Chapter 96
We clocked out sharp at four in the afternoon.
It was such a razor-sharp departure that if you raised a finger ever so slightly, it would draw blood and make you go, “Heeeek-!”
Theoretical fields often have relatively flexible working hours.
Since experiments aren't important and the research takes place in your head anyway.
You don't have to be glued to the lab at all times.
Of course, that doesn't mean it's completely cushy.
Would it be easier to understand if I compared it to employees and freelancers?
Freelancers do have a little more freedom than employees with strict working hours, but if they just go, “Hehe, this is so cushy-,” and flop down, they'll end up suffering through a hellish schedule the day before an important deadline.
Professors of theoretical physics and pure mathematics face pressure from their achievements instead of pressure to clock in and out.
How many papers they publish, what level of journals they publish in, whether they teach their classes diligently, whether they fulfill their departmental administrative duties, how often they attend conferences, and so on.
Every move a professor makes gets recorded and becomes subject to evaluation.
That's why the tenure system exists: so professors can conduct whatever research they want without worrying about pressure to produce results or currying favor with university administrators. It can be thought of as a system in which the university guarantees professors permanent employment.
As a special professor favored by the university president, Yoo A-yeon had effectively received tenure.
I probably wouldn't be fired even if I spent several years loafing around without publishing a single paper while living off my research funds.
Of course, if I really did that, the president would probably clutch at the hem of my skirt and wail, “Professor Yoo A-yeon, you mustn't do this, sob sob-!”
Anyway, that's how thoroughly my research autonomy was guaranteed.
After proving the Riemann Hypothesis, I deserved this level of treatment!
Still, even if I were allowed to do nothing but loaf around, I'm serious about research, so I have no intention of slacking off.
Mom was the same.
Just because she was my mom didn't mean I planned to go easy on her.
Once she'd decided to get her PhD, I had to crack the whip—smack-smack—without mercy!
That's how you produce excellent papers!
Beep beep beep beep-.
I quickly entered the door-lock code, which was at my eye level, and opened the front door.
“Oh! It's Big Sis and Mom!”
Tododododo-.
Arin, who had been reading on Dad's lap, spotted us and scampered over to the entryway.
And then.
“Waaah-!”
She threw herself forward with all her strength and buried herself in my arms.
Squeeze-.
Pat-pat-.
Mom and I both gently patted Arin's tiny back.
“Were you a good girl today, Arin?”
“Yeah! I read a difficult book with Dad! One Big Sis gave me!”
Arin smiled brightly and chattered away about everything that had happened that day.
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Starting today, the roles of husband and wife had officially switched.
Mom had used up a ton of energy preparing lectures as a teaching assistant, reading papers, and driving me around, so she was sitting on the sofa, staring blankly into space and taking a breather with a long sigh.
Dad, who had now become a househusband, was cooking with the ingredients he and Arin had bought during their grocery run today.
“Honey, how was your first day at work? It was tiring, wasn't it?”
“Yeah, I'm a little tired. Still, sitting in a lab again after so long brought back memories.”
This scene of Mom resting on the sofa while Dad cooked in an apron.
“Who wrote this script?!”
It felt a little strange, but this was the scene that would become our everyday life from now on.
So what was my role?
That hadn't changed from before: playing with Arin to my heart's content.
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I chattered away with Arin about what had happened that day.
“Big Sis, Big Sis! It was your first day at work! What did you do?”
Arin asked, her eyes sparkling.
“I read papers!”
“Don't you read those at home too? What else did you do?”
“Oh, I taught a class to some college unnis and oppas. You know, calculus.”
“Calculus? Sounds fun!”
I might have still been five years old.
But thanks to my super-speed early education, Arin could easily do mental arithmetic for differentiating and integrating transcendental functions.
“Yeah, I taught Eun-chae unni too.”
“Wow! I want to take your class too.”
Arin pouted her lips enviously.
“Don't worry, Arin. I'll teach you everything we covered today!”
“Yay-! I'm excited!”
Of course I wouldn't refuse when my little sister wanted to take her big sister's class!
I stood in front of the cute animal-design whiteboard in one corner of the living room.
Pop-. I pulled out a board marker.
Arin's eyes gleamed as she calmly prepared to listen to my lesson.
Tap tap tap-.
I copied everything I'd covered in the lecture hall onto the whiteboard.
Since it was material I'd taught to college students, the many formulas might have seemed a little difficult.
But Arin opened a notebook with a cute teddy bear on it and diligently followed along, neatly organizing everything with her pen.
“Okay, this is the epsilon-delta definition. Even if you choose any tolerance ε you want, if there's a distance δ that lets you get within the error range, we call that the limit value.”
“Hmm… Hmm…”
Arin concentrated deeply, holding her tiny pen between her lips.
And then.
Her eyes suddenly flew open.
“…Ah! I get it-! It expresses ‘getting closer’ using only inequalities! Epsilawn-delta is awesome! Wasn't the person who thought of this a genius?”
“Right, right? It's fun, isn't it?”
I smiled proudly.
Of course, Arin hadn't perfectly understood every aspect of the formulas.
There were simply too many of them, and they were too complicated.
Even so, Arin had managed to make at least a little of the essence contained in that definition her own.
Something even the college unnis and oppas found so difficult.
She'd managed to understand the nuance to some extent, even if not all of it.
It was a moment when I felt rewarded for diligently training her brain by throwing difficult things at her ever since she was three.
As expected of our Arin.
She just sucks up knowledge like a sponge.
“Arin, what you just understood was really amazing. It's something even college unnis and oppas struggle with. Eun-chae unni even came to ask me about it!”
“Really? Heheh-! I wanna see Eun-chae unni clutching her head and struggling over it!”
After being praised, Arin lifted the corners of her lips with a twitch and beamed.
Just then.
“Girls~! Honey~! Dinner's ready-!”
Dad's voice came from the kitchen.
Sizzle-sizzle-.
A delicious smell wafted all the way into the living room.
“Yay! It's dinner!”
“Class is over for now! Let's eat and continue later, Arin!”
Pop-.
I put the cap back on the board marker.
Wadadada-.
We ran to the dining table.
Mom, who had been staring blankly into space on the sofa, came to her senses at Dad's words and sat down at the table too.
Munch munch, nom nom chomp-.
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I didn't go to work on Tuesday and took a good rest at home.
The freedom of a mathematics professor's schedule really is the best.
Of course, I said I took a good rest, but that day I read papers and mathematics journals just like usual.
If you looked at it that way, I'd effectively been doing the work of a mathematics professor as part of my daily life.
I'd been doing it ever since I was two.
I suppose you could say I'd shown the makings of a mathematics professor from an early age.
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Wednesday.
I went to work at Seoul National University with Mom again.
I had a graduate-student class this morning.
This semester, I was teaching one undergraduate course and one graduate course.
The undergraduate course was calculus.
The graduate course was functional analysis.
Calculus on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Functional analysis on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Apparently, the university had assigned them this way because, since I'd solved the Riemann Hypothesis, they had decided my specialty was closer to analysis.
Calculus also felt like a prerequisite course taken before studying analysis.
‘It's not like I can only do analysis, though. I can do everything!’
For reference, there are three most representative major fields in mathematics.
Analysis, algebra, and topology. Those three.
Of course, they aren't completely separate from one another.
On the contrary, they're closely connected.
The deeper you dig, the more it feels as if they're essentially dealing with the same object.
To use an analogy, the entrances to the hiking trails are all different and the paths to the summit vary, but in the end, there's only one mountaintop.
Just in case you're wondering, those three aren't the only fields.
Geometry, number theory, applied mathematics, combinatorics, computational mathematics, mathematical logic… Anyway, there are an enormous number of them.
Anyway.
The reason I brought all this up is.
I wanted to say that analysis isn't my only specialty.
It is true that I mainly used analytical techniques when solving the Riemann Hypothesis.
But does that mean I didn't use algebra and topology too?
That's not the case either.
The reason the Riemann Hypothesis is so difficult is.
Because it requires knowledge of analysis, knowledge of algebra, and knowledge of topology.
It's an ultra-super difficult problem that you can't even properly attempt unless you've mastered mathematics as a whole—you get filtered out at the entrance.
But even if you master all of that, it's still extremely difficult.
That's why it went unsolved for 160 years.
But!
This super-genius Yoo A-yeon with an IQ of 160 finally pulled it off!
I could never claim that I'd perfectly mastered a single field.
Even so, whichever field I chose, I was capable of explaining it smoothly to graduate-student unnis and oppas.
I'm Yoo A-yeon, the all-rounder who digs into all sorts of fields instead of focusing on just one!
So next semester, I planned to suggest to the dean that I teach a course in a different field.
Wouldn't it get a little boring teaching analysis every time?
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I went to work at Building 27 with the passionate gazes of all the unnis and oppas fixed on me.
“Aaaah! It's Professor Yoo A-yeon!”
“Professor, please give me your autograph!”
Rumble-rumble~
As always, the unnis and oppas who were fans of Yoo A-yeon came swarming over.
“Okay, okay. Please line up slowly. Heheh.”
The popularity of this body!
No matter how much of this attention I received, I never got tired of it.
I casually scribbled my autograph for a few people.
When it was time, I clasped Mom's hand tightly and headed to the lecture hall.
“I'll give you one next time too-!”
Now it was time to deal with the graduate-student unnis and oppas.
There was no angelic Yoo A-yeon who kindly and entertainingly explained things to graduate students.
I was the demon Yoo A-yeon who threw them into a pit of hellfire!