Translator: Dreamscribe
Knock knock.
Seo-eun, who was sitting on the hotel sofa, perked up at the sound of a knock.
Once again, there was a knocking sound on the door in the sa rhythm.
Seo-eun hurriedly got up and opened the bedroom door.
Perhaps because she was tired from sightseeing, Mi-young was asleep on the bed.
‘What should I do?’
In the end, Seo-eun brought a stool in front of the door and climbed up on it.
Peeking outside through the door viewer, she saw a man in a suit and an East Asian woman wearing a scarf standing politely.
Relieved, Seo-eun spoke in a small voice.
“Who is it?”
At the sound of a child’s voice, the two seed montarily flustered. But a reply soon ca.
“We’re from MIT.”
The man held up a badge.
A strange logo in red and white, and since she couldn't understand the English, Seo-eun tilted her head in confusion.
The woman next to him gently spoke in Korean again.
“Hello. I’m Choi Ye-ji, a graduate student in the mathematics departnt at MIT. I’m here to help interpret. Is your mother here by any chance?”
‘Ah! The school that sent the invitation to oppa!’
After a brief hesitation, Seo-eun opened the door.
Creak.
“....”
A pretty little girl in pajamas opened the door and stared at them.
The two barely held back their laughter.
As if to show she ant no harm, the woman held out her open palm. Then she slowly lowered herself to make eye contact with Seo-eun.
"Hello?"
"Hellooo."
Responding to her greeting, Seo-eun replied with a polite bow from the waist.
“It’s safer to open the door when you're with an adult. Especially in Arica.”
Just as she was about to ask if an adult could co, Mi-young ca out rubbing her eyes.
The woman quickly stood up and bowed.
“Hello. We're from MIT.”
When Ye-ji gave a signal with her eyes, the man slightly bowed his head and showed his ID.
“I’m Mark. I work in the MIT External Cooperation Office. Sorry for the late hour.”
‘At this hour, suddenly?’
The mory of when Seo-ha had collapsed flashed through Mi-young’s mind.
Her expression hardened.
“Did sothing happen to Seo-ha?”
Ye-ji waved both hands.
“There’s nothing to worry about. In fact, it’s more like good news. Today, at the research building, Yu Seo-ha ca up with a aningful observation and idea.
Right now, all the relevant researchers have gathered to review the data. So he decided to stay in the lab tonight to continue the discussion. Of course, it was entirely Yu’s decision.”
“He’s staying up all night? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Safety is being strictly maintained.
It’s a restricted area, so outsiders can't enter, and even als and rest are being carefully managed by the dean. We just got a ssage a little while ago that he had soup and a sandwich for dinner.”
Mark held out a shopping bag to Mi-young.
“Since the schedule might be extended, the school asked if you might be able to stay longer in the U.S.”
“What?”
“The school will cover the cost of extending your stay and als. These are al vouchers and tour passes. And there are also so small gifts inside.”
Seo-eun’s gaze shifted to the shopping bag.
Smiling, Ye-ji took out a small envelope.
“There’s also a gift for the little lady. It’s a doll of our school mascot, ‘Tim the Beaver’.”
The animal with protruding front teeth looked cute. Seo-eun’s face lit up.
“Beaver?”
“Yes, a cute animal that builds houses by the river. If you co to the campus tomorrow, you’ll get to see it.”
Mi-young couldn’t gather her thoughts.
Just this morning, all she had been thinking about was going back to Korea soon. But now, MIT was asking them to stay longer and offering to pay for it.
"Would it be possible to speak with Seo-ha?"
“Right now the equipnt is running, so calls are restricted.”
Ye-ji took a business card out of her wallet.
“But if there’s a break between sessions, we’ll contact you right away. Also, I’ll co pick you up at 9 a.m. tomorrow and guide you around the campus.”
“Has sothing like this happened often?”
At Mi-young’s question, Ye-ji thought for a mont and then shook her head.
“I’ve been here for eight years, and this is the first ti professors and researchers have been urgently assembled at night. It’s also extrely rare for them to support living expenses for an international student.
It ans the school is treating Yu Seo-ha with great importance.”
Mark made a final confirmation.
“Then we’ll return tomorrow morning. If you need anything during the night, please call this number. We’ll answer imdiately.”
The two gave a polite bow and walked away.
Mi-young neatly placed the two business cards she received from them on the table.
Seo-eun rummaged through the shopping bag and pulled out a gray hoodie to try on.
“Mom, can I wear this tomorrow?”
“Sure, it looks warm.”
Mi-young smiled and adjusted the hood on the outfit.
Her son had always been far from ordinary since he was young.
At first, she had struggled with how to raise him, but now it felt like he had completely moved beyond the reach of his parents.
***
A late-night summons ant one of two things to researchers.
An accident or a discovery.
Those who were contacted at this late hour took taxis, hoping it was the latter.
“What happened?”
“No idea. Maybe a project dropped out of nowhere.”
Researchers began to gather one by one at the laboratory. Despite the late hour, the entire building was as bright as dayti.
Their reactions upon entering the lab were all similar.
The workplace they ca to every day had been transford into a completely unfamiliar place.
“Oh my goodness....”
“Oh my god.”
Equations covered the entire glass wall, and all the tables that had been there in the morning had been pushed aside. In their place were several whiteboards that had been brought in from sowhere.
There, several researchers were having an intense discussion.
“Even the deans are here.”
“Who wrote all this?”
“Can soone please explain what’s going on?”
Once most of the researchers had arrived, Leonard stepped forward to explain the situation.
Seo-ha was feeling an unfamiliar sensation.
There was no need to explain anything twice to the mbers here.
“Yu Seo-ha, please explain that formula to them.”
Leonard pointed at the glass wall.
They were researchers working at one of the world’s top labs.
They listened closely to Seo-ha’s explanation and asked direct questions whenever they needed clarification. After about an hour, earlier than expected, everyone was able to grasp the significance of what had happened today.
At last, the objective for the night was set.
“All right, let’s begin!”
The researchers all sprang into action.
Soone rushed to the whiteboard to verify the equations, others opened their laptops and began writing simulation code.
“Data pattern analysis team, to the left!”
Under Leonard’s command, the lab instantly turned into a battlefield. Each person moved to verify the hypothesis Seo-ha had presented, within their own field of expertise.
“Seo-ha, about this simulation...”
“Seo-ha! Can you check this equation?”
People called his na from all directions. But Seo-ha didn’t feel tired at all.
“Seo-ha, the phenonon you ntioned is appearing here too!”
A young postdoc researcher from India was running a 3D model in front of a hologram display.
Several researchers gathered in front of him.
“Try rotating the angle 15 degrees more.”
“Wait, what if we reverse the ti axis?”
“Let’s overlay the trace of the zeta function we calculated earlier.”
Seo-ha felt his heart race as he watched the scene.
The power of collective intelligence, sothing he had never felt while researching alone, an idea he had thrown out was now being refined and expanded by dozens of experts.
“Anyone need coffee?”
Soone walked in carrying a large box. It was a late-night snack hurriedly prepared by the school.
“Thank you!”
“There are more sandwiches outside.”
But no one left their seat. Everyone was focused on their screens and boards.
As ti passed and it neared midnight, a cheer erupted from one side of the lab.
“Yes!”
“We did it! The simulation passed!”
A young East Asian researcher pumped his fist into the air.
Leonard quickly walked over.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, we ran it three tis and got the sa results each ti. The margin of error is within 0.03%.”
“Good.”
Leonard clapped his hands. The entire lab paused for a mont and looked in that direction.
“First verification passed! Let’s keep going!”
Excitent and passion could be heard in his voice.
Seo-ha and Whitman stood in front of a whiteboard, writing down new formulas. They wanted to neatly summarize the implications of today’s discovery in mathematical terms.
‘As expected of a Fields dalist.’
Whitman transford the concept Seo-ha had explained into a more elegant form. He wanted to teach Seo-ha as much as possible.
The researchers glanced at them discreetly.
Like a grandfather and grandson,
the harmony between the two mathematicians, nearly sixty years apart in age, strangely drew people's attention.
Everyone continued working without rest until deep into the early morning hours.
But no one complained.
For scientists, nothing was more exhilarating than being part of research that could astonish the world.
***
“Ugh, aren’t we gonna die of overwork at this rate?”
Mike groaned as he slumped into a lab chair.
Looking around, he saw researchers collapsed and sleeping under lab coats. On sofas, under desks, even on the hallway floor.
They looked like corpses strewn across a battlefield.
“Didn’t think this would happen outside of undergrad days…”
Sarah nodded.
It wasn’t until after 6 a.m. that the rough verification work was finished.
As the tension eased, the researchers, who had been running on adrenaline and excitent, began to collapse one by one like robots whose power had been cut.
“Aaaargh!”
Soone who had fallen asleep with his face on the keyboard suddenly scread and shot up. On his monitor, the simulation program was still running.
“Those guys are seriously amazing.”
Mike gestured with his chin.
Beyond the glass partition, Leonard and Dean Whitman were visible. The two of them were sitting at a desk, drafting a paper. It was hard to believe they were n nearing seventy.
“The real monster is Seo-ha. I still can’t wrap my head around it. That level of thinking at his age just isn’t normal.”
“There are people like that, though. Beings outside the bounds of common sense. They say Elijah Cronen was like that too.”
A silence fell between them.
It was a topic they wanted to ask about but couldn’t easily bring up.
“If today’s experint gets published as a paper, it’ll be huge, right?”
Mike finally threw a curveball.
“Of course. It’s practically a new clue to the Riemann Hypothesis. Just like in physics, the math community will be thrown into chaos.”
And then, the question he really wanted to ask.
“We’ll be listed as co-authors too, right?”
Sarah nodded.
“Leonard said so. Seo-ha as first author, Leonard and Whitman as corresponding authors. The rest in order of contribution.”
Only then did Mike let out a sigh.
“Wow! Seo-ha’s not even in a master’s or PhD program, doesn’t even have a bachelor’s degree, and he’s already getting his na on a Nature-level paper.” (TL: Nature is one of the world's most prestigious and highly-regarded scientific academic journals)
“No reason to find it strange. Probably not even the first ti. I heard he’s already a rising star in the math world.”
A few days later,
BBC and The New York Tis published new articles almost simultaneously.
MIT's servers temporarily crashed due to traffic overload.
[The boy who proved the Four Color Theorem presents a new clue to the Riemann Hypothesis]
[A new breakthrough opens in the Riemann Hypothesis]
[What really happened that night in MIT’s lab?]
A powerful clue had erged for a hypothesis that had seen no real breakthroughs for decades.
If proven, both wealth and fa were guaranteed.
The attention of all mathematicians was drawn in one direction.
The door Seo-ha had flung wide open,
it was the beginning of the ‘Great Riemann Hypothesis Era’.
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