Super God-Level Top Student

Qiao Ze had even seen the future layout plan for the Optoelectronics Institute's photolithography laboratory.

According to the plan, it was to be a circular main building with three underground levels and two above ground.

This massive circular photolithography machine would occupy the first and second basement levels.

And the third basement level would be the entire operation center.

According to the schedule, various construction machinery would move in next month to start the initial construction work.

One could tell that everyone was very serious about building the photolithography machine.

It even gave Qiao Ze a sense of sparing no expense.

This was a scenario he had never envisioned when designing that paper.

Especially when he learned that the project was now being pushed not only by two academicians from the Xilin Optical Institute but also several academicians from the Jingcheng University of Science Physical Institute who had joined in and were leading teams to start doing design work on the front lines.

It made Qiao Ze even more aware of this almost desperate desire to build the photolithography machine.

Well, he had originally just intended to scare people, but now that everyone was serious, he could only take on more work proactively.

The reason was nothing else but that Qiao Ze actually liked dealing with people who were serious about their work subconsciously.

Regardless of whether the final result was successful, at least everyone was genuinely working on something.
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Just this alone was much stronger than those who wasted their time on lip service and bureaucracy.

Not to mention Qiao Ze was confident that theoretically, this project was bound to succeed, sooner or later.

However, from the current situation, this project might be completed even earlier than he had expected.

It just so happened he was not too busy recently.

Thinking about the quality gap was a relatively long-term job.

Even though Qiao Ze felt he already had enough mathematical tools, there was no rush at that moment.

For those immersed in their work, a week's time was almost fleeting.

They even resented that there weren't more days to spare.

Far across the ocean in Princeton town, Daniel Milnor had once again visited Roth Dugan's office.

But this time it was at night.

Different from his imposing appearance last time, although Daniel's hair was still messy, he lacked the previous dominance and had eyes filled with bloodshot and heavy dark circles instead.

From this, it was clear that his rest had not been too good over the past week.

However, Roth Dugan did not mock this rude guy this time, because he was almost in the same state.

Although not as obvious as Daniel, he was evidently somewhat listless.

The excitement period had passed.

Those brilliant proof processes could indeed be exhilarating and even endlessly fascinating.

But people can't stay excited indefinitely.

Even with little blue pills, you could only extend the time but not become a war god.

"You're right, Lotte, this paper is simply brilliant. He addressed the problem from an unbelievable angle. Why didn't I think of that? Divide, divide, and divide again... Isn't that the basic idea of calculus? Of course, the key is his transformation pathway and thought process.

You were right, that Qiao is a genius!"

Despite looking drained, Daniel spoke with extreme speed, presenting a strange disconnection between one's appearance and spirit.

However, Roth Dugan did not care about these.

In a sense, the guy in front of me, albeit a bit rough around the edges, was quite adorable.

At least he wouldn't tell lies just to save face.

"Yes, yes, I know. I've said it before, I've studied this paper. It really did give me a moment of awe. So, you also think this paper deserves a groundbreaking publication, right?"

"Of course! I dare say this paper could be among the top two of the new century. After all, as you know, the Russian solved Poincaré's conjecture. Right, Qiao is only eighteen years old, and if we take this into account, the contribution of this paper might even surpass that of the Russian's. Because I'm very clear on what it can help us with!

Do you know? Lying in bed these days, I can hardly sleep. Because if we follow this train of thought, we might find a possible solution for the mass gap conjecture through a series of subdivisions and transformations of non-Abelian fields, my God, what a mad idea! Can you believe it? Lotte!"

Listening to the other party's chant-like cadence, Roth Dugan's face turned quite peculiar, then he retorted, "So, Daniel, why do you think Qiao wants to solve this problem? I have to remind you that from the last paper to this one, they are interconnected."

Roth Dugan's words swiftly brought Daniel Milnor back to his senses.

Cocking his head, he asked with incredulity, "Are you saying that Qiao is doing it specifically to solve this problem?"

Roth Dugan shrugged and said, "We have indeed communicated, but he did not directly answer the question. However, I can guess his thoughts from certain details. His understanding of Group Theory, non-commutative geometry, and linear algebra is very profound. And I'm sure he's read almost all of Robert Stephen's papers, so what do you think?"

The Robert Stephen mentioned by Roth Dugan is a physicist who has devoted most of his life to the hypothesis of the mass gap, and of course, is also a very outstanding scientist, a true luminary, currently working on the hill behind the Berkeley Branch.

That place belongs to MSRI, which is the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute of the United States.

Many people in various scientific fields have not heard of this luminary's name, and his citation count is also very low; in other words, hardly anyone reads his papers.

However, this doesn't mean that the quality of this luminary's papers is poor.

On the contrary, Robert Stephen has such a significant reputation in this field precisely because his research is very advanced. But because these papers are incomprehensible to most, they choose not to waste their time on them.

Just like when Li Jian Gao first met Qiao Ze and told him.

If Qiao Ze could really solve this problem, there would be no more than twenty people in the world qualified to review and immediately understand the paper.

This is no exaggeration at all.

After all, with so many specialized pieces of knowledge involved, facing an unfamiliar field one must hunt down various theorems, and understanding them is indeed not simple.

Not to mention that physicists, perhaps even more than mathematicians, are eager to solve this issue.

After all, the series of theories they use to describe the microscopic world, including the built Higgs Mechanism, rely on Yang-Mills Theory, but this theory hasn't even been mathematically proven yet. It's truly urgent.

Daniel stopped talking.

He had nothing to say.

What he could think of, they had already thought of long before.

Of course, this is not Daniel's fault, after all, this was the first paper of Qiao Ze that he reviewed.

"Okay, tell me, you've definitely already recruited Qiao, right? What conditions does he want to come to Princeton?" Daniel asked after a silence.

"He refuses to come," Roth Dugan replied, then added, "At least not now."

"No no no, you must be talking about him coming as a student, right? We can persuade the board together to hire him with a high salary as a tenured professor. As long as we can prove that he indeed wrote this paper, then he could hold a position at the School of Mathematics, of course, mainly working at the Institute for Advanced Study. I can work with him on this problem," Daniel said aggressively.

"I'm certain that he did write this paper. But, sorry, I don't think a high salary would tempt him much. You should look at his original paper, well, the many papers he's recently published. His research on large AI language models should have amassed enough wealth for him, at the very least he doesn't seem too concerned about money. As for a tenured professorship..."

Roth Dugan shook his head.

This youngster didn't seem too concerned about money, and most likely wouldn't be too impressed by a professorship either.

And it seemed that the other side could offer him various treatments.

"What if we could recommend him to the National Academy of Mathematics?" Daniel waited with his bright-red eyes intensely fixed on Roth Dugan as he spoke.

"Are you crazy? He hasn't really solved the mass gap conjecture!" Roth Dugan glared at him.

He was truly mad!