NP, then it means some problems are inherently difficult, so just piece them together honestly. What Zhao Yang proved is that P ≠ NP."

"So he proved that 'difficult problems are truly difficult'?"

"…You can understand it that way."

"This is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems! What is the concept of P vs NP? It's the cornerstone problem of computer science. In the future, all textbooks on complexity theory will have to be rewritten."

"My advisor has already booked his flight. He said even if he has to stand to listen, he is going. He is sixty-five this year, his hair is all white, and he said that being able to witness P vs NP being proven with his own eyes in this lifetime is worth dying for."

"Did you notice there are also people from the computer science field on the list? Several Turing Award winners are also coming. This is no longer just a matter for the pure mathematics circle."

"Peking University has really hit the jackpot this time. The world's top mathematicians and computer scientists are flying to Yanjing collectively; an academic event of this level is a major event that would be written into the school history of any country."

"Has anyone noticed that Perelman's name is also on the list? Although there is a question mark, if he really comes, that would be the true 'meeting of the century.' A recluse who proved the Poincaré Conjecture, and a genius who proved P vs NP—both have rejected international grand prizes, and neither is willing to leave their own country."

"Speaking of Perelman… I suddenly remembered, isn't there a one-million-dollar prize for solving one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems?"

"Seems like it, right?"

"Do you guess Zhao Yang will go to the scene to collect the prize money?"

"He will, right? That's one million dollars! Who could give that up!?"

"Not necessarily! God Zhao hasn't really gone abroad for those previous awards, so he probably won't this time either!"

"That's such a pity!"

The internet was in an uproar, and discussions about this report meeting were endless. But Terence Tao didn't care about any of this.

Every day, he would read Zhao Yang's paper, and whenever he encountered something he didn't understand or had questions about, he would quickly find Zhao Yang to ask for guidance.

"Here, Chapter 3, Section 4."

Terence Tao spread the paper out on Zhao Yang's desk, pointing his finger at a certain paragraph, and asked Zhao Yang with eyes full of curiosity.

"You used the Trace map directly to pull it back, skipping the Elimination theorem in the middle. This step is fine on an algebraically closed field with characteristic zero, but you later performed a flat morphism treatment on the positive characteristic field. This is very strange. I'm wondering, if you didn't use the flat morphism, and instead just pushed through using the Elimination theorem, shouldn't it theoretically work as well?"

Zhao Yang put down the soy milk cup in his hand and glanced at the paragraph he was pointing at.

"It would work, but it would result in over a dozen more pages of derivation. The boundary conditions of the Elimination theorem on a positive characteristic field are too complex; the ramification on every prime ideal would have to be handled separately. I bypassed it not because it wouldn't work, but because it wasn't necessary. Grothendieck's set of flat morphism tools is just right for this, so I naturally used them."

Terence Tao stared at those lines of formulas for a long time, then picked up a pen and wrote a line of small text on the side. He didn't continue to press, but he didn't put the pen down either. Zhao Yang knew what he was thinking: he wasn't questioning him; he was struggling with himself.

As the time for the conference drew closer, the atmosphere in Yanjing regarding the meeting became increasingly intense. Bilingual signs guiding international scholars were hung up on the Peking University campus, and a new accessible path was paved outside the Centennial Memorial Hall.

Peking University had long since arranged on-campus apartments and several nearby hotels for the invited scholars. Zhao Yang and Terence Tao also helped welcome some of the more heavyweight mathematicians.

On the day Pierre Deligne arrived, Zhao Yang went to the airport to welcome him personally. When Pierre Deligne came out of the exit pushing his carry-on suitcase, he was wearing a dark gray trench coat; his hair was much whiter than the last time he came to Yanjing, but his gait was still steady.

"Zhao."

Pierre Deligne walked up to Zhao Yang, stood still, and looked at him for a few seconds.

"Professor Grothendieck asked me to tell you that you have done very well, and he will definitely watch this live stream!"

"It is my honor."

Zhao Yang smiled slightly and said to Professor Pierre Deligne.

As he spoke, Zhao Yang felt a slight regret in his heart.

Zhao Yang completely recognized Professor Grothendieck's talent and ability, and he also wanted to have a face-to-face conversation with this Emperor of Mathematics.

That would definitely be a very nice thing.

It was just a pity that his current status and position destined that he could not travel abroad at will; too many eyes were watching him!

Those ugly forces wouldn't care about the future of humanity or the dawn of technology; they only wanted to eliminate all hidden dangers!

And he himself was one of the hidden dangers they valued the most!