Chapter 69
Anyway, we wrapped things up there in roughly that fashion.
We decided to wait until next year to take the special achievement test the superintendent uncle was preparing just for me.
Because I was still a preschooler.
First, after I legally became an elementary school student, I’d take the special achievement test that would let me blitz through elementary school graduation.
Then, after earning my elementary school graduation certificate, I’d take another special achievement test to blitz through middle school graduation.
Either way, it was better than going to school and trying to get along with kids I wouldn’t even fit in with.
✒️✒️✒️
Aunt went home with a refreshed expression, as if she’d finished everything she was responsible for.
“Bye-bye, Auntie-.”
“G-goodbye-!”
“Take care-.”
We returned home.
The first thing I did after getting home was reply to all the emails I hadn’t answered.
Emails from prestigious universities overseas pleading, Professor Yoo Ah-yeon, please come teach at our university, sob sob-.
‘I don’t want to leave Korea yet, so I should politely turn them down…’
Tap-tap-tap-.
I slowly and carefully typed on Mom’s laptop.
……………………………………………………
Hello. I am mathematician Yoo Ah-yeon.
First, I sincerely thank you for sending me such a wonderful offer. However, unfortunately, I am still young and need protection, and I also prefer Korea, the country where I was born, so I think it would be difficult for me to decide to move to another country.
Thank you very much for your offer.
I hope there might be an opportunity someday in the future.
Sincerely, Yoo Ah-yeon.
P.S. For reference, I like Tteoktwisun. I’ve tried it in Korean neighborhoods in other countries too, but it didn’t taste the same as it does in Korea.
……………………………………………………
✒️✒️✒️
The presidents and deans of the universities that had emailed Yoo Ah-yeon quickly checked the reply they’d been waiting endlessly for.
They’d braced themselves, but as expected, the reply was a polite refusal.
“… It’s a shame we couldn’t bring Yoo Ah-yeon here.”
Disappointment was written all over their faces.
Even so, they decided not to give up hope.
Because Yoo Ah-yeon was still only a six-year-old child.
Even if not right now, perhaps they’d have another chance to contact her again in a few years.
That aside.
There was one thing they all paused at in common.
The word written in the P.S. of the reply email.
Tteoktwisun.
They had no idea what on earth Tteoktwisun was.
“What on earth is this thing called Tteoktwisun…?”
“I’m not sure either… Judging from the nuance, it does seem to be Korean food, though.”
They tilted their heads in puzzlement.
✒️✒️✒️
The conclusion I reached after replying to them one by one.
As expected, the problem was that too many emails had piled up.
Requests for interviews, speaking invitations, academic questions, spam.
And a small number of extremely important emails.
Since they were all mixed together, I ended up missing important emails.
“Uuugh… If I were a celebrity, I’d hire a manager just to handle this.”
But I wasn’t a celebrity.
In times like this, it was faster to ask Dad, who was good with computers.
That evening, after Dad got home from work,
I showed him Mom’s laptop screen and told him about the problem.
“Dad, there are so many emails piled up that I can’t read the important ones. What should I do?”
Dad propped his chin on his hand and thought hard.
“Hmm… I think Dad might be able to solve this problem.”
“Really?”
For reference, Dad had graduated from the Department of Statistics and worked as a data analyst in the financial sector.
When he was in college, he’d even made a quantitative trading program as a personal project.
*(Quantitative trading: a method of automatic trading using only mathematical and statistical algorithms)
In other words, he was used to writing computer code.
Dad said,
“Of course, I’m still inexperienced compared to a professional developer. But I can make a small-scale program.”
“Heeey-. What are you going to make?”
“I’ll feed all the emails Mom received to an AI. Then I’ll make a simple model that automatically analyzes them and sorts them into categories—academic content, interview requests, or just spam.”
“Ooh…! What is that? That’s so cool…!”
Just hearing about it made my heart flutter with excitement.
Something about him whipping up a program that would analyze things on its own with AI felt amazing.
“Haha, your dad’s pretty capable, you know?”
The next day.
Dad came home from work carrying a USB drive.
Apparently, he’d made it bit by bit whenever he had spare moments at work.
That’s my dad.
He’d actually managed to make it in the little free time he had.
Dad plugged the USB drive into Mom’s laptop.
Then the file name appeared at the very top.
Mail_Classification.zip
“Okay, go into the Chrome extensions management tab, turn on Developer mode, and then import this compressed file as is.”
Dad clicked something rapidly, click-click.
“Ta-da!”
Mom’s inbox screen changed.
▼ Interview Requests (99+)
▼ Speaking Requests (99+)
▼ Academic Content (21)
▼ Spam (66)
“Wow…!”
Those chaotic emails had been neatly organized into an easy-to-browse view at a glance.
What’s more, clicking a categorized tab opened it downward, letting us scroll through them all.
Mom looked at the laptop screen and said,
“Wow, it classified them automatically?”
“Yep. The AI extracts key words from the email content and determines the category. If a university name appears in the content, it’s more likely to be academic, and so on. It’s not 100 percent accurate, but it’ll catch most of them.”
“That’s amazing! As expected of you, honey.”
“Mwah-.”
Mom happily kissed Dad on the cheek.
Then Dad made a goofy, beaming face.
They sure are lovey-dovey. At this rate, are they going to make another little sibling, seriously?
I thought as I looked at the screen.
It was fascinating, but I also felt something complicated and subtle.
The age of leaving inbox organization to AI had arrived.
‘Is this… the Fourth Industrial Revolution…?’
In the end, technology and engineering were what changed the times and people’s lives.
And here I was, going heehee, I solved one unsolved problem from the 1800s, aren’t I amazing, now give me lots of applause—.
I got a slight reality check.
Of course, I was researching it because I liked mathematics, but still…
Just then, Dad reached over and gave my cheek a long tug.
Squeeeeeeze-.
“Ouch-!”
“Hehe, my daughter, what are you thinking about?”
“…Nothing. The world is developing so quickly, and I was wondering if it’s really okay for me to still be poring over old math problems. Of course, I know math and physics have historically developed slowly… but seeing it firsthand makes me feel kind of weird… like I’ve become someone stuck in the past…?”
Dad placed his large hand firmly on my head.
Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch—!
And vigorously tousled it.
My hair, which I’d just painstakingly fixed, became extremely frizzy.
“Heeet, that tickles-! What are you doing, Dad!”
“Ah-yeon.”
“Yeah?”
“Computer algorithms and artificial intelligence theory have all developed on the foundation of research by mathematicians in the past. Why do you think it’s called fundamental theory? Because it forms the foundation for other fields—that’s why it’s fundamental theory.”
Dad continued.
“People get excited about car designs, but the most important part is the invisible engine. They care only about what a building looks like, but the most important part is the pillars supporting its load. Your mother and you, Ayeon, who study pure mathematics, are important people developing that foundation for future scholars. You can hold your head high and be proud.”
He was right.
I knew more than a hundred examples of foundational theories laid down by earlier scholars becoming the theoretical basis for other fields.
Besides, I believed mathematics had value in and of itself, even if it were supposedly meaningless.
I already knew that in my head.
But strangely, hearing Dad say it himself made the pointless thoughts disappear and made me feel much better.
“Hmph. That’s what I thought, right?”
I puffed out my chest with a smug expression.
✒️✒️✒️
Arin had recently developed a routine.
One day, I happened to see her while passing through the living room.
Arin was standing in front of the mirror with her gold medal around her neck.
“Woooow…!”
She was gazing at her reflection with a pleased expression.
Then she put it around her beloved stuffed toy Popo’s neck too.
“Popo has a medal too.”
The big teddy bear sat on the sofa wearing the medal.
Watching Arin play with her stuffed toy from the side, I said,
“Arin, are you really that happy about winning the tournament?”
“Yeah! I wanna enter another tournament! It doesn’t have to be chess either…!”
Apparently,
It felt like her experience of battling it out with kids her age at a major tournament had helped develop Arin’s social skills.
Of course, all the participants at that tournament had been older than Arin.
That was a minor issue.
Good, good.
This big sister couldn’t stick to Arin’s side forever, after all.
It was good for Arin to learn how to communicate with the world in her own way.
“Really? You want to go to another tournament and get another round of applause, clap-clap?”
“Yeah! But I don’t really know what kind of tournaments there are.”
Apparently, Arin wanted to experience more than just chess.
I thought for a moment.
Back when we’d first tried to learn a difficult board game,
the reason we hadn’t learned Go was simply that Arin had said the Go board looked scary.
But Arin was different now.
She’d even gone to a tournament in France and gained experience competing against unfamiliar opponents.
And there were quite a lot of tournaments in this world where she could interact directly with other people.
Before choosing which tournament to enter, then,
why don’t I start by telling Arin what kinds of games there are?
I sat down beside Arin and said,
“Then, Arin, shall we take games apart from the ground up and look at what they really are? Mathematically, games are divided into perfect information games (Perfect Information Game) and imperfect information games (Imperfect Information Game).”