Chapter 106: Taking the Stage

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Wu Tong had some vague sense of which direction her materials research might go, but those paths still required verification through laboratory work. Only with further data could she more precisely determine the direction and deduce the next steps.

The birth of a new material was never something achieved overnight. It was the fruit of countless researchers' tireless, round-the-clock efforts—weathered through who knows how many failures, requiring even a stroke of luck before a flash of insight could bring success.

Though she had what amounted to a fast-forward-assisted combination working in her favor, she was clearly no deity capable of creating something from nothing. The material ratios and fabrication processes still required concrete experimentation before she could obtain more comprehensive data to build upon for deeper preparation. Perhaps after returning home, she could ask the university whether she might be permitted to use the school's materials laboratory for trials. With an absolute directional determination in hand, she felt she had some guarantee of success after all!

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Recalling some dangerous rumors she had once heard, Wu Tong thought that while the little bit she had been tinkering with wasn't exactly top-secret, being abroad warranted extra caution. This notebook, then, she would keep on her person for the time being. In truth, all the data was already committed to memory, and burning it would have been the best option—except hotel rooms generally had smoke detectors, making that plan somewhat risky to execute.

At one-thirty, Li Yisheng tapped gently on the door. "Wu Tong, it's time to head to the venue."

At two o'clock, Conference Hall No. 1 was packed to capacity. Nearly every mathematician attending that day's opening ceremony had shown up. The front rows were an assembly of towering figures, with top-tier luminaries everywhere one looked.

"Oh, you're here too." Everyone exchanged glances that needed no words.

After a brief opening from the host on stage, Wu Tong followed the usher's guidance and strode out from backstage with steady steps. The hem of her dress, its fabric bearing a gradient wash of ink-and-wash brushwork, drifted gently with each stride.

She came to a stop at the center of the stage and raised her eyes to the audience below. Three to four thousand attendees were clearly visible before her—faces familiar and unfamiliar alike, nearly overflowing the hall.

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She drew a deep breath, steadied her composure, and gave a slight nod to the audience before speaking.

"I am the presenter for this session, Wu Tong, from Zhonghua!"

"Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend my presentation. When I received the conference invitation, I was quite surprised. Thinking that I didn't seem to have any impressive results to offer, I resolved to give my all to the just-launched Polignac conjecture. I am grateful to the organizing committee for their trust in me, for giving me ample time to present my work before you, and to discuss it together with you."

She delivered the opening she had rehearsed in her mind, calm and orderly. From the moment she stepped onto this international stage, she represented far more than just herself. Of course, she was not intimidated by the occasion, either—a complete proof and a rich store of knowledge were her finest sources of confidence.

Wu Tong clicked the laser pointer in her hand and displayed the first page of her report to the audience. On the massive screen, a magnified title appeared: A New Group Proof Method and a Proof of the Polignac Conjecture.

"Before I walk you through my proof of the Polignac conjecture, let me first explain the tool I used to tackle it: the infinite group proof method."

"Among integers greater than 1, those divisible only by 1 and themselves are called primes. Two thousand years ago, our predecessor Euclid proved that there are infinitely many primes... After Zelberg introduced topological principles to supplement the sieve method, I found my directional guide..."

Wu Tong's opening was not particularly difficult to follow. Some of the students and ordinary scholars who had come along with their teachers to learn wore looks of unbothered superiority, inwardly thinking: Is that all? That's enough to prove the Polignac conjecture? They almost had the illusion that they could do it too!

But as Wu Tong's explanation progressed step by step, people began to fall behind from the students outward, unable to keep up with the extension of her thinking. One missed step meant being hopelessly lost for everything that followed. Those who had initially been dismissive now all found themselves in a rhythm of "Who am I, where am I, what is this person saying?"

Such superficiality, of course, had nothing to do with the front-row luminaries. When the content transitioned to its deeper portion, that was precisely the part they found most fascinating.

Andrew Wiles turned his head and said to Terence Tao with a smile: "Zelberg, who first proposed using topology to supplement the sieve method, probably never imagined the sieve method could be played with like this! As I recall, he seemed to be trying to offer future generations a hint toward the Goldbach conjecture."

"Including myself, this is something I never anticipated either. It seems the sieve method's potential still has room for deep exploration—it has not, as many believe, reached a dead end!" Tao nodded softly. Wu Tong's research in this area stirred no small amount of inspiration for the project he was currently working on.

"This logic seems applicable to my L-function reasoning as well!" Deligne rested his chin on his hand. "Langlands will likely be quite interested!"

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"Wu Tong has really landed on solid ground—I knew she could do it!" Zhou Wenping relaxed his tense nerves. Before Wu Tong took the stage, he had still harbored some worry that, facing such a platform for the first time, she might be too nervous.

"How formidable the younger generation is!" He, the senior disciple who was practically an old wave, had been reduced to nothing by the dazzling performance of this junior schoolmate. His decision had been right—one could do research back in China too. The moon abroad was not rounder than the moon at home. This junior schoolmate's achievement was the best proof!

"...Therefore, we can determine that for all natural numbers k, there exist infinitely many prime pairs (p, p + 2k)!"

As Wu Tong delivered her final line of argument, thunderous applause erupted from the audience below. When the applause gradually subsided, Wu Tong faced the audience and moved on to the final step of this session: the Q&A.

"Next, if anyone has questions, please feel free to ask."

"Professor Wu Tong, on page fifty-six, line seven, why introduce Wilson's theorem and pivot directly to n=...?" The one who stood up was a Western scholar in his thirties. Seemingly out of respect, he had used the title "professor."

"I'm not a professor yet. You can call me Wu Tong, or Researcher Wu, if you like!" Wu Tong briefly clarified the address. She remembered that she also held a position as a researcher at the Jing University Center for Mathematics, so that could serve as a form of address as well.

"This idea came from Goldbach, based on Fermat's Fn=...1, n=0, 1, 2, 3.... To prove the infinitude of primes, I demonstrated that any two Fermat numbers are coprime—that is, no integer greater than 1 can divide two Fermat numbers simultaneously. To accomplish that goal, we want to verify the iterative expression..."

"Wu, regarding page thirty-seven, line three..."

One after another, including some among the front-row luminaries, people raised fairly profound questions. However, all of them received satisfactory answers through Wu Tong's responses, and no one raised any further questions.

(End of chapter)