northernbook Chapter 146 Prayer
Chapter 146 Prayer
At this moment, Olsen, like a madman who had finally found a kindred spirit, excitedly recounted to Su Hao in detail how he had conceived this unconventional idea in despair.
I was initially captivated by the poetic phrase, "The distribution of prime numbers is like musical notes"...
It all started during my graduate studies, when I was helping the physics department debug a resonant cavity experiment, and the lightning bolt that struck my mind as I watched the waveforms cancel each other out...
Clearly, this old man was a chatterbox who desperately needed a listener.
Once they started talking, the words that had been bottled up for decades poured out like a flood.
It was as if he wanted to vent all the grievances, resentment, and humiliation of being ridiculed over the years at this moment.
Su Hao did not interrupt him, nor did he even change his posture. He remained silent, listening attentively to the deafening resentment and unwillingness of this old man who had been abandoned by the times.
When he got excited, Olsen suddenly pulled a stack of musty-smelling printed papers from the box, plopped down on the floor without any regard for appearances, and spread them all out.
Su Hao looked down and saw that each sheet of paper was covered with tiny circles representing manifolds and intricate vector arrows, as if he had gone mad with greed.
The page was densely covered with handwritten annotations:
'Spacing', 'repulsion', and even 'GUE (Gaussian unitary ensemble)' which carries a huge question mark.
Every word is precisely positioned to address the crux of the Riemann Hypothesis!
But towards the end, Olsen seemed to have lost all his strength, and his voice suddenly stopped.
"What a pity..."
He stared blankly at the blood and sweat scattered on the ground, the fervor in his eyes extinguished as if doused with a bucket of ice water.
"I have no empirical evidence. Not a single one."
He clutched his graying hair in anguish.
"That derivation was completely beyond the mathematical realm that my brain could handle."
With my pitiful computing power, let alone establishing rigorous equations to accurately quantify it...
I can't even predict its next evolutionary trajectory.
I've spent my whole life studying like a dog, and in the end, I've only proven one thing—”
The old man gave a bitter smile.
"This is the limit of my life."
Looking at the astonishing deductions on the ground, a huge wave surged in the depths of Su Hao's heart.
Su Hao felt deeply gratified to find a pioneer in this world who shared his foresight and even a terrifying academic vision.
Without a doubt, he has already more than fully achieved his goal of coming to Boston despite the cold wind.
The computational power derivation that Olsen failed to complete was precisely the area that Su Hao excelled in!
"I am very honored today. Your brilliant ideas will greatly inspire me in the future."
Su Hao glanced at the time; he still needed to get back to the hotel for dinner before the restaurant closed.
A genius's thinking is always so agile yet pragmatic.
He stood up, smoothed out the wrinkles in his coat, and prepared to leave.
"Um?"
Olsen stood there, stunned, watching Su Hao leave without a second thought and with a clean, decisive air.
"What's wrong?" Su Hao stopped in his tracks.
"You...you didn't come all this way just to take my research materials, did you?"
The old man's voice was filled with extreme astonishment, and a hint of loss, as if he had been abandoned, that he himself did not realize.
After all these years, finally someone understands him, but that person has no intention of taking anything with them!
"Your previously published papers have already helped me a lot, and that's enough."
Su Hao turned his head and looked at the old man with a bewildered expression.
"The reason I came all this way is purely out of curiosity."
I want to see for myself what kind of scholar with extraordinary character could write such divine articles.
Now that I've seen it, I'm very pleased.
After hearing this sentence.
Olsen's wrinkled face remained frozen for a full few seconds.
Then, he took a deep breath and walked with faltering steps, yet with utmost solemnity, to the bookshelf that was about to collapse.
He stretched out his withered hand and slowly pulled out a notebook from the deepest part of the book.
The notebook's leather cover was already worn and cracked, each crack seemingly telling a silent story of the ruthlessness and vicissitudes of time.
"Take it!" Olson turned around.
"This is the last notebook of my entire academic career."
It contained all my original derivations... but ultimately I was unable to compile them into a paper for publication.
Olsen stroked the cover, his tone suddenly becoming unusually calm.
"Because when I finished writing it, I was diagnosed with late-stage cancer."
"what……"
Even someone as composed as Su Hao's expression subtly changed upon hearing these words.
He opened his mouth slightly, just as he was racking his brains to find a few words of comfort.
The other person waved his hand dismissively, interrupting him.
"Alright, stop with the fluff."
My whole life, I've been insanely jealous of you geniuses who have been kissed by God!
I always think through gritted teeth in the middle of the night:
"If God could give me a brain as terrifying as theirs, I would have solved this damn problem a long time ago!!"
The old man's eyes welled up with tears again, and a final glimmer of light shone from his cloudy eyes:
"But I don't think that way anymore."
A genius like you, destined to be remembered in history, actually stooped down to seriously examine the absurd theories of a dying man like me...
"Really, Su Hao, I'm very grateful."
As he finished speaking, the old man's voice gradually choked up.
"I don't know if this trivial derivation process will still be useful to a brain of your level."
But please, please, please don't refuse!
As he spoke, he held the notebook in both hands and placed it with utmost solemnity into the cardboard box filled with discarded drafts.
Along with his lifelong obsession, he pushed it all in front of Su Hao.
Su Hao fell silent.
He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and steadily, as if receiving some kind of religious inheritance, took the heavy cardboard box.
Then, the promising young genius took a step back.
He bowed deeply and solemnly to this elderly man who, despite his advanced age, had been charging toward the truth until his death.
"Thank you, Professor Olson."
……
That night, the Boston wind still howled and lashed against the windowpanes.
In that dilapidated old house, Mikhail Olsen, who had never had any faith and had spent his life cursing God...
For the first time ever, I knelt before the mess of draft papers scattered on the ground, clasped my hands together, and offered the most sincere prayer of my life to all the gods in the sky.
He did not pray for a cure, nor did he pray for going to heaven after death.
He was willing to sacrifice his entire soul, begging Heaven to show even the slightest mercy and allow his broken body to linger on for a little longer!
To be able to keep those cloudy yet unextinguished eyes open, to see with his own eyes that those godlike youth...
Stepping on the steps paved with the bones and blood of their generation, they will ascend to the top of the world and pluck that star!