Translator: Dreamscribe
Ji-yoon did not wait for the students’ murmuring to stop.
She picked up the chalk that had been placed in the chalk holder on the teacher’s desk and wrote four large words in the center of the blackboard.
[Definition - Proposition - Proof - Critique]
"This sester will only move in this order. I am not interested in pretty solutions. A proof can collapse even if it's short, and can be a wild goose chase even if it's long. What's important is logic that absolutely cannot be broken!"
Ji-yoon wrote the word ‘logic’ in large letters.
“When you think of mathematics, you may think of numbers first, but the most important thing in mathematics is proof based on perfect logic.
The other three stages I wrote are the process for building this flawless logic. Now then, shall we do a little test?”
When Professor Kim Ji-yoon clicked her mouse, a problem was projected onto the blackboard.
[In a village, there are people with blue eyes and people with brown eyes.
Everyone knows the eye colors of others but not their own. And there is no way for anyone to see their own eyes directly. The rule is: ‘If you learn the color of your own eyes, you must leave the village that night.’
One day, a traveler cos to the village and says, ‘There is at least one person with blue eyes here’. What happens next?]
A student sitting in the middle confidently raised his hand.
“Uh... Kim Jung-hwan? Alright. Go ahead.”
“The person with blue eyes realizes his eye color imdiately and leaves the village.”
Since everyone knows each other’s eye color, if soone sees no one else with blue eyes, it must be themselves.
Most people nodded as if they had thought sothing similar. But Ji-yoon shook her head.
“Incorrect. Can soone refute that?”
Seo-ha raised his hand.
“There is an error in that answer.
If there is only one person with blue eyes, he will hear the traveler’s words and think, ‘Ah! That must be ’, and leave imdiately. But if there are two or more, it’s different. They will each see the other and think, ‘That person will leave’, and wait.
If no one leaves on the first day, then on the second day they realize they were thinking the sa thing and leave imdiately. If there are three, they leave on the third day, four on the fourth... and so on.”
From Ji-yoon’s eyes as she looked at Seo-ha, sweetness seed to be dripping.
“Perfect. In order for logic not to break, you must consider every single possibility. It’s important that no hole pierces the logic. In mathematics, proof is the process of filling these gaps.
Even a slight shake ans it is not a complete logic.”
Tension flowed among the students.
“Of course, the opposite case can also occur. If you block the holes too excessively, that too cannot be considered a good proof.”
Ji-yoon clicked her mouse, and a new passage appeared.
"This is an actual report about a theft case that occurred in the past. Then let's remove the parts unnecessary for the proof."
Seo-ha was thrilled.
Professor Kim’s class was so enjoyable he felt like dancing.
Seo-ha’s teacher had always been books.
Around the age of two, from the mont he first began to read, Seo-ha had never spent a day without a book in his hands.
Under the lamplight, he was always alone.
Seo-ha would read books, ask himself questions, and find his own answers. Questions he couldn’t answer were written on his ‘Unresolved’ list, and he made sure to return to them later and deal with them.
As he read books, Seo-ha always imposed a procedure on himself. When he encountered a new concept, he first wrote down its definition. Then he went through a detailed process of self-verification to determine whether it was right or wrong.
When Professor Kim Ji-yoon wrote the process of ‘Definition - Proposition - Proof - Critique’, Seo-ha couldn’t stop his heart from pounding. This process had been part of his everyday life, as natural as breathing, since he was very young.
So it was inevitable that Seo-ha was strong in logic.
The students reading the report had serious expressions in their eyes.
Was it because the content was different from what they usually read? The students thought hard, but they still couldn’t figure out what was necessary and what should be removed.
“Isn’t the power outage important? That’s why the CCTV stopped....”
“The fact that the woman used a cellphone is a clue, so we shouldn’t delete that.”
“The ti the store owner opened the shop is part of the alibi, so it’s necessary.”
Whispers could be heard from here and there.
Even Su-jeong was frowning, as if she had a headache, carefully going over each sentence one by one.
The densely written summary of the incident was suffocating with its mix of nurous facts.
However, Seo-ha didn’t hesitate at all.
He quickly scanned the passage with his eyes and raised his hand high.
“Teacher, most of the clues listed in the report are unrelated to the conclusion.”
Seo-ha walked to the front and began deleting the sentences one by one.
At Seo-ha’s unhesitating actions, the students let out small gasps. One by one, facts they had thought might be clues were erased. In the end, only three lines remained.
[At the ti of the cri, the store owner was out.]
[The store’s safe can only be opened by entering a password.]
[Only the owner and a male employee who had worked at the store knew the password.]
“Excellent!”
Ji-yoon smiled as she stood up from her seat.
“See how clearly the core stands out once the unnecessary facts are removed? In reality, the culprit was that employee.
It’s the sa with proof in mathematics. You don’t have to use every condition given in the problem. In fact, conditions that aren’t essential can obscure our view, so we must quickly eliminate them. What matters is building a watertight logic!”
“Alright, everyone give a round of applause to Yu Seo-ha!”
Clap clap clap!
Seo-ha’s face turned red.
At that mont, Ji-yoon walked up to Seo-ha and whispered in his ear.
“Seo-ha, I told you to co visit in the lab anyti. Why didn’t you co? In the end, I had to co here just to et you.”
“Eek!”
Seo-ha flinched.
He felt as if all the hair on his body was standing on end.
Even after that, the logic gas continued.
A student would present a logical argunt, and soone else would try to break it.
And Seo-ha was the demon of this ga.
Every student’s logic was shattered by Seo-ha. Conversely, no one was able to break Seo-ha’s logic.
“Wow.... I’ve seriously never seen anyone like you before.”
Su-jeong stuck out her tongue in disbelief.
After the foundation of basic logic was done, Ji-yoon had the students apply it to mathematics.
Seo-ha’s head was spinning.
The problem written on the blackboard looked like an ordinary function proof.
But once they approached it using Ji-yoon’s thod, a completely different side was revealed.
For Seo-ha, learning had always been a solitary experience.
Of course, he believed that the process itself had been enjoyable enough.
To Seo-ha, Ji-yoon was the first ‘teacher who could actually teach’ that he had t in his life.
Seo-ha was moved by the direct learning he was experiencing from soone for the very first ti.
Ji-yoon watched Seo-ha with a pleased smile.
***
After entering elentary school, Seo-eun grew into a lively child. Perhaps it was because she was showered with love from her family, there wasn’t a trace of timidity in her behavior.
“Teacher! I know the answer!”
Every ti the teacher asked a question, Seo-eun would raise her hand faster than anyone else.
One Saturday afternoon,
Seo-eun was lying face down on the wooden floor. She was moving her legs alternately like she was dancing, as if playing a fun ga.
When Mi-young went over to see, she found her drawing with crayons.
She had opened the sa sketchbook that her oppa used and was writing “triangle”, “quadrilateral” in crooked handwriting, engrossed in studying. Of course, in her mind, it was just a shape ga.
“The sum of a quadrilateral’s interior angles is 360 degrees. If you cut it in half, it becos a triangle, so 180 degrees. Then a pentagon has three triangles, so 540 degrees?”
Mi-young thought as she watched, 'She's strangely like her older brother in such things too'.
“Mom! I’m ho!”
A familiar voice rang out from the gate.
His son, now much bigger, ca in while taking off his large backpack. Seo-eun, who had been lying on the floor, opened her eyes wide in surprise.
“It’s oppa!”
Seo-eun jumped up and ran over, throwing her arms around Seo-ha’s waist. Then Seo-ha lifted Seo-eun up high with both hands. Seo-eun giggled as she flailed her arms and legs in the air.
“Were you playing with shapes, Seo-eun?”
“Yeah! A hexagon is made of four triangles!”
Seo-ha hugged his little sister tightly with a smile.
“Co on, eat your al.”
Mi-young took Seo-ha’s backpack and gently pulled Seo-eun away.
Chul-ho, who had been watching TV in his room, also ca out and warmly welcod Seo-ha.
‘Ah! Ho!’
Coming back ho after being at the tension-filled school felt like a breath of fresh air in his chest.
Seo-ha ate two bowls of rice with his mother’s soybean paste stew and played with Seo-eun while taking a walk around the neighborhood.
When evening ca, Seo-ha sat back down at his familiar desk.
“178th attempt.”
For mathematicians, becoming obsessed with an unsolved problem is as natural as bees chasing after flowers.
However, if soone who truly cared for Seo-ha saw him like this, they would surely have stopped him. Because clinging to a difficult problem is incredibly dangerous.
Paul Wolfskehl dedicated his life to proving Fermat’s Last Theorem, but he never achieved the result he sought. He died without ever letting go of his obsession and left behind a will to pass on his inheritance to anyone who could solve the problem.
Louis de Branges is often cited as a typical ‘scholar possessed by the ghost of the Riemann Hypothesis’. He clung to the problem for over 30 years, yet never solved it. Under the weight of extre pressure and frustration, he gradually distanced himself from the academic world.
The Four Color Theorem was also a notoriously difficult problem that countless mathematicians had attempted and failed to solve over the years.
Even if it wasn’t beautiful, it was a problem that had already been solved.
There was no reason for a boy with such a bright future to obsess over this issue.
Scratch, scratch.
But for Seo-ha, giving up had never been an option from the start. This was the first 'unsolved' problem he had ever faced in his life.
Seo-ha had already spent far too long on this problem. As a result, he knew exactly where he would get stuck and which paths were dead ends.
So he instinctively tried to avoid every wall.
The deeper the research went, the higher the obstacles beca.
That was the dilemma Seo-ha faced.
But on the 178th attempt, sothing felt different. Seo-ha’s sharp mathematical intuition told him that this ti, it wasn’t the sa.
‘Hmm? Do I really have to avoid this path? I feel like I could deal with it in another way later.’
Suddenly, realization swept over him.
His class with Ji-yoon ca to mind.
‘You don’t have to use all the conditions given in the problem. In fact, non-essential conditions should be quickly excluded.’
Though it was knowledge he already had, Ji-yoon’s words made Seo-ha realize that there was another path, one he hadn’t considered due to his habitual avoidance.
Scratch, scratch.
Seo-ha’s pencil moved in search of a new path.
His hand moved without pause across the formulas that filled the paper. In the heavy, silent air of the room, Seo-ha continued his research quietly.
Scratch, scratch.
The answer still didn’t appear.
But it was clearly different from before. Back then, it felt like wandering endlessly in a barren wasteland. Now, it felt like walking toward an oasis that was surely out there sowhere in the desert.
The great wall that had blocked Seo-ha for years finally began to crack for the first ti before his eyes.
*****
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