1017 Famous Teacher, Famous Studen

The winner was only 26 years old!

Even though this didn’t break Professor Lu’s record, 26 years old was still extremely young.

What surprised people wasn’t just her age, but also her gender.

Prior to this, the only female mathematician to have won a Fields Medal was Maryam Mirzakhani from Stanford University. Unfortunately, the year after she won her award, in 2017, she died from breast cancer.

Therefore, Vera would become the world’s only living female Fields Medalist.

“The Fields Medalists are getting younger and younger, first Schultz, then Professor Lu, then Vera Pulyuy…”

Xu Chengyang looked at the beautiful young figure on stage and said, “When I see these young people pop up one by one, I feel so old.”

His last chance at winning a Fields Medal was four years ago.

And just like he had expected, he lost.

There was nothing unfortunate about this. After all, the Fields Medal was only awarded once every four years. Unless someone was an excellent professor, as well as an excellent researcher, it was unlikely for them to win the award.

For example, Lu Zhou’s supervisor was Deligne. Coupled with his outstanding research such as Goldbach’s conjecture proof and the Navier-Stokes, it was no wonder the International Mathematical Union gave him the award at such a young age.

Another example was Schultz, whose mentor was Michael Rapoport. Michael was from the University of Bonn, just like Faltings. Not to mention Schultz’s “perfect s.p.a.ce” theory was one of the most promising research directions of algebraic geometry. Even then, he still took 2 terms to win a medal.

While Xu Chengyang was well known domestically, he was only a semi-famous scholar in the international world. There was still a big gap between him and the top of the food chain.

Not to mention that there was also Zhang Wei, who was sitting next to him.

Zhang Wei was superior to Xu Chengyang, both in terms of international and domestic reputation.

Zhang Wei nodded sympathetically and sighed.

“Yeah, time flies.”

It had already been four years.

Without him knowing it, he went from a young scholar to a scholar who was almost in his fifties.

It felt like just yesterday they were the new generation of mathematicians, but now they were the old comers, about to be retired.

Xu Chengyang smiled and said, “Our time is past… But don’t you think this is incredible, not only is Professor Lu so successful, but so are his students.”

Zhang Wei shook his head and said, “It’s not incredible. I remember Vera Pulyuy won a gold IMO medal and went to Princeton with a recommendation letter from Tao Zhexuan. She is talented, and her teachers taught her well.”

A ton of Fields Medalists had won IMO gold medals before. If the student was talented, paired with a good supervisor, it was likely for the student to win a Fields Medal.

The only surprising thing was her age and gender.

Xu Chengyang said, “IMO gold medal, we have a few. There’s this kid that got a perfect score. I wonder if he’s going to win another Fields Medal for China.”

Even though Lu Zhou won the first Fields Medal for China, Xu Chengyang knew that it would be difficult to win another.

“This was similar to Ramanujan’s contribution to the Indian mathematics community. Even though there have been many outstanding Indian mathematicians, none of them have gotten even close to Ramanujan.”

“It’s possible.” Zhang Wei patted his friend’s shoulder and said, “Professor Lu is back in his home country, right? It’s only been four years, he needs time to develop talent. Give it another 15 years, I’m sure China will produce a group of outstanding mathematicians!”

What convinced Zhang Wei wasn’t just Lu Zhou’s abilities, but also the changes that had been taking place in China’s academic community.

He could sense that Professor Lu’s achievements were causing the state and people to pay more attention to mathematics.

The support from the state meant everything.

Now, the Chinese academic community had fully recognized the contribution mathematics made to the applied sciences.

Something like this was unthinkable ten years ago.

This meant that Lu Zhou’s impact on the mathematics community was far more than the couple of students he taught…

On the other side of the venue, Academician w.a.n.g s.h.i.+cheng was quiet ever since the award ceremony began. He had a look of relief on his face.

A few days ago, he was still holding a grudge against Lu Zhou for poaching a talent.

But now, he felt like there was nothing wrong with what Lu Zhou did.

The Yan University International Mathematical Research Center had been around for many years, but even though they had trained many outstanding scholars, none of them were at the top of the international field.

If this guy really has the ability to create Fields Medal scholars…

Maybe it’s a good thing that the IMO kid went to him instead.

Sitting near Professor w.a.n.g’s seat was Professor Deligne.

This old man stared at the girl on stage and snorted. He suddenly said, “… I didn’t expect them to choose Pulyuy.”

Professor Fefferman smiled and said, “As for her academic achievements, anyone that can prove Collatz conjecture is a world-cla.s.s scholar. Regardless of how much Lu Zhou helped her, judging from her thesis, most of the work was done by her.”

Deligne stared at Fefferman and said, “You really don’t think they’re giving this award just to be politically correct and inclusive?”

Professor Fefferman had a helpless expression on his face.

“… Fine, I thought about that as well. In fact, Marina Vyazovska is also a good choice, but giving her the medal is a little far-fetched.”

Professor Deligne suddenly said, “This was not the case in mathematics before. We didn’t have all this political correctness.”

He wasn’t against giving the Fields Medal to Vera, nor did he deny that Vera was an excellent scholar. However, he was more concerned with the mathematical community as a whole, and he felt like politics was penetrating the purity of mathematics.

A long time ago, the only thing that mattered was a scholar’s academic contributions.

But now, they had to take into account nationality, skin color, gender, and even political backgrounds. Even though being a minority alone wasn’t enough to win a Fields Medal, it certainly helped.

The politically correct crowd was slowly destroying the freedom and independence of academia…

Professor Fefferman shrugged and said, “The times are changing, whether we accept it or not, we have to adapt to this change.

“Also, it’s not like we’re the only ones that have to adapt to this new reality.”

Deligne stared at him.

“Do you think this is good?”

Fefferman: “That’s a problem for the future generation to worry about.”

…

There was a round of thunderous applause.

However, Lu Zhou’s mind was elsewhere.

Not because he fainted from the excitement, but because he was in the system s.p.a.ce.

[Congratulations, User, “Famous Teacher, Famous Student” achievement unlocked!]

[Conditions achieved: Nurture a student who has achieved the highest level of honor in their respective field!]

[Reward: 100,000 experience points, “Void Memory a” sample (rare)!]

Void Memory?

“Rare”?

Also, what does the “a” mean is there a b,c, and d?

Lu Zhou saw the rewards pop up on the information screen. He paused for a second.

Even though this system had played many cruel jokes on him, such as the “Easter egg” sample, his intuition told him that this wasn’t a joke sample.

Without hesitating, he turned off the reward notification and opened his inventory.

After all, it was only 100,000 experience points. He needed millions of experience points just to level up his mathematics.

His inventory was opened.

Sitting inside was a purple-shaped object.

Its shape was difficult to describe. It was like a spherically shaped cloud, like there was something hiding inside the cloud.

Lu Zhou gulped and clicked on the icon.

However, the item description didn’t pop up. Instead, he felt a wave of electric shock through his fingers.

“Ouch!”

This hurts!

This was the first time Lu Zhou felt this sensation inside the system s.p.a.ce.

However, the feeling didn’t discourage Lu Zhou. Instead, he looked intrigued.

“Interesting…

“… I always thought that the system s.p.a.ce existed in my consciousness, similar to a dream. I didn’t expect to feel any pain here.”

He became more and more curious about the system.

Maybe the correct way to open the item is to hold it firmly?

However, Lu Zhou decided against this.

He was at the ICM conference.

Anything could happen to his physical body on the outside.

He should be more careful.

At the very least, he should find a quiet place where he could be by himself…