Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 286 An Unexpected Incident at the Fields Medal Ceremony
"Peace is something I've always taken for granted, but now I realize I was wrong."

In my homeland, the pandemic has become a new joke. My friends who are still in Kyiv sometimes tease me privately, "Do you still remember the good old days when the pandemic was raging?"

I want to see peace. I am proud of my country, but my compatriots have to adapt to air raid sirens, shelling, and war. My sister and my nephew entered Slovakia with the help of the Red Cross, traveled to Budapest, and then boarded a flight to Geneva.

But even today, the war still has serious consequences for him when he was only 8 years old. He began to sleepwalk at night, which stemmed from extreme stress and extreme fear.

At least, tyrants can't stop us from doing mathematics; at least there are some things they can't take from us.

Among the four mathematicians who won the award was Marina Vyazovska from Kyiv. She delivered her acceptance speech in ukulele, which was then translated into English by a live translator for the audience. The audience was deeply moved and responded with thunderous applause.

However, before she finished speaking, after the applause subsided, Marina organized her thoughts and said, "Professor Lin, I know that you have solved the famous twin prime conjecture in the field of mathematics and are also a master in the field of aerospace. I implore you here not to become an assistant to a tyrant, not to serve a tyrant."

I implore you to see the pain, despair, and struggle of Ukraine, and I hope you will have a humanitarian spirit and not let the rockets you develop become a tool for one group to try to enslave another.

If you have a kind heart, I hope you will grant my request when you give your acceptance speech later.

Lin Ran, who was in Shanghai, was dumbfounded. "Wait, what does this have to do with me? I don't think I cooperated with Russia. Why is it like I was involved in the invasion of Kiev?"

At this moment, Li Xiaoman, who was sitting next to him but whose face was not shown in the camera, handed him a page full of English text and nudged Lin Ran's arm. Lin Ran glanced at it and then understood what was going on.

Mathematical Master or War Criminal?

The protagonist of this BBC feature report is naturally him. It exaggerates how, after Apollo Technologies' successful orbital test of Burning 1, Moscow will cooperate with them to launch a large number of low Earth orbit satellites to build a space electronic warfare system based on Burning 1's launch capabilities and ultra-low launch costs. This system will be used to interfere with Starlink signals and disrupt Ukraine's communication advantage.

In this report, Lin Ran is portrayed as an accomplice in the war, revealing his role as an evil scientist.

The BBC report made the whole thing sound like the truth, saying that Gagarin's daughter had worked at Apollo Technology and that after returning to the country, she exaggerated her experiences in China, becoming a bridge between Lin Ran and the Kremlin, and that Lin Ran was in close communication with the Kremlin.

The two sides quickly reached an agreement and proposed a system called Kalinka, which aimed to counteract the communication advantage of the Ukraine forces on the battlefield by interrupting Starlink signals.

(Soldiers are operating small drones connected via Starlink.)

Things that Lin Ran himself didn't know were reported by the BBC as if they were true.

Li Xiaoman continued typing: "Because of Yelena, the news fabricated by the BBC has spread widely on the internet. Not only the BBC reported it, but also AFP, Reuters and other media reported it. I guess that's why the previous winner said that."

Lin Ran sighed, feeling that Dai Ying truly lived up to her reputation as a troublemaker.

In the 1960s, he was portrayed as an evil scientist by the English James Bond series, and now the BBC is using this trope again.

If he had actually done it, that would be one thing, but the problem is he didn't do it at all. Yelena didn't even contact him after returning to Russia.

When Lin Ran heard about the BBC's close ties with the Kremlin, he thought to himself, "I did have contact with the Kremlin back in the 60s, with Korolev as the intermediary. I even met Mikoyan directly."

As the most prominent of the four award winners, Lin Ran gave the closing speech, and was given some time to prepare.

When it was his turn, Lin Ran confirmed that the connection was working properly and then turned on his microphone. He first expressed his gratitude in Chinese, "First of all, I would like to thank you for awarding me the Fields Medal. I would like to thank my parents for raising me. I would also like to thank Professor Siegel of the University of Göttingen. Although he has passed away, I have read many of his papers while studying number theory. Those papers have given me a lot of inspiration. He was more than a mentor to me."

Finally, I would like to thank both National Chiao Tung University and Stony Brook University, for providing me with a good and free learning environment that allowed me to do what I wanted to do, although perhaps the pandemic played a part in this.

Lin Ran only wanted to say this much, after all, this wasn't his first time winning the Fields Medal, and he was already used to it.

Marina, as a mathematician, was so easily misled by the BBC, and then they pinned such a huge accusation on her at the awards ceremony. Do you mathematicians not have any intelligence? Do you believe the BBC?
Lin Ran then seamlessly switched to Russian: "Now I want to respond to Ms. Marina's accusations against me. I guess her accusations stem from the BBC report. I want to say that the BBC report is based entirely on falsehoods, conjectures, and fantasies. Because it is obvious that if I really wanted to communicate with the Kremlin, I would not need Yelena to act as a translator as the report said. I think my Russian should be as fluent as a Russian's."

At the scene in Helsinki, Finland, Russian is not a minor language. In Finland, many older people have some knowledge of Russian, including Marina herself. She grew up during the Soviet era, so she knows Russian even better. She can clearly tell that the other person's Russian is very standard.

The BBC report explicitly mentioned that Yelena acted as a bridge, serving as a translator.

"Secondly, I want to say that speaking Russian does not mean I have a good impression of Russia or want to cooperate with Russia. It is simply because my university course schedule included Russian as a major course, and I think I did quite well in it. In order to avoid being accused of something that did not exist by low-quality media such as the BBC, I am explaining this."

Then Lin Ran switched to German: "If we talk about interest, I learned about the Göttingen School through Professor Carl Siegel. The twin prime conjecture is also one of the questions of the century posed by Professor Hilbert of the Göttingen School. With the existence of Gauss, I may be more interested in Germany. I think from a spiritual point of view, I should be the successor of Göttingen."

The BBC should definitely report on this.

He delivered his acceptance speech in Chinese, Russian, and German. The German speech was especially well-received, and thunderous applause erupted from the audience. The expert, who understood all three languages, led the applause, which nearly lifted the ceiling of Helsinki City Hall.

Marina walked toward the podium with a livid face. The organizers initially wanted to stop her, but after thinking about it, they decided not to.

“Professor Lin, can you promise that you will never cooperate with Russia?” Marina asked in Russian.

Lin Ran shook his head and said, "I will never say forever."

Marina then asked, "What about during the war?"

Lin Ran then shook his head and said, "I can only promise that I will not help Russia develop weapons for war, but if Russia asks me to launch a satellite, I'm sorry I won't refuse. If you want me to refuse, you'll have to get America to lift the sanctions on Apollo Technology first."

Lin Ran ignored the other party and hung up the video call, disappearing from the screen.

There was an uproar. How could you compare Russia to America? The former is an evil country, while the latter is the beacon of our free world.

Some people are already regretting applauding Lin Ran.

Marina concluded, "Look, Professor Lin is no different from the evil scientists of Nazi Germany. He has no morality, no distinction between good and evil, and no understanding of universal human values. I am ashamed to share this year's Fields Medal with him!"

In addition to the award ceremony, Lin Ran was originally scheduled to give a one-hour lecture at this mathematicians' congress to talk about his work. However, his speech at the award ceremony, in which he clearly stated that he would not refuse to launch a satellite for Russia, caused a boycott by a large number of mathematicians, and the organizers notified him at the last minute to cancel it.

Lin Ran deeply felt that in this era, going against America's worldview was heresy.

It's not China that benefits from stirring up regional disputes and causing instability. You might say things like aircraft carriers, engines, and gas turbines, but this is a transaction, and China isn't getting something for nothing; it paid real money for it.

It is precisely because of this history that Lin Ran made the promise not to help the Russians develop military weapons.

Lin Ran believed that if he helped the Russians develop their electronic warfare jamming network, it would be far more powerful than anything they could build themselves.

But if I don't help the Russians launch rockets, can my Burning 1 Remodel take on missions for the European Space Agency? Can the European Space Agency contact me instead of SpaceX?
Let alone Europe, even in Ukraine, would you go to SpaceX instead of Europe?
No way?
Everyone needs to eat, you can't stop me from eating just because you need to live.

Lin Ran's speech after the awards ceremony sparked a strong reaction in public opinion.

Within China, it was naturally met with widespread praise.

After all, most Chinese people are on the side of the Russians. This has nothing to do with the Russians or Ukraine; it's simply because of a rebellious mentality. If America supports one side, then I have to stand on the opposite side.

Adding to the fact that Lin Ran, as China's first Fields Medal winner, refuted the rumors with composure and showcased his astonishing linguistic talent—fluent in English, Russian, German, and Chinese—he is proficient in four languages, leaving Chinese netizens in awe that genius manifests in every aspect. Students majoring in aerospace engineering at Jiaotong University, in particular, are filled with admiration.

"No, I suspect I went to a fake Jiaotong University. Could the little bit of general Russian we learned in college produce such a performance as Ran Shen?"

"I feel like this is already close to the level of a Russian major, right?"

"It's almost like a joke. I just asked the Russian department, and what they meant was that they don't have that level of spoken Russian. In China, even English is 'mute English,' let alone Russian, which is even more 'mute Russian.' Someone like Ran Shen, who can speak Russian so fluently on the spot, must be at the level of a simultaneous interpreter."

"It's a good thing that Ran Shen didn't go to the scene. It feels like this was a trap set for him. If he had gone, he would have been besieged."

"What happened to the promised general Russian? I ended up learning Russian at the interpreting level!"

"Your top priority is to uninstall Qidian!"

In the WeChat groups of Jiaotong University students, it was once again a chain of "I kneel down to the God of Burning" emojis.

Conference Room, Central Administration Building, University of Göttingen
Schörmerich was the rector of the University of Göttingen at the time, and he was quite pleased when Lin Ran rose to fame.

Because many universities emailed Lin Ran at the time, they only accepted the invitation to become an honorary professor at the University of Göttingen, even though Göttingen had long since declined.

Not to mention compared to the pre-World War II mathematical mecca, the current situation is even worse than in the 60s, making it a solid third-rate university in Germany.

As a result, Lin Ran, a rising star in the mathematics world, actually accepted the invitation from Göttingen, while declining offers from a host of top European universities such as ETH Zurich, École Normale Supérieure, École Polytechnique, and Technical University of Munich.

This made Schörmerich feel proud, thinking that this Chinese mathematician knew his stuff and recognized that Göttingen had something special.

Now they're facing a problem.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this emergency meeting. We are facing a thorny issue: our honorary professor Randolph Lin has been accused of possibly collaborating with Moscow, which is very sensitive in the current context. The Berlin education authorities have asked us to take action, which may include expelling him."

"We need to discuss this carefully, weighing the legal, ethical, and university reputation factors," Schörmerich said, his face filled with helplessness.

Everyone is well aware of what happened at the recent International Congress of Mathematicians.

At the Fields Medal award ceremony, their visiting professor Randolph Lin showed unprecedented recognition of Göttingen. The senior officials of the University of Göttingen present also realized why Lin Ran accepted Göttingen's invitation. It turned out that the other party had such feelings for Göttingen.

And it's quite obvious that there's a possibility of cooperation, but they haven't cooperated yet, have they? Even before they've cooperated, Berlin is already urging them to relinquish their honorary professorships.

Moreover, even if it's a collaboration, it's just helping launch a satellite, which is purely a commercial activity. Why should we fire Randolph Lin? A rising star in the mathematics world, the last vestige of the mathematical mecca of Göttingen.

Visiting professors are like the last rays of a sun! Don't underestimate the value of a visiting professor.

Vice President Holler said with a wry smile, "Yes, I have received many inquiries. We must ensure that the procedures are legal while protecting the university's tradition of academic freedom."

Although Lin is only a visiting professor, he still enjoys legally protected academic freedom; however, if he has violated the law, we need clear evidence.

Professor Barnes, the head of the mathematics department, and the only three people present at the meeting, strongly objected: "First, we need to confirm the facts. What exactly did Randolph do? Was he directly providing technology to the Russian army, or was it just a commercial transaction? We're being asked by Berlin to dismiss him before anything has even happened? We can't act based on accusations alone."

I have spoken with Randolph many times. He is an extremely outstanding young man, and he has a deep affection for Göttingen. He knows Professor Siegel very well and is very familiar with his anecdotes. I even suspect that he has some of Professor Siegel's manuscripts.

We cannot turn away such a promising young mathematician! Even if he is only a visiting professor in Göttingen.

Berlin? Berlin is Washington's dog because he is a former East German. Barnes knows all too well what happened to East Germany after the reunification of East and West Germany, and how West Germany treated East Germany.

Schermerich said helplessly, "The Berlin education department has provided a report that suggests Professor Lin and Moscow have already made preliminary contacts and are completely ignoring the persuasion of the righteous camp."

They want us to dismiss them under the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act and the EU's Regulation (EU) 2021/821 on the export control of dual-purpose articles.

Barnes roared, "But do we have solid evidence? The Berlin report is just a report. If we act rashly based on speculation or unverified intelligence in the Berlin report, academic freedom in Göttingen will be violated!"

The three were in unprecedented agreement on not wanting to fire Lin Ran.

In terms of degree alone, Barnes is stronger than Holler, who is stronger than Schörmerich.

Vice Principal Holler stated directly, "Actually, it's easy. We need a formal investigation committee to review all the evidence."

Seeing that Professor Barnes was about to speak, Holler gestured for him to finish: "We need to fully and thoroughly evaluate this matter."

As the vice-president in charge of the appointment, I propose that I lead the formation of an investigation committee, including the legal department, the research office, and external export control experts. We need to ensure that the investigation is transparent and complies with Article 5 of the German Basic Law regarding academic freedom.

In short, it's unclear how long the investigation will take.

Holler's words were very clear: stall, drag things out.

After listening, Schörmerich nodded and said, "Okay, let's do it that way. Professor Holler, please form an investigation committee as soon as possible."

I will have Dr. Mueller provide legal guidance throughout the process.

Professor Barnes, please prepare a statement indicating that we are investigating this matter in response to pressure from the education department.

Holler nodded and said, "I will get to work immediately, and expect to form a committee and begin the investigation within a month."

It would take a month just to form a committee. All they were thinking was to drag it out, let the war drag on, and then nobody would care about this anymore.

No one expected the war to last so long.

Professor Barnes nodded and said, "The statement can be drafted as follows: The University of Göttingen has been informed of the allegations against a professor, and we are conducting a thorough investigation to ensure compliance with the law and university policy."

Schörmerich concluded, "Very good. Let's keep in touch and ensure that our actions are transparent and fair."

Lin Ran was unaware that his alma mater was still working hard to keep him on as a visiting professor. However, even if he were to be dismissed, Lin Ran wouldn't care much, since he couldn't fight city hall.

Can Göttingen possibly defy the will of the White House?

Even if it's still a holy land of mathematics, it won't work.

At this time, he was meeting with guests from Russia, Yelena and Valentin, as well as a group of Russian experts.

"Professor, this is Valentin, the director of our Nikita Space Center. He's here hoping to reach a deep cooperation agreement with Apollo Technology," Yelena concluded.

(End of this chapter)