The night before the college entrance exam results were released, I redeemed my Peking University ad

The internet is in an uproar!

No one expected that at the moment when the words "I won't go" caused an uproar across the internet and everyone was waiting for him to change his mind, Ji Bai didn't offer an explanation, a concession, or anything that anyone was waiting for; instead, he presented a research paper.

"Wait, what the heck is this Kolas conjecture? I've never heard of it!"

"I know about Goldbach's Conjecture, but what's the Kolas conjecture? Ji Bai, can you prove something we've heard of?"

"I graduated from a 211 university, and I consider myself to be fairly good at math, but I've never even heard of this hypothesis before."

"Upstairs, a 211 undergraduate shouldn't even mention math in front of Ji Bai, okay? Right now, there are probably no more than 100 people in the whole world who can talk to him about math."

Seeing the growing demand for science popularization, a Weibo account verified as belonging to a "professor in the Department of Mathematics at Nanjing University" finally stepped forward.

"The Kolas conjecture, which is probably better known by another name, the hail conjecture."

"The name comes from the intuitive representation of its iterative process: take any positive integer, divide it by two if it is even, multiply it by three and add one if it is odd, repeat the operation, and it will eventually come down to one."

"It's called the Hailstone Conjecture because this number, during its iteration, will fluctuate like hailstones in the clouds. Sometimes it will drop rapidly to a very small value, and sometimes it will suddenly soar to a very large value, but eventually it will fall back to the ground like hailstones, which is one."

"The most fascinating thing about this conjecture, and also the most despairing thing, is that its problem statement is so simple that even an elementary school student can understand it, but its difficulty has left the world's top mathematicians baffled for decades."

"I know everyone will ask, what practical use does this problem have? The answer is, it may not have direct engineering applications, but the mathematical structure behind it, namely the orbital distribution problem in discrete dynamical systems, is deeply connected with cryptography, random number generation, and even quantum chaos."

"Currently, the best result on the Collatz conjecture was proved in 2019 by Fields Medal winner and Chinese-American mathematical genius Terence Tao: that is, in the sense of logarithmic density, almost all positive integer Collatz orbits will fall into a sufficiently small interval."

"At the time, Terence Tao himself publicly stated that his method was still far from completely proving the Collatz conjecture, and that this gap might require entirely new mathematical tools to bridge."

Professor Chen's science post went viral, and the comment section exploded instantly.

"Wow, this is amazing!"

"I know Terence Tao, the Fields Medal winner, one of the world's brightest minds!"

"Even Tao Shen couldn't solve the problem, but Ji Bai did?"

"Professor Chen, what do you think of Ji Bai's proof? Was it successful?"

"You overestimate me."

Professor Chen replied in the comments section with a hint of self-deprecation: "To my shame, I only read about a third of it, because the new structures used in the latter half were beyond my research scope."

"I can only say that, based on what I have seen so far, I have not found any logical flaws."

"What?! Even a math professor from Nanjing University can't understand Ji Bai's proof???"

"If one-third of it is beyond the scope of the research, how many people in the world are qualified to review this paper?"

……

Meanwhile, at the Ji Bai family's home.

Academician Wang, Dean Lin, Principal Wang, class teacher Li Mei, and the city leaders who accompanied them were all dumbfounded!

Originally, these people came to do Ji Bai's job.

When kids throw a tantrum, just coax them a little.

When the group arrived at Ji Bai's old and dilapidated house, Ji Bai only said "wait a moment" before sitting down at the computer and starting to type away.

At first, no one knew what Ji Bai was going to do.

But as they watched, the expressions in Academician Wang's and the others changed.

When Ji Bai typed the last symbol, everyone froze instantly.

"Old Wang, this, this, this..."

Lin Boqian pointed at the screen, his fingers trembling, and he mumbled "this" for a long time, unable to utter a single word.

He was once a leading figure in the mathematics world, and had met countless geniuses. He had seen Terence Tao give a lecture at Princeton and Wiles explain Fermat's Last Theorem at Cambridge. Never before had he been so stunned into silence by a single article.

"Old Wang, it seems..."

Director Zhang of the Mathematics Department at Peking University stood at the back. His research interests happened to be somewhat related to the Kolas conjecture, so he understood the significance of those few pages on the screen better than anyone else present.

"Quickly, quickly, print it out for me!" Academician Wang practically shouted.

"Mr. Wang, this...this doesn't have a printer."

"How about we go back to the guesthouse first?"

"Let's go! Back to the guesthouse! We need to go back and verify immediately!"

Academician Wang grabbed Ji Bai's arm, his hands trembling with excitement.

"Ji Bai, don't go anywhere, just stay home and wait for us! We'll be right back!"

A group of bigwigs, with an average age of over sixty, rushed to the guesthouse, having completely forgotten about their attempt to persuade Ji Bai to go to America.

Back at the guesthouse, a dozen or so printed certificates were immediately distributed to the bigwigs.

The room was completely silent, save for the sound of turning pages and the occasional gasp of surprise.

"This iterative structure... it's ingenious! How did you come up with that?!"

"The scaling here is perfect! There's not a single flaw!"

"I've completed the verification of the first part; the logic is completely closed!"

"The second half is also fine! This completely new proof method is practically groundbreaking!"

Everyone forgot to sleep, forgot about time, and plunged headlong into proving things.

From late at night to early morning, and then until dawn.

At six o'clock in the morning, Academician Wang, who hadn't slept all night, put down the last page of paper. His eyes were bloodshot, but they were frighteningly bright.

He slammed his hand on the table, his voice trembling:

"It's done!"

Totally established!

Not a single flaw!

The Kolas conjecture has indeed been proven!

The room erupted in an uncontrollable cheer.

two!

Two world-class number theory conjectures!

All of it was proven by an 18-year-old high school student in just two days!

……

At this moment, everyone remembered what Ji Bai had said earlier: "Don't worry, they will come!"

Everyone present was a genius among geniuses. Although they didn't understand what Ji Bai meant at the time, they understood it now.

"Quickly! Issue a statement immediately!" Academician Wang stood up abruptly, his voice resounding.

"On behalf of the Chinese Mathematicians' Society, we once again extend an invitation to the global mathematics community!"

"Goldbach's Conjecture and the Collatz Conjecture—two major findings, verified together!"

"I refuse to believe they can sit still!"