Chapter 46
Time had raced by like a railgun, and before I knew it, I was six years old.
Arin was four now too.
After the lecture, I had grown an impressive 7 cm, bringing me to 112 cm tall!
All that diligence with the stretching exercises had really paid off!
For the record, my weight had gone up to 19 kg, giving me a height-minus-weight stat of 93.
And it had been six months since I submitted my paper to the journal.
Almost every scholar in the math world
had chewed, torn apart, savored, and enjoyed the 148-page paper I submitted to the journal
before finally acknowledging that my paper was correct.
I sat at the living-room desk and looked through articles on Mom's laptop.
[제목 : Riemann Hypothesis Proof Finally Officially Recognized]
[제목 : 160 Years of Unsolved Difficulty, Finally Solved]
[제목 : Six-Year-Old Mathematician Yoo Aryeon Writes Math History]
Articles about Yoo Aryeon kept pouring in.
Even Mom's inbox was flooded with dozens of requests a day: Please interview us, please give a lecture, waah waah.
With excited anticipation, I opened the comment section under an internet article.
- She's a real genius
- A genius whose name will go down in history
- It's all because Aryeon inherited Koreans' smart genes
- The baby is way too cute ㅠㅠ
- Newton, Einstein, Yoo Aryeon, let's go
"Heehee."
I broke into a big grin as I read the comments.
I felt so happy.
'At last, everyone recognizes that I'm an incredible genius!'
It was worth the six years of steady buildup.
After reading those internet articles, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
'Should I check the gallery too...?'
Since I got a smartphone for my fifth birthday, I had only lurked in the gallery for exactly two hours.
Then I voluntarily returned the smartphone and stayed out of the gallery for a whole year.
"But now that my solution to the Riemann Hypothesis has been officially recognized... I really want to see how they'll react!"
I was itching to know.
The urge to ego-search that I'd sealed away for a year began to boil up again.
Back then I ego-searched under Shin Ijun's name, but now I didn't need to do that anymore.
Yoo Aryeon's name had become ridiculously famous!
Even more famous than Detective Famous himself, Yoo Aryeon-nim!
Tap-tap-tap-
I typed with my much bigger fingers and entered the major math gallery.
[전공수학 갤러리]
[제목 : Riemann Hypothesis Proof Finally Officially Recognized]
The academic world had reached a complete consensus.
It was basically acknowledged that Yoo Aryeon had truly proved it.
- Holy crap, it was real
- A legendary scene for the history books, damn
- I still can't believe it
- What kind of timeline is this where a six-year-old solves the Riemann Hypothesis...
- No sucker missed Yoo Aryeon's lecture live, right?
[제목 : Latest Version of Math History.txt]
Leonhard Euler (1707~1783)
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777~1855)
Bernhard Riemann (1826~1866)
David Hilbert (1862~1943)
And
Yoo Aryeon (2020~)
- The average age just nosedived out of nowhere lol
- Wow, that's a lethal dose of national pride
[제목 : Euler vs. Gauss]
(Photo of Yoo Aryeon making a cute double peace sign.jpg)
Obviously Yoo Aryeon.
- lol, what is up with this guy all of a sudden
- Has Yoo Aryeon finally started getting dragged into the fanwar lineup too?
[제목 : The most shocking thing is that she hasn't even gone to elementary school, let alone kindergarten]
Thank goodness her parents are homeschooling her...
If Aryeon were in kindergarten right now doing dictation, just imagining it is horrifying
- But does Aryeon even need to go to elementary school?
- No, education is mandatory only up through middle school, but there's also grade-skipping, so I don't know what'll happen
- No, sending Aryeon to elementary school would be a loss for humanity
The gallery was buzzing along nicely with bait threads about me.
"Heehee."
As expected, the specialists understand how amazing I am even better!
Tap-tap-tap-
I logged into the account I'd made a year ago and, pretending not to be Yoo Aryeon, slipped in a comment.
[제목 : But just how smart is Yoo Aryeon?]
[글쓴이 : IQGenius]
Is 160 on the Wechsler scale really that impressive?
'If I post a question like this, the gallery users will kindly explain how smart I am. Heh-heh.'
After I posted it and was casually reading other posts, the comment alert pinged quickly.
- ???
- Gasp
- It's real
- Hi, Aryeon
- Oh, the gallery star has appeared
"Huh?"
Rub-rub-
I rubbed my eyes and looked at the comments again.
"No, wait, how did you know it was me...?!"
I was startled for a moment, but...
'Right, a year ago I used this alt account to stir up trouble by claiming I'd proven the Riemann Hypothesis.'
After thinking it over, I realized that someone with absurd amounts of free time could easily have deduced that this account belonged to Yoo Aryeon.
"Damn, that's embarrassing!"
Thump-thump!
Using the feet that still didn't reach the floor when I sat on the chair, I kicked hard at the air.
[제목 : Ah, I Got Caught]
[글쓴이 : IQGenius]
(a cute character bolting away emoticon)
Run.
- lol
- Gallery star, don't go!
- Aryeon, oppa has one thing to ask you. The Hilbert basis theorem, no matter how many times I look at it, I just don't understand it. How am I supposed to understand this?
I was so embarrassed I was about to leave the gallery and close the laptop, when
one question comment caught my eye.
"Hilbert basis theorem? Hmm..."
Hilbert basis theorem.
In commutative algebra, it's an important theorem stating that a polynomial ring over a Noetherian ring is itself Noetherian.
To put it simply enough for non-majors to understand, even if there are infinitely many polynomials like x² or x³ + xy, in the end they can all be built from the basic polynomials (x or y).
To make an even simpler analogy, even if a dictionary has hundreds of thousands of words, you can think of them as all being built from the 26 letters.
A request from a regular undergrad oppa, not a professor or PhD-level scholar.
Before I knew it, my eyes were drawn to that pitiful request.
And besides.
"Heh. You're asking me about math-major stuff?"
Since it wasn't a question about my paper, but about something written in a textbook out of pure curiosity,
that also meant he was holding me in high regard.
"Nameless math-major oppa, I'll help you just this once..."
Tap-tap-tap-
I wrote a reply.
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : What part are you getting stuck on, oppa?
- ㄴ Oh, thanks thanks
- ㄴ I've memorized the proof itself, but it doesn't really click
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : First, do you know how to look only at a polynomial's highest-degree term and subtract it away by matching it piece by piece?
- ㄴ Yeah, but I don't understand the matching part. How is that even possible?
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : Since the definition itself says it's a Noetherian ring, even the highest-degree coefficients can be finitely generated
- ㄴ (a frog making a question-mark face emoticon)
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : Oppa, do you happen to know the definition of a Noetherian ring?
- ㄴ Honestly, no idea, sorry sorry
"Sigh... this oppa is seriously..."
If you don't even know addition, how well do you expect to do if you start with multiplication? Honestly, come on.
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : (cute character making a puzzled face emoticon)
- ㄴ(IQGenius) : It's a ring whose ideals satisfy the ascending chain condition. For example, the real numbers, rational numbers, and integers we use are all Noetherian rings. Oppa, first make sure you fully memorize the terms being used, then move on to the next part... (-_-;;)
If you hang around the gallery long enough, there's always at least one person like that.
People who cram the proof itself by heart during exam season, but forget even the basic definitions.
In wuxia terms, they're the kind who don't steadily build up their inner energy and instead dabble in unorthodox martial arts, only to hit a growth wall later.
- ㄴ Sorry sorry, but thanks for the answer. As expected, the GOAT math tutor is Yoo Aryeon
Still, the nameless undergrad oppa seemed kind, and he thanked me.
"Nihihi."
Anyway, getting praised feels good!
'I should come by often from now on and teach math to the undergrad unnie and oppa crowd. Hehe.'
✒️✒️✒️
That afternoon.
Arin was lying face down on the living room floor, humming to herself.
In front of her was a thick puzzle book.
When we played together, we played two-player or four-player board games, but
when it was time for her to play alone, having her solve single-player puzzles had somehow become a routine.
Arin didn't seem to have any complaints.
Even now, she had a pencil in her mouth and was staring at the page, thinking hard.
Crouch-
I closed the laptop and crouched down beside Arin.
The puzzle page Arin was solving came into view.
…………………………………………………………
[문제 : The following three people are each either truth-tellers or liars. Who is telling the truth?]
Ankle : "Mare is a liar!"
Mare : "Hmph! Coron is the liar!"
Coron : "Hiiing...! That's mean! You're both liars!"
…………………………………………………………
A logic puzzle where you figure out who told the truth and who lied from the hints they give each other.
"Hmm. So it's a liar puzzle."
Arin lifted her head.
"Big sis, do you want to solve the puzzle too?"
"Should I?"
Flop-
I lay down beside Arin.
"Arin, how far have you thought this through?"
"Hmm..."
Arin said, bringing the pencil to her lips.
"If Ankle tells the truth, then Mare is lying, and if Mare is lying then Coron is telling the truth, and if Coron is telling the truth, then the other two are both lying..."
"But then that doesn't make sense, does it? Ankle would be both a truth-teller and a liar?"
"Then if you think about it the other way around... if Ankle is a liar... then Mare is a truth-teller..."
"Yep."
"If Mare is a truth-teller, then Coron is a liar... and then saying the two of them are both liars would itself be a lie... ugh..."
"For the statement that both of them are liars to be false, it's enough for just one of them to be telling the truth."
"...Is that so?"
Arin thought about it for a moment.
"Then, big sis, is the answer that Ankle is lying, Mare is telling the truth, and Coron is lying?"
"That's right."
"Yay-!"
Arin clenched her fists and cheered.
"Then big sis, you solve it too!"
Arin showed me the puzzle book.
And at that moment.
Crackle-!
The material I'd skimmed while reading the gallery that morning suddenly popped into my head.
Hilbert basis theorem.
The fact that every ideal of a polynomial ring with integer coefficients is finitely generated.
Heh.
I grinned because a fun idea had come to me.
"Arin."
"Why?"
"I'm going to solve the puzzle, but can I use a little fun toy to do it?"
"A toy?"
"Yeah. A mathematician's toy."