Translator: Dreamscribe
"Theo."
"Hm?"
Seo-eun tilted her head as if curious.
"You said you do research with oppa, Theo. So how co you can't even beat ?"
Snap.
A vein popped on Theo's temple.
"I could win if we played again."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Shuffle them one more ti."
Seo-eun shuffled the cards.
She must have done it so many tis before, because her tiny hands handled the cards with practiced ease.
Before long, thirty cards were laid out face-down on the floor.
"What's this one?"
"Eggplant."
"This one?"
"Carrot."
"What about this?"
"Raccoon."
This was the problem.
If they had been ordinary playing cards, he might have gotten them all right.
But the cards Seo-eun had were a chaotic hybrid of every fruit and animal imaginable, numbers and hieroglyphs, and even abstract patterns she had drawn herself.
There was no rule or connection to be found between the cards. Theo had always prided himself on never losing to anyone when it ca to mory, but this was an unexpected challenge.
'What kind of demon made these cards?'
Patterns, logic, repetition, none of it worked.
Theo had a pretty good idea who was responsible for this atrocity.
"What's this one?"
"Chrysanthemum."
"Theo, you dummy. This is a dandelion. But since they're both in the Asteraceae family, I'll let it slide. Just this once, though? Because if we're going by that logic, sunflowers would count as the sa species too."
He was dumbfounded.
A graduate student being schooled on common knowledge by a child.
Playing with Seo-eun had taught him that her knowledge wasn't limited to math. Seo-eun was remarkably well-versed in all kinds of plants and animals. On top of that, she was an expert on constellations and insects too.
"Did your oppa teach you all that too?"
"Yep! Oppa answers anything I ask him."
Seo-eun's "Why stage" had lasted a long ti.
It had been on the verge of fading when she ca to Arica, and with her curiosity exploding all over again, she was still bombarding Seo-ha with questions whenever sothing piqued her interest.
In the end, Theo couldn't even match half the cards and threw up his hands in surrender.
"Now it's your turn to deal, Theo!"
Seo-eun's triumphant expression was infuriating.
But Theo managed his expression like the adult he was and shuffled the cards.
"Platypus!"
"Baobab tree!"
"Number 9."
"Two triangles."
"The Korean letter giyeok."
"Five clouds!"
"Penguin footprints!"
Before anyone knew it, all thirty cards had been flipped over.
Seo-ha had been increasing the number of cards to match Seo-eun's growth. What started as fifteen cards had already doubled.
And now he was preparing ten more.
"I got them all right!"
Seo-eun threw her hands up in celebration, then hugged her beaver plushie and whispered.
"That was a little tough, but Theo was no big deal either."
Theo's face turned red with sha.
He felt like he wouldn't be satisfied until he knocked this little kid down a peg.
"Okay, ti for a different ga, right? Pri factorization, the pri number ga. Anything works!"
The pri number ga also had rules unique to this household.
One player picks any four-digit number. Then they decide on up or down, and the battle begins.
"6213."
"Down."
"Alright, let's go."
"6211."
"6209."
"6203."
Seo-eun thought for a mont.
"Hmm.... 6199."
The ga showed no sign of ending.
It wasn't until after a hundred turns that a mistake finally ca.
"Aww, I lost."
Seo-eun stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
"Just in case you didn't know, I'm a mathematician."
Seo-eun pestered Theo to play gas every ti he ca to the house.
When Theo was busy writing his thesis, she would linger nearby like a cat, staying within his line of sight. As if she were determined not to miss the mont he said, "Alright, let's play!"
"Is it fun playing with ?"
Theo asked.
"Yeah!"
"Why?"
"Because you can't beat , oppa. When I ask my friends to play, they run away."
Theo hung his head low.
"So basically I was just an easy mark."
He had expected her to be smart, being Seo-ha's sister, but he never imagined she'd be this good.
It wasn't simply that she was intelligent; her intuition for numbers was extraordinary. During the pri number ga, this child would skip one before ever saying a composite number. She instinctively sensed the closed structure of numbers.
She was a terrifyingly promising child.
"Theo, is it true you're going ho soon?"
Seo-eun stuck out her lower lip as if holding back tears.
"Yeah. I've finished my thesis, so I have to go."
"Then we can't play together anymore?"
Theo looked at Seo-eun and smiled gently.
Most likely, he was her first evenly matched playmate. It was frustrating, yet at the sa ti, it made him happy.
"No, we'll be able to see each other again soon."
"Really?"
Seo-eun's face lit up as if she'd never been upset at all.
Theo realized anew just how special the ti he had spent with this family had been.
"Seo-eun! Let's go for a walk!"
Seo-ha's voice ca from far away.
"Okay, I'm coming!"
Seo-eun scrambled to her feet and dashed off.
He had thought they'd grown quite close, but apparently it was nothing compared to her brother.
Theo burst out laughing.
* * *
"Dad, what's all this?"
In the hands of Chul-ho, who had returned late in the evening, was a paper bag.
Inside were roughly a dozen copies of Popular Science (Popular Science * the most popular science magazine in Arica).
Right in the center of the cover was a photo of Seo-ha giving a lecture at the colloquium.
[The Young Mind Shaping the Future]
"I saw my son's face at the newsstand, how could I just walk past! Did you know about this?"
Seo-ha nodded awkwardly.
"Yes, I'd heard about it."
He had been told an article would be coming out, but he never expected it to be the front cover.
Popular Science wasn't even a specialized mathematics journal, after all.
This magazine explained science in accessible terms for general readers and was the oldest and most popular science magazine in Arica.
From astrophysicists to engineers to life science researchers, anyone who had won a Nobel Prize had graced its cover at least once.
But it was nearly unheard of for a mathematician to be the cover feature.
"You really are sothing! Oh, don't worry. I only bought one copy from each newsstand. I can't go clearing them all out so nobody else can buy one!"
Chul-ho made a fuss as he handed Seo-ha a copy.
In small print at the corner of the cover was a subtitle.
"A teenage mathematician solves a mathematical mystery that went unsolved for half a century!"
It was a sensational headline, typical of a popular magazine.
Turning past the cover, the article spanned several full pages.
-The young Korean genius who redefined the impossible solves Smale's Problems.
The article was written in accessible terms.
It explained in plain language what advances Smale's Problems being solved could bring to everyday life, and why this proof was earning acclaim from the mathematics community.
Following that were interviews with prominent figures.
[He's only just getting started. People will need to get used to hearing his na. What we're witnessing now is rely the prologue.]
-Harold Whitman, Dean of Mathematics at MIT
[His proof demonstrates how magnificent human intuition can be. No matter how much AI advances in the future, the beginning and end of everything is ultimately human.]
-Raymond Holt, Stanford Professor
"Hm? Why is AI being brought up?"
His interest piqued, Seo-ha read the full text of Holt's interview.
-Our lab's math proficiency assessnt AI, LOGIA, posed an unsolved problem to Seo-ha. When we checked the logs, everyone was stunned.
A glitch? No! We believe it was not a bug.
We can't say for certain why, but perhaps LOGIA determined that he was capable of solving an unsolved problem.
In the end, an unsolved problem was solved thanks to LOGIA's recomndation, so wouldn't you say we contributed a little to the advancent of mathematics as well? Haha!
Reddit was in an uproar.
[So LOGIA was the one that gave SH the unsolved problem]
-I was wondering why he suddenly stopped logging in, turns out he was busy solving a LOGIA problem.
└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Isn't this basically a creation evaluating its creator?
└Re: that ti soone solved an unsolved problem while gaming.
└Who gives soone a problem on the level of a challenge for all of humanity? Or did it actually judge SH to be on that level?
└If you ask , LOGIA panicked and just threw the hardest problem it could find at him.
└Professor's got a strong ntality. As long as it works out, it's all good, apparently.
└This is a mandatory mindset for developers.
└If it works, it's not wrong ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└It's not a bug, it's a feature. The audacity ㅋㅋㅋ
└The fact that he's not calling it "intentional design" shows he's got at least so conscience.
└This is epic. Didn't this feel like watching "Human vs. AI"? Don't underestimate humanity, you tin can!
└Has the score been updated? How many points is he even gonna get?
└Doesn't look like he's entered the answer yet.
└Yu Seo-ha! We know you're reading this! Hurry up and do it!
He flinched.
Seo-ha's body jolted as he read the post.
Clack clack clack.
He logged into LOGIA for the first ti in a while.
His score had been steadily dropping due to his long absence. His ranking was 3rd.
"When did Theo even grind this?"
[1st: Theodore Langford / S / Stanford / US / 999.3]
He had been logging in to pass the ti whenever his thesis wasn't going well, maintaining his ranking all the while.
[SSS-tier session in progress. Would you like to continue entering your answer?]
'Yes / No'
Click.
Seo-ha began writing his answer.
He couldn't copy the entire thesis as-is, so he kept it to just the key points.
Clack clack, clack clack clack.
The sound of the keyboard echoed through the room.
Click.
The mont he clicked the mouse, the monitor flickered once.
A brief silence.
After a mont, LOGIA's signature electronic tone sounded.
Beep beep-
[Analyzing answer. Please wait.]
The logo spun endlessly.
'Hm?'
The progress bar on the monitor crept upward, 1%, 5%, 12%... painfully slow.
A verification that normally finished in seconds had been going on for several minutes now.
[Reconstructing inference path]
[Verifying logical consistency]
Beep beep-
[Warning: This answer has already been published as a thesis.]
[Verifying whether the author and user identities match]
[User email token authentication requested, ******@mit.edu]
Bzzt-
Seo-ha picked up his phone and entered the six-digit code.
[Final determination valid. Confird as original author.]
[Calculating score.]
[Evaluation limit exceeded]
[LOGIA is expanding evaluation functions.]
Beep beep-
[Reference update complete]
The monitor flickered once more.
And then, a ssage was sent to every user currently online.
[User Yu Seo-ha has beco the first to surpass 1,000 points.]
[User Yu Seo-ha has beco the first to surpass 2,000 points.]
[User Yu Seo-ha has beco the first to surpass 3,000 points.]
[1st: Yu Seo-ha / SSS / MIT / KR / 3263.9]
[2nd: Theodore Langford / S / Stanford / US / 999.3]
.
.
[29th: Lim Su-jeong / S / KAIST / KR / 954.3]
LOGIA raised Seo-ha's score to the highest value it could expand itself to calculate.
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