Two days ago, I talked to an old classmate about the important discoveries in mathematics in recent years, and as a result, as a popular science person, I found out that the history of mathematics turned out to be a history of gossip. This circle is full of strange things, and strange things are revealed. Well, this is also one of the great pleasures that our practitioners in our industry cannot extricate themselves from. It is hereby rearranged as follows, and there is absolutely no guarantee of the correctness of the facts, and any similarity with reality is purely coincidental.

The story begins with Andrew Wiles in '85. This life was in Cambridge, but when I was admitted to university, I got 2B, I didn't get into Cambridge, I went to King's College, which is not far from home, and after graduation, I went to Oxford University to study for a doctorate in mathematics, but I graduated at the age of 27. As a mathematics practitioner, everyone knows that he only graduated with a doctorate at the age of 27, which is basically synonymous with "this person's IQ is also ordinary". The Fields Medal, the highest award in mathematics, is only given to people under the age of 40, and you only graduated at the age of 27, so you still have a few years to mix up in this industry, right? Just as my mother will always compare the neighbor's children, look at the great god of Telun Sutao, who graduated with a doctorate at the age of 20 and taught for life at the age of 24.

Looking back, this Wiles, after a few years of bumpy years after graduation, finally went to Princeton to find a teaching position, and officially entered the ranks of pseudo-bosses. People know that in the United States, the first seven years are the most difficult, because there are mandatory requirements to publish articles every year, and if you can't post them, you will be laid off. After seven years, he is a tenured professor. This Wiles is also holding back the article with his life, writing day and night. But he did an earth-shattering NB thing, and every year he withheld a few well-written articles and did not publish them. What is this doing, waiting to be robbed by others?NO, as an uncle of sling, he is planning a grand counterattack plan.

Around 85 years ago, the mathematical community discovered that Fermat's theorem was proved simply by proving the Taniyama conjecture. This Fermat's theorem is a great problem of the century that has not been solved for hundreds of years. That's when Wiles decided to do it. This has the courage to become a benevolent if it is not successful, because countless heroes and geniuses have bent their waists over it for hundreds of years. If you make it out, it will be a generation of great men, and if you can't make it, you will burn your life into a wisp of smoke and bury it in the spring mud. Since 85 years, Wiles has been practicing Fermat's theorem in retreat, and no one has told him, secretly doing it in a small dark room in a single house. Well, that's what math is all about. Biochemistry and physics must cooperate, only mathematics, there is no such thing as cooperation, all the great achievements are secretly done in a small black room in a hanging man's house, and then come out to let everyone worship his IQ. This house is many, many years, but to be promoted to tenured professor, there must be articles every year, at this time, the articles saved in the past few years come in handy, and every year I take it out and send a little, and finally I become a tenured professor without danger.

After seven years at home, I finally got it. Seven years, it's time to practice the Dragon Elephant Promise Gong to the eighth and ninth layers. counterattacked, just these three words. But the good times didn't last long, and before a year, it was discovered that this proof was wrong. It's a big deal to find out that the paper is wrong in mathematics. Biochemistry can also explain the wrong test method, the wrong instrument, the ugly mouse and so on, but there is only one reason why the math paper is wrong, and that is that you have a problem with your IQ. There was a mathematician in the history of mathematics, who was quite famous but forgot what he was called, and his paper was published three times wrong, and he was directly ruined. The people who submitted the articles did not receive the magazine, and they withdrew from the mathematical world in a gloomy manner. The main reason is that the math paper is not easy to understand, and others have to look at what you prove for half a month and a half, and after reading it for so long, it turns out that there is a mistake, isn't this a trick to murder people. In order to avoid the doom of ruin, Wiles has no choice but to start staying at home again. Fortunately, he is a tenured professor now, and no one has fired him at home. This house was another three or four years, and finally this bug was fixed. Then, the story is over, Happyending, this Wiles has changed from an old sling to a martial arts Taishan Beidou.

Fast forward to 2003. Russia, that is, Mao's country, Perelman said he proved that it was also a century-old problem for more than a hundred years, and the Poincaré conjecture was born. Everyone was shocked, who is this person? Ask the experts on this trip, and the experts will say that this person seems to be very NB. But where is NB? I don't know, and I haven't seen him post any articles or anything. And it's not in the United States, it's a researcher at a university in Mao's country. The question was so important that universities in the United States began to read his proofs. How do mathematicians read the articles of their peers? Well, that's how it was at the time. A professor, with a few postdocs, plus a few PhDs, form a group. Once a week, everyone reads a page or two and discusses it together to figure it out. Yes, I can only read one or two pages a week. Then a bunch of geniuses can only understand it by arguing and discussing it every week, just like consulting the secrets of martial arts. After reading the article for more than a year, everyone thinks there is no problem, and they seem to understand it. Then the world found out, ah, the person who wrote this martial arts cheats turned out to be a master. Looking at it with such effort, wouldn't the person who wrote it have an IQ beyond the edge of the universe.

At this time, suddenly there was a group that announced that they had found Perelman's article wrong. Just as Wiles was found to be at fault. But this time it's a different ending, and Perelman's reply to the world is only one sentence: "My article is correct, I didn't understand it." Then, in the end, it turned out that the professors of the group that had picked the wrong one were discredited. The mathematics world is really a risk industry, and you will be ruined at every turn, so please think twice about the young people who have entered the industry.

Then, as usual, it was Happyending time, and universities, professors, and journalists from all over the world flew to Moscow to find the sweeping monk. As a result, no one was there. No lectures, no awards, no interviews. Don't want a reward of millions of dollars, or stay in the old house and nibble on black bread. It was really black bread, because the reporter interviewed the salesperson of the supermarket he frequented, saying that Perelman always came to buy groceries with a scruffy beard and rags, and he couldn't afford all the high-end things, so he bought black bread and macaroni every day. Well, that's the truth, that's the master. No one knows where Perelman is and what he's doing now, so he's probably staying at home working on the next big problem.

Later, in 2013, it was the turn of the Chinese. It's still an old sling. This person's name is Zhang Yitang, and when he was young, he got a doctorate at Purdue University, but his doctoral dissertation was found to be wrong, and he was directly ruined and did not find a job. Since then, he has wandered all over the United States, working in Chinese restaurants, small hostels, etc., and also working in Subway. The dean of the mathematics department of the University of NewHamshire, another pheasant university in the northeastern United States, was Zhang Yitang's senior, and he was pitiful enough to give him a lecturer seat with no establishment and no status. That's more than 20 years. Time flies, Zhang Yitang is in his fifties, and he is still an unstaffed lecturer at the Pheasant University in the countryside. But suddenly in 2013, another sling counterattacked. Lao Zhang proved a big problem for thousands of years. That is, the interval between prime numbers is finite. Suddenly the martial arts boiled again, and the nearby Harvard and Massachusetts invited Lao Zhang to give a lecture to talk about his proof, and Lao Zhang happily agreed, but added another sentence, I still have to revise the final exam paper, and I will go again after I finish correcting it.

After that, it was a matter of the mathematicians who were widely circulated by everyone to brush the lower limit. Lao Zhang proved that the interval of prime numbers is limited, but what is the maximum interval of this interval, and the onlookers from all walks of life flocked in to improve the method and discover a new lower limit. Lao Zhang found 70 million at the beginning, and soon more than a month later, this value was brushed to 70,000 by countless onlookers. Mathematicians are terrible creatures, aren't they? Then people suddenly discovered that among the people who brushed the lower limit, there was a figure of Tren Sutao. Recall that as mentioned at the beginning of this article, Tren Sutao is the head of the supergod faction who graduated with a doctorate at the age of 20, was a tenured professor at the age of 24, and posted hundreds of articles. This person has also come to brush the lower limit? Do this kind of low-grade thing? Well, in fact, Tren Sutao has been studying this prime problem for several years, but there has been no great progress. This time, an old sling stole the limelight, and I guess it was very bad in my heart. However, he was still able to put down his body, and with his immortal IQ, he refreshed the lower limit several times in the crowd of onlookers, which is really rare modesty and diligence.

These people above are amazing. Finally, the ending is the most magical. This person's name is Shinichi Mochizuki. On the first page of the personal homepage is a big "cosmic geometry scholar". It looks like a copycat, right? But in fact, people are gods. Born in Japan, he went to the United States at the age of six, graduated from Princeton with a doctorate at the age of 23, and has published countless articles. But after graduating, he returned to Japan quietly, and after staying at Kyoto University, he was never heard from again. Finally, many, many years later, in 2012, when he was in his forties, the young talent turned into a middle-aged uncle, and he announced that he had proved the ABC conjecture. This is another big problem for hundreds of years. This time the world is boiling again, because he was very NB when he was young, and what he wrote is credible, and it is unlikely that he will be ruined. But as soon as everyone read it, they were confused, and no one could understand this thing. The entire mathematical system that Shinichi Mochizuki basically re-established, in order to understand it, at least he had to read all the thousands of pages he had written before. A few thousand pages may not sound like much, but come to think of it, math is something that you can only read one or two pages a week. There is really a professor who took a year of annual leave from the department and was determined to stay at home for a year to understand the reading, but he escaped back to work after a month of study. According to him, he estimated that he would not be able to read for ten years. And then everybody collapsed. We don't understand, so I invited Shinichi Mochizuki to the United States to tell us about it, and Harvard sent an invitation, but Mochizuki only replied with one sentence, "I can't explain my things to you", and then there was no news. The world is waiting for someone who is willing to spend ten years reading Mochizuki's things. Whoever wants to read it, read it, and if he understands it, we'll just listen to him explain the general idea. There will always be people who are willing to read Shinichi Mochizuki's article with the determination of "Hearing the way, dying at night".