My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 434 First Week

After the preprint was released, Van Enlou did not immediately become a hot topic.

It became quiet instead.

It's not that no one is talking, but rather that the gossip that usually fills the break room has decreased significantly.

The coffee machine kept making noise.

The cup still bumped against the table.

Someone came in through the door, took a bagel, poured coffee, and flipped through a newspaper, doing things much the same as usual.

But he often stops himself halfway through his sentence.

Because at the end of the corridor, the photocopier hasn't really stopped running since morning.

After the first official preprint was printed, a second and a third copy were quickly produced.

By noon, Woolley had already changed the paper in the copier once.

The copier jammed at 2 PM.

Woolley stood beside him, opened the machine cover, and slowly pulled out the crumpled paper.

A young postdoctoral researcher waiting behind, holding a coffee, glanced at the scraps of paper left in the machine lid and whispered:

"It better not break today."

Woolley gave him a disgruntled look.

"Can you fix it?"

"Won't."

The man switched the coffee cup to his other hand.

"But I have to watch the sixth period this afternoon."

Woolley pulled the stuck paper out and closed the machine cover again.

The photocopier started running again.

The man breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had escaped a minor disaster.

That same morning, the large conference room was opened again.

The water glasses on the long table were removed, the table was wiped clean, and several boxes of colored sticky notes, a stack of pencils, and several markers were placed next to it.

The blackboard didn't have a conclusion written on it, nor did anyone write the words "Hodge Conjecture" on it.

The page number is written on the left.

Section 3.

The second half of the fifth quarter.

Section 6.

Appendix II.

Constant interface.

The right side shows the initials of the person's name and the date.

Some were followed by question marks, while others were simply left blank.

No one officially announced the division of labor.

The paper is left there, and someone will naturally come and take it.

Some people only took the introduction and the first three sections.

Someone removed the appendix.

Someone made two copies of Section Six, keeping one for themselves and leaving the other at Arthur's door.

An elderly visiting professor stood by the long table, wearing glasses, and flipped through a few pages before finally picking up only Appendix II.

The postdoctoral researcher next to him reminded him:

"Aren't you going to take the main text?"

The old man shook his head.

"I'm looking here."

After he finished speaking, he took the few pages of paper and left.

The postdoctoral researcher watched his retreating figure, and after a while, he lowered his head and took away the sixth section of the main text.

This wasn't the first time Van Enlou had read a long draft.

But this time is different.

Most people know very well that they don't need to read from the first page to the last.

They have no right to make grand pronouncements based on just a few pages of paper.

So when the preprint was published, the first thing the whole building did was not to make a judgment.

Instead, they look for a location.

Which segment is suitable for which person?

Which section is most likely to have an accident?

Which part needs to be compared with Chen Zhuo's previous articles?

Which mark was changed between the old and final versions?

These things may sound trivial, but they are more important than any evaluation.

There were quite a few people sitting in the lounge during lunchtime.

The lunchbox is opened, the bagel is torn open, and the coffee is cooled.

Besides food, there were also many photocopies on the table.

Some people were eating while writing numbers in the margins of the page.

Someone had just taken a bite of their sandwich when the person next to them snatched the paper away.

"Have you finished reading?"

"no."

"Then why did you climb over it?"

"I just flipped over to look at the definitions on the back."

"Don't flip through yet, I haven't matched the previous line yet."

The man sighed and put the sandwich back in the paper bag.

You're right.

"Of course I'm right."

"I mean, you better be right, or my meal will have gone cold for nothing."

Cyril passed by the lounge entrance at noon.

He didn't go in.

He saw several people whispering and arguing over the same page at the long table, and he saw a young man standing next to the coffee machine, not noticing that his cup was full.

A little coffee spilled out, and the person next to me reached out and moved the cup away.

The young people finally came to their senses.

Cyril glanced at it only once before heading towards the main conference room.

In the conference room, Arthur was sitting by the window.

He took the thinnest stack in the middle.

David came in through the door, saw the few pages in front of him, and raised an eyebrow.

"Is that all you're looking at?"

Arthur did not look up.

"If something goes wrong on these few pages, there's no need to read the rest."

David put his stack on the table.

"Then I hope you won't be too happy this afternoon."

Arthur finally looked up at him.

"Do I look like the kind of person who would be happy about something like this?"

David did not answer.

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and opened the appendix.

"You said the same thing last time."

Arthur picked up his coffee and took a sip.

The coffee has gone cold.

He frowned, but didn't go to change it.

Next to the first page, he drew a very small circle with a pen.

It's not a red line.

It's just a mark.

In the afternoon, there were more people in the corridor than usual, but it was quiet.

Someone came out of the main conference room, carrying a copy, and went to find Pierre.

Someone paused at Arthur's door, saw that no one was speaking inside, and then turned and walked away.

Some people stood next to the blackboard for more than ten minutes, only writing down a page number, and then flipping back to the previous definition.

Chen Zhuo's office door was half open.

He did not sit at the long table.

On the table was a book, a stack of draft paper, and a cup of tea that had just been poured.

Sometimes people would come to him with a piece of paper and ask him questions.

Most questions are very short.

"Were the superscripts here changed in the final version?"

Chen Zhuo glanced at it.

"Um."

He took out a handwritten manuscript from the drawer, turned to a page with a folded corner, and showed it to the other person.

"We used a different one here before, but we've standardized it now."

The other person nodded, wrote down the page number, and left with the paper.

A little while later, someone brought over an appendix.

"Does this restriction start from Section 5, or from the section on constants?"

Chen Zhuo clipped the bookmark to his pocket and glanced up at it.

"Let's start with the fifth section."

Just as the visitor was about to leave, he added:

"But the boundary uses the one from before."

The man stopped and looked down at the paper.

No wonder.

After he finished speaking, he walked back a little faster than he had come.

More often than not, no one comes in.

Chen Zhuo looked down at his book.

He didn't look up when the photocopier started running outside, when someone passed by the door, or when people were arguing quietly at the end of the corridor.

When the first day was over, the page numbers circled on the blackboard had not decreased.

There were two more than expected.

When Woolley was tidying up the conference room that evening, he looked at the blackboard and felt that it resembled an increasingly dense net.

The first person to arrive the next morning was not Woolley.

He was a visiting scholar.

He held the few pages of paper he had brought back the night before, his coat still unbuttoned, and stood in front of the blackboard, erasing a question mark that had been added the previous night.

Woolley saw it as he entered.

"Resolved?"

The man shook his head and added another page number next to it.

Woolley stared at the new page number and remained silent for a moment.

"So it's just a matter of changing the location of the trouble."

"almost."

The man put the chalk back and turned to pour coffee.

On the second and third days, Van Enlou did this almost all the time.

One question mark was erased, and another question mark was moved to the front.

There was a place that looked like it was broken, but after turning two pages, it was back on track.

Another part seems too straightforward; if we trace it back further, we'll return to Chen Zhuo's earlier article on constants.

Some people read quickly.

He finished reading his section in half a day, wrote several lines of dense annotations in the margins, and then went to get a stack of books.

Some people read very slowly.

I only read three pages in two days.

Midway through, I even made a large copy of one of the pages, pasted it next to the blackboard, and stared at that line of equations for a long time.

Some people find it increasingly annoying the more they watch it.

It's not because it's wrong.

It's because it's too smooth.

A young researcher from Europe put down his paper in the break room and rubbed his face.

"I don't like it here."

The person next to me asked:

"What do you not like?"

He pointed to the middle section.

"It's too clean."

"Even cleanliness isn't acceptable?"

"The parts of mathematics that are too clean are either easy to prove or they are traps."

The person next to him picked up that page and glanced at it.

"And now?"

The young researcher stared at the paper.

"I don't know yet."

After he finished speaking, he took the paper back.

"I'll watch it again."

Arthur's side isn't moving fast either.

The pages he took on the first day were still on the table on the third day.

The coffee cup was moved from the left to the right, and the pencil went from being sharpened to becoming dull.

He folded the corner of the paper once and then flattened it.

David went to find him halfway through and stood at the door for a few seconds.

"Still on those pages?"

Arthur did not look up.

"Um."

"Is there something?"

"have no idea."

David leaned against the door.

"Your 'I don't know' sounds more troublesome than 'I do know'."

Arthur finally put down his pen.

He pushed one of the pages over.

"here."

David came in and picked up the page to look at it.

The room was quiet for a few minutes.

After David finished reading, he picked up the first two pages again.

Turn the page again.

In the end, he didn't say anything, but simply put the paper back.

"I'll go get the appendix."

Arthur smiled.

"See?"

On the fourth day, a small discussion was finally held in the large conference room.

Although it was called a discussion, there was no fixed start time.

After 10 a.m., more and more people gradually arrived.

Some people were standing, and some were sitting.

Some people were leaning against the wall with coffee in their hands.

The blackboard was divided into three sections.

The left side shows the discrete structure.

Write a regular function in the middle.

Write an algebraic loop on the right.

No one started from the beginning.

Everyone is just pointing out the places that have been causing problems these past few days.

At first, the voices were fairly synchronized.

Then things got chaotic.

Some people skipped from Section 3 to Appendix 2.

Some insist that the definition of the fifth section cannot be deviated from.

A postdoctoral researcher had just started to speak when he was interrupted by the old professor.

"You're talking about the old markings."

The postdoctoral researcher paused for a moment.

Woolley pulled out the official manuscript from the side and handed it over.

"This area has been standardized."

The postdoctoral researcher looked down and read it, his ears turning slightly red.

"Okay, I'll say it again."

No one laughed at him.

Because in the past few days, almost everyone has fallen between the old and new marks.

Before noon, the small discussion had ended halfway through.

not over.

People were taken away.

The two went to find Pierre.

One of them went to look at Chen Zhuo's previous papers.

Arthur and David stayed in front of the blackboard, erased half of the right side, and rewrote it.

Cyril did not spend most of his time in the conference room.

He was in his office.

The door was open.

Every now and then, someone would knock on the door and come in, leaving a page of paper or taking a page away.

Some people only say a few words.

Some people sit down and talk for ten minutes.

Cyril rarely interrupted.

He only asked after the other person finished speaking:

Is this a problem with the notation or with the structure?

If the other person can't answer, he pushes the paper back.

"Let's see."

If the other person can answer, he will put the paper on his right.

The stack on the right is much thinner than the one on the left.

On the fifth day, the stack on the right began to change.

Several were taken.

Several of them were given to Pierre.

Two more were personally taken by Cyril to Chen Zhuo's office.

When he went in, Chen Zhuo was eating an apple.

The apple was given to him by Matilda that morning, telling him not to drink coffee all the time.

Chen Zhuo took a bite, looked up and saw Cyril come in, so he put the apple on a tissue.

Cyril placed the two pages on the table.

"They want to confirm these two locations again."

Chen Zhuo wiped his hands and picked up the first one.

After reading it, he put the paper down.

"No need to go back separately from here."

Why?

"It's on the next two pages."

Cyril nodded without asking any further questions.

Chen Zhuo picked up the second one.

This time, he looked at it for a little longer.

Cyril stood to the side, without urging him on.

The shadows of the trees outside the window shifted slightly, and sunlight slid across the glass.

After a while, Chen Zhuo turned the paper around, picked up a pen, and wrote a lemma number in the corner.

"We can give this to them."

Do you need to add any further explanation?

"Need not."

Chen Zhuo pushed the paper back.

"Let them see this first."

Cyril glanced at the number.

"enough?"

"Enough for them to continue."

He spoke very calmly.

There was neither smugness nor impatience.

It's like telling someone which shelf a certain book is on.

Cyril picked up the page.

"it is good."

As he walked to the door, Chen Zhuo picked up the apple again and continued eating.

By the sixth day, there was a lot of mail outside Van Een Building.

Woolley's email inbox rang almost every few minutes.

There were congratulations.

There were interviews.

There were inquiries about whether Chen Zhuo would give a public explanation.

There were long letters that started refuting the arguments after just reading the summary.

There are also issues with actually attaching page numbers, definitions, and lemma numbers.

Woolley initially tried to watch them all.

He gave up by noon.

He categorized the emails into several types.

Media outlets, please share this.

Congratulations, archived.

Let's set aside the question of the lack of page numbers for now.

Print out items that have page numbers, definitions, or clearly defined questions.

After they were printed, not every single one was sent in.

Some emails may seem long, but they actually ask about content that has already been written in the paper.

Some of them are only a few lines long, but they happen to be in the same spot that people inside Fan En Building are looking at these days.

Woolley handed the thinnest stack to Pierre.

Pierre sat by the window and flipped through it.

I glanced at the first letter and put it on the left.

For the second letter, turn to the end and place it on the left.

He paused for a moment before placing the third letter on the right.

Woolley watched his movements.

"Not going back to those on the left?"

Pierre said:

"I won't go back yet."

"What about the right side?"

"The right side shows that someone has actually started reading."

This was said very softly.

Woolley understood.

There's a lot of noise outside.

The voices that can truly reach the inside of the proof are actually very few.

On the evening of the seventh day, the blackboard in Fan Enlou, which had been in use for the first week, was finally wiped clean.

It wasn't wiped off completely.

Instead, it erases those issues that have been confirmed to be merely markings, page numbers, or citation order.

The blackboard suddenly became much less visible.

There are still quite a few places left.

The sixth quarter is still ongoing.

Appendix II is still available.

Next to the constant interface, there is another line of small text.

But those initial, most glaring circles are gone.

Woolley stood in front of the blackboard and looked at it for a while.

David walked past from behind, carrying a stack of papers.

"Stop looking."

Woolley asked:

"Does that mean I passed the first round?"

David paused for a moment.

"Don't say that."

"How so?"

David thought for a moment, then shook his head.

A lot of things were closed this week.

Several letters were returned.

Several points of contention were erased.

Several seemingly pointed questions turned out to be simply due to not reading further.

But Chen Zhuo's manuscript was still spread out on the longest table in Fan Enlou.

It was not closed.

On the seventh night, Cyril wrote a note in his office.

He wrote very slowly.

The first version was too long.

Delete it.

The second edition contains several words that are too strong.

Delete it.

There's a sentence in the third edition that seems perfect for a newspaper headline.

Delete it too.

The remaining content is very short.

It was so short that after reading it, Woolley didn't even think it was a news article.

The description did not mention "historic breakthrough".

There is no "proven".

It also did not make any final judgment on behalf of the mathematics community.

It simply states:

Chen Zhuo's preprint of the Hodge conjecture has been made public.

Van Enlou has begun organizing internal readings of the manuscript and will arrange a series of thematic discussions around the key chapters of the manuscript.

A full verification still requires further study by a wider mathematical community.

For specific academic questions, please submit them based on the paper's page numbers, definitions, and lemma numbers.

Woolley read the instructions from beginning to end.

"Isn't this too light?"

Cyril took off his glasses and placed them on the table.

"It's not light."

Woolley looked at the screen again.

It's definitely not heavy.

But it is indeed quite heavy.

Because this wasn't written for newspapers.

It's not written for people who just want the title.

This is written for people who actually know how to open academic papers.

At 8:17 p.m., the statement appeared on the Fan Enlou website.

The location is inconspicuous.

No picture provided.

There is no exclamation mark.

Even the title is quite ordinary.

Woolley refreshed the page to make sure it was up and running before pushing the chair back.

"alright."

Cyril did not speak immediately.

He sat behind the table, looking at the instructions.

After a while, he opened his email and forwarded the page link to several people.

Cambridge.

Paris.

Bonn.

Chicago.

There are also a few people who have come in this week with specific questions.

The main text is also very short.

Van Enlou's description has been updated.

After sending the message, Cyril closed his email account.

Outside in the corridor, the lights in the large conference room were still on.