Chapter 516: Fermat's Last Theorem!
Chapter 516: Fermat's Last Theorem!
It was really too familiar!
And it became more and more familiar!
Disregarding the noisy crowd and discussions, Zhang Ye moved further away to a place where there was no one. He sat down and quietly opened up the game interface. Then, in the game's merchant shop, he bought a Memory Search Capsule and swallowed it on the spot. His vision blurred and he landed in his sea of memories.
......
Back in his previous world.
He was back to his high school days.
Back then, every Friday afternoon was an allocated school break, but if there was a need, the Education Bureau would set this school break to become an interest based class in the latter half of the year. Every student would have to register their interests for different topics and Zhang Ye had at that time tried to register himself for art classes since it took the least effort on the student’s part, but as every student thought the same way, the class was already fully registered, so he had no choice but to choose another. The classes conducted were not covered in the basic lesson plans, but was instead used to expand their knowledge.
"This was Fermat's Conjecture, one of top 3 Mathematical Conjectures of the world. It's history dates back several hundred years and was finally proven in 1995, meaning to say that it is no longer known as a conjecture now, but as Fermat's Last Theorem."
"Teacher, can you explain it to us in detail?"
"Hur hur, I do have some detailed information here. Let me put it up on the projector for everyone to take a look. Even if I were to explain it, none of you would be able to understand it. Yes, even I do not have the knowledge to understand it. The proof to this theorem is an extremely complicated process and my capabilities are limited."
"Wah."
"It's even in Chinese and English?"
"How deep, this is too amazing!"
"Eh? You understood it?"
"Uh, no. I totally didn't get it!"
......
He was back to the current world, slowly opening his eyes again.
Zhang Ye was still puzzled before searching his memory, but now everything was as clear as could be. He had wondered why it was so familiar at first, this Dale's Conjecture, IBM conjecture, or whatever conjecture it was called! It was simply just a change of names! Because the first person to have proposed this conjecture was named Dale, that was the reason for it being called Dale's Conjecture, but it was obvious now that the name of the conjecture had nothing to do with the contents of it, as this Dale's Conjecture was essentially the same as his previous world's Fermat's Conjecture!
This was it!
The conjecture's contents were still the same!
The only difference was that this conjecture had not yet been solved by the mathematicians of this world. It had only been proposed several decades earlier, while in Zhang Ye's world, this Math Problem had already been solved. Fermat's Conjecture together with Four Color Conjecture and Goldbach's Conjecture were known as the Mathematics world's Three Great Conjectures!
Zhang Ye glanced over to where the American mathematicians were.
One of the mathematicians, named Louis, was getting some shut-eye.
Another young mathematician called David had gone over to the French booth and was chatting with a female French mathematician. He looked like he was trying to pick up girls.
As for the United State's youth participants, who had been ranked first in the competition earlier, their faces were full of pride and they were smiling brightly.
Zhang Ye smiled coldly.
Dale's Conjecture? It's no big deal!
He picked up his cellphone and found Old Wu's contact. He sent a message to her: "Old Wu."
Old Wu, who was standing very far and had her back facing him, looked like she was still looking at the jade thumb ring. She had not reacted to his message probably because of the crowd and noise around her.
Zhang Ye made a call over to her and hung up after a few rings.
He could see that Wu Zeqing finally noticed her cellphone ringing and picked it up.
After a short moment, a reply from her came: "Yes?"
Zhang Ye replied: "You like that jade thumb ring?"
Wu Zeqing: "Hur hur. It's not bad I guess?"
Zhang Ye: "Then that means you really like it, right?"
Wu Zeqing: "They wouldn't possibly sell it. And even if they did, Big Sis wouldn't afford it either. That's probably an antique from the Palace, so it's definitely a very valuable item.
Zhang Ye looked up at the prize, then replied: "Alright!"
Wu Zeqing: "?"
Old Wu clearly did not understand what he meant.
Zhang Ye stopped replying, kept his cellphone, and headed towards the crowd.
......
With the event area.
As the leader, Wang Yiming had gone over the the American's booth with Xin Ya and Han Henian following behind. They lodged a stern protest against the American mathematicians in English.
Wang Yiming said, "Why did you use a treasure from our nation as the prize for this event?"
The leader of their team, Louis looked at him. They seemed to know each other and were definitely no strangers, "Wang, this belongs to us."
Wang Yiming said, "Can I assume that this is provocation on your part?"
"No, no, no." Louis said, "This item was given to us in a will by one of our Mathematics Association's teachers. When he passed away last year, he had some of his personal items donated to the Association and dictated that it be used for the promotion and research of mathematics. I don't know the history and origins of this item, but right now, it does not belong to you. It's ownership belongs to us and we have the right to use it as we please. There is no other meaning to it, so please don't misunderstand."
Xin Ya said, "But you've already caused the misunderstanding!"
David, who was flirting earlier, had come back around, "What's the matter?"
Wang Yiming pointed at the topic board, "Change your topic and let us have a fair fight."
"No." Louis wagged his finger, "This will be our topic, Wang. We've been studying and researching Dale's Conjecture and want to use this Math Problem to foster further learning between other countries. Is that a problem? There's nothing unfair about it. Besides, the competition has already ended and our team won the championship. That is the results of the competition and there's nothing else to have a fair fight about."
David threw up his hands and smiled, saying, "What a pity."
The competition had already ended and there was no chance of gaining back their pride in the after-event. The Americans had even put up a prize that was taken from their country long ago. The Chinese mathematicians were all furious!
Many of the park visitors had also heard about it, especially the younger ones whose English were pretty good.
"Your sister!"
"How arrogant!"
"What the heck are they showing it off for?!"
"Pfft!"
A lot of the park visitors around the perimeter of the area had started cursing and scolding.
When that youth named David saw this, he gave a handsome smiled and waved at them, not understanding what they were saying. He even gave a flying kiss to one of the tall female park visitors. He seemed like frivolous man, but at the same time was full of confidence.
The crowd got even more furious when they saw this!
At a corner.
The youth participants of China had gathered together.
"Sis, don't cry anymore." Huang Leilei felt very sad seeing his sister like this. He kept tugging at his sister's arm beside her.
"Leader."
"Leader, we don't blame you."
The other children were consoling her as well. Huang Lingling had taken very good care of them for the past half year like an elder sister should, and everyone of them liked her very much. They did not want to see her in this manner.
But Huang Lingling was a very stubborn girl. She was the team leader for this year's International Math Olympiad and was chosen from a few million students from thousands of schools all over the nation to represent the country. She did not only represent herself or her school, but represented the entire country in taking part in this competition. As the team leader, she had committed several key errors which left her with deep regrets. She even felt that if she had not taken part in the competition and was instead replaced with someone else, their results would have had been better. She felt that this was all her fault and she had let her teachers and professors down. Seeing how their teachers and professor ignored them after they lost the championship, she felt even worse knowing that they had been utterly disappointed in them.
Blame me!
Just blame me!
Huang Lingling just bit her lip and did not say anything else. Suddenly, she raised her head and looked towards the American team's topic board, the look in her eyes became very firm and she suddenly got up to walk towards it.
Huang Leilei was stunned, "Sis, what are you trying to do?"
The other young participants also rushed over to her, "Leader?"
Very quickly, other people around them also noticed Huang Lingling's odd behavior. They looked over at her, confused as they did not know what she was going to do.
Louis looked strangely at the little girl, "Eh?"
In the next second, Huang Lingling had taken out the marker she used during the competition, clenched her teeth, and stood in front of the American team's topic board. Looking at that world renowned Math Problem written on it. She stubbornly held up the marker, ready to try to solve the question on the blank writing board beside it. She wrote a formula on it and clenched her teeth again, then clumsily wiped it away with her hand and rewriting another one on it. She wrote and stopped and wrote and stopped and it looked like it was a mess. With her level, she would, of course, not be able to solve such a kind of difficult topic. Even if it were not her, her teachers, or her teachers' teachers would not be able to solve it!
The crowd finally understood that this young girl wanted to solve Dale's Conjecture to make up for her earlier mistakes. Was it for honor? Or was it for pride?
At this moment, many of those park visitors were moved!
Including Zhang Ye who was making his way over, he stopped in his footsteps and looked hard at that stubborn girl.
The mathematicians participants from the other countries were all looking over at her by now. Some of them stared blankly, while others kept silent. Some of the others were smiling mockingly.
David from the American team shook his head and said something that no one understood. In any case, it did not seem polite.
An American participant glanced at Huang Lingling and asked, "What does she think she is doing?"
"I don't know." said another participant. She sounded sarcastically, "A topic that has yet to be solved by so many mathematicians in the world and she thinks she can do it?"
"What a clown!" An American youth said.
The children from the American team were all laughing at her.
A youth representative from the United Kingdom team went over and said to her kindly, "Don't write anymore. You won't be able to solve it. The mistake you made earlier in the competition was just a careless one, you'll definitely do better the next time."
A French girl also said, "Yes, you did great."
But Huang Lingling did not appear to have heard anything. She just carried on doing some calculations, writing and erasing and writing again.
Wu Zeqing sighed.
The park visitors around could no longer bear seeing this.
"Good child, don't write anymore!"
"The competition was lost, but we don't blame you. It is not your fault!"
"Child, all of you are the pride of the country, so don't blame yourself anymore. It's going to be alright, it's really going to be alright!"
When she heard all these supportive words, Huang Lingling's eyes turned red again. Her tears were flowing down her cheeks into her mouth, but she did not wipe them off her face. She just continued trying her best and continued with her calculations in front of the topic board.
Huang Leilei clenched his fist and walked up too, "Sis, let me help you!"
"And me!" another one of the Chinese team's youth participant grabbed a marker as well.
"Leader, there's still us! Let's all do this together!" The youth participants of the Chinese team were all standing beside Huang Lingling. Some of them were only about 10 years old and not even 1.4m tall. They all held markers in their hands and even had to tiptoe to reach the writing boards.
In front of this great and famous math problem, all of them looked very minute.