Translator: Dreamscribe
"You're going to Arica?"
The exams had ended, and winter vacation had begun.
Yu Seo-ha had returned ho and was roasting chestnuts with his family.
When he placed a peeled roasted chestnut on his palm, hot steam rose from the freshly roasted nut.
"Yes, I received an invitation from an Arican university to attend a forum. It's from MIT, a famous school...."
When Chul-ho brought in chestnuts soaked in water and roasted in the yard, Seo-ha and Mi-young peeled them. Then Seo-ha split the well-roasted chestnuts and popped them into Seo-eun's mouth.
Seo-eun, who was eating the chestnuts like a baby bird, smiled brightly while blowing on them as they were hot.
"Oppa, this is delicious!"
Seo-ha liked seeing his younger sister eating so well, so he picked out another well-roasted chestnut.
"MIT?"
Chul-ho, who had been coming from the yard carrying the grill, got excited at Seo-ha’s words. He set down the chestnuts and imdiately sat beside Seo-ha.
"Yes, I got an invitation because there's a forum...."
Before Seo-ha could even finish speaking, he spoke firmly.
"Then you absolutely have to go! It's MIT!"
Mi-young looked at Chul-ho in surprise.
"Honey! There's no one to go with him, and you want to send him alone?"
Mi-young also wanted to let Seo-ha go, but it wasn't easy for her to go abroad. It wasn’t just about managing the household, but also because of the still-young Seo-eun.
"It says here that they’ll provide flight tickets for one companion...."
Seo-ha, gauging the mood, fished the invitation out of his bag and showed it to his parents.
"Alone? You should go with him then!"
"What about Seo-eun! You can’t even take care of her."
Seo-eun, who had a chestnut in her hand, put it down and began to tear up.
"Then am I the only one staying ho?"
The corners of Seo-eun’s eyes quickly turned red. Though she bit her lips hard to keep from crying, she couldn’t hold back and burst into tears.
"Waaaaaah."
Seo-ha was startled and hurriedly embraced his younger sister.
"No, Seo-eun. There's no way we’d leave just you behind. Oppa won’t go."
Watching this, Mi-young had mixed feelings.
"Seo-ha, we don't want to make you choose like this."
"It's not like I absolutely have to go, so it’s okay."
Seeing Seo-ha resigned like that made Chul-ho feel suffocated. As a parent, he couldn’t accept that his son would give up an opportunity on his own.
"Then you take Seo-eun and go together. I can’t help it because I have to work, but it’s winter vacation for Seo-eun too.... Buying one more plane ticket isn’t that hard. It won’t even cost more for lodging."
Mi-young cautiously glanced at him.
"Are you going to be okay staying at ho alone?"
"I’ll just take the chance to et up with so friends for a change. I already had a few year-end gatherings lined up anyway, so this works out well."
Seo-eun suddenly stopped crying, and her face lit up.
"Really? I get to go to Arica with oppa too?"
““Hahaha.””
Watching Seo-eun jump around the room shouting with joy, the whole family laughed together.
***
-Ladies and gentlen, welco to Boston Logan International Airport.
At the in-flight announcent, Seo-ha opened his eyes.
After a 13-hour flight, they had finally arrived in Arica.
There had been many twists and turns leading up to this point.
The two won who needed to take passport photos had gone to the photo studio all dressed up.
"Mom, I don’t like this one. Can I take it again?"
"I'm telling you that one’s way better. Stop wearing that pink coat. You're the sa color from head to toe!"
Even when choosing clothes and packing, the mother and daughter’s bickering didn’t stop. That was because Seo-eun wanted to bring all her favorite dolls and fairy tale books.
"Are you trying to bring this gold dal too?"
Seo-eun quickly hid the dal behind her back as if refusing to give it up.
"Yes! It’s my treasure!"
Mi-young sighed as she forcibly zipped up the suitcase.
"If we go over the weight limit, we’ll be in trouble...."
After a 13-hour flight and a tedious immigration process, the three family mbers were already exhausted.
"Let’s hurry to the lodging and rest."
"Let’s do that! Seo-eun must be tired too."
As they stepped outside the airport, rows of Ubers and taxis were lined up.
When Yu Seo-ha raised his hand while carrying the luggage, a black SUV Uber quietly pulled up.
“To a hotel near Cambridge, please.”
When Seo-ha fluently stated the destination in English, the driver kindly loaded their luggage. Then, the car quietly departed.
Once in the car, Seo-eun, who had regained her energy, pressed her face right up against the window.
“Mom, oppa! This is really Arica! Even the signs are all in English!”
As they crossed a bridge, the driver pointed across with his finger.
“See? That’s MIT.”
Across the river, among the red-brick buildings, a campus with a striking silver do ca into view.
“My son received an invitation from a place like this... I must be truly blessed.”
Mi-young’s voice was choked with emotion.
Seo-ha silently held his mother’s hand tightly.
When they got out of the car, a biting sea wind hit their bodies.
When they breathed in, the tip of their noses stung with cold.
“Ahh, it’s cold!”
Seo-eun shivered.
Although the temperature was similar to Korea, being near the sea made the wind piercing.
“Let’s hurry inside. You’ll catch a cold.”
As Seo-ha took a mont to adjust to the unfamiliar air, he looked up at the sky.
The dazzlingly blue sky shone vividly.
‘I’ve really co all the way here.’
He didn’t know what he would gain from this long journey, but seeing his family happy made him feel that it had been worth coming.
Seo-ha was in charge of communication for this trip.
When he presented the reservation docunts, the hotel staff smiled brightly and nodded.
“Welco. Here is the key.”
“Thank you.”
Watching Seo-ha receive the card key, Mi-young looked surprised.
“Since when did you get so good at English? My Seo-ha, so reliable.”
Surprisingly, Seo-eun reacted as if it was completely natural.
In Seo-eun’s world, her oppa was soone who knew everything.
The accommodation provided by MIT was a twin room, and when they requested an extra bed, it was more than sufficient for three people to stay.
While the family rested, Seo-ha quietly sat at the desk and turned on his laptop. On the screen, a calendar showed the schedule of the forum sent by MIT.
The first day included a welco speech and keynote address, the second day had discussion sessions among participants from various countries, and the final day was scheduled for a campus tour and networking ti.
'Will I get questions?'
Seo-ha didn’t know exactly what the "Young Mathematicians Forum" was, but looking at the schedule, it seed he would be engaging in discussions with many people.
“If they’re curious, they’ll ask.”
After taking a short breath, Seo-ha opened his email window.
Tap, tap.
He wrote an email to Professor Orsen saying he would visit within a few days, then closed his eyes. Perhaps from lingering fatigue, drowsiness overca him.
Soon, Seo-ha lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
***
The Young Mathematicians Forum was an international event jointly hosted by the world-renowned mathematical institutions, MIT and the Clay Mathematics Institute.
Their goal was to discover the next generation of scholars and create a space where they could interact.
Participants were brilliant students representing various countries, including winners of the International Mathematical Olympiad, students who had published noteworthy papers since high school or undergraduate years, and individuals directly recomnded by leading institutions or academic giants.
Many academic stars had passed through this forum.
Even gathering only the recipients of the Fields dal, Abel Prize, and Nobel Prize would be enough to hold a small academic conference.
Because it was such a prestigious event, the researchers gathered here were highly conscious of one another. Among them, Seo-ha was the most noticed participant.
He was the only one who t all three of the forum’s selection criteria, so MIT made an exception by covering his flight and accommodations to invite him to the forum.
The event hall lobby was already crowded with young researchers from around the world.
So undergraduates were handing out brief CVs that recorded their research achievents to professors while greeting them.
Other students were exchanging business cards or briefly introducing their ongoing projects to build connections.
Just then, the door to the event hall quietly opened, and a boy stepped inside.
He looked much younger than the other participants, but even without checking his na tag, everyone knew who he was.
Yu Seo-ha.
At first, only a few people stole glances, but soon whispers began to spread.
“That kid is Korea’s Yu Seo-ha?”
“The one who ranked first at the IMO at age twelve…?”
“Problem 6 was really hard, though.”
“I read his paper on the Four Color Theorem. It was unbelievable.”
Every ti Seo-ha took a step, the atmosphere around him beca strangely quiet. Soon, curious gazes followed him.
Seo-ha calmly found his seat with a composed expression, as if it were all familiar to him.
“Hello.”
Seo-ha quietly greeted the students seated next to him.
They seed montarily nervous and quickly replied.
“H-hello. I’m Yusuke, from Japan. I ranked first in this year’s IMO.”
“I’m Maria. I’m from Poland.”
In their voices as they spoke to Seo-ha, it was clear they already knew who he was. Since Cronen’s high praise, Seo-ha had already beco a “symbol of challenge” among young mathematicians.
“We will begin the event shortly. Everyone, please move to your seats.”
With the guidance of the staff, everyone found their places.
Not long after, the head of MIT’s mathematics departnt appeared in the hall.
Harold Whitman,
A mathematician from Oxford, England, he had devoted over forty years to research and education.
He had made outstanding achievents in topology and mathematical logic, and was even a recipient of the Abel Prize.
Though an elderly man with a full head of white hair, his eyes were still as keen as a young person’s.
As he stepped up to the microphone, the entire hall instantly fell silent.
“Welco, young mathematicians!”
He looked around the hall. His eyes scanned the audience, lingering a bit longer in the direction where Seo-ha was seated.
“I would like to give you one piece of advice as a senior who has studied mathematics for over forty years.”
He paused and took a sip of water.
“One mistake we mathematicians often make: that is, do not trust your intuition too much.
Mathematics, at tis, betrays intuition. Let give you an example.”
Hundreds of eyes in the hall focused on him.
“Let’s suppose aliens exist.
They observe the solar system through a telescope. And they discover Earth. Alien scholars study Earth extensively, its size, composition, rotation and revolution periods...
But when they finally arrive on Earth, they are shocked. Why do you think that is?”
No one raised their hand.
Seo-ha thought he knew the answer but didn’t want to draw attention unnecessarily.
“Is everyone shy?
I’ll give a dinner voucher to the best steakhouse in the area to the student who answers correctly.”
‘Huh?’
Now that changed things.
at was a prize even Seo-ha found hard to resist.
Murmurs began to spread throughout the room. Soone giggled and poked the person next to them, while a few students seriously put their fingers to their chins, lost in thought.
“Because humans were different from what they expected?”
“Because it’s their first ti seeing the ocean!”
“Because of the advanced civilization!”
Answers ca from various directions, but the professor shook his head.
Then Seo-ha quietly raised his hand.
“Yu Seo-ha, please answer.”
All eyes turned to the boy fad for being a genius as he stood up.
“Would it be because of the calendar? Our calendar has 365 days in a year. But they must have observed Earth rotating 366 tis.”
Professor Whitman slowly nodded and smiled.
“That is correct, Yu Seo-ha. Excellent!”
Maria and Yusuke, sitting on either side of him, looked at Seo-ha with eyes full of admiration.
Seo-ha sat down with a sheepish smile. Thinking about how happy his mom and sister would be, he felt it had been worth gathering the courage.
“The alien scholars would, of course, have calculated Earth’s rotation period based on their own standards. For them, one Earth day is not 24 hours.”
An impressed “Oh!” erupted among the students.
“23 hours and 56 minutes,
While Earth completes one rotation, its orbit causes the Sun’s position to shift about one degree to the side.
This is what astronomy calls a ‘sidereal day’. Let’s not ask boring questions like why beings capable of reaching Earth wouldn’t have known this.”
““Hahaha!””
The students all laughed at the departnt head’s joke.
“The point is that intuition can deceive us at any ti. Follow your intuition, but test it thoroughly with solid logic.”
Even the words that followed were all valuable pieces of advice that could serve as the foundation for any mathematician.
Several participants took out notebooks and jotted down his words. So even pulled out recorders.
Among the participants, a sense of anticipation began to rise about what kind of forum this would turn out to be.
And from the very first day, Seo-ha captured everyone’s attention and firmly made his presence known.
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