Chapter 384: Boiling a frog in warm water, planning slowly

8:00 PM.

After returning from dinner outside, both of them were exhausted.

"I'm going to shower."

Xu Qingzhou lay on the sofa for two minutes before getting up to prepare for a shower.

"Oh."

Song Yao was still selecting the photos taken today to send to the group chat with Ding Jiahui and Guo Ziyang.

"Want to go together?"

"I don't."

Song the proud one refused subconsciously.

"Alright then." Xu Qingzhou shrugged, took his change of clothes, and went into the bathroom.

"This guy..."

Song Yao looked toward the bathroom. Giving up so easily was very strange; there must be a conspiracy.

Ten minutes passed.

"Your turn, I'll dry my hair myself."

"Oh, okay."

Xu Qingzhou stared at the school beauty's back, thinking secretly.

As a hunter, one must have patience. The bathroom, the sofa—children make choices; adults want it all.

As for the rest, plan slowly.

He withdrew his gaze and stared at the ceiling in a daze.

Master's degree graduated.

Another small step in his life plan was completed.

Next was the matter of the PhD.

He was a government-sponsored student, or a joint program. After obtaining his PhD at MIT, Jingda would also issue a graduation certificate.

Jingda had already completed the docking work with MIT. He currently only needed to consider the supervisor. There seemed to be many masters of mathematics at MIT; he would consider it slowly.

Not long after, Song Yao came out after showering. She had showered yesterday, so she didn't wash her hair, covering it with a shower cap.

As usual, she leaned on the sofa, put her feet in Xu Qingzhou's lap, and seeing him in a daze, rubbed her toes against Xu Qingzhou's stomach.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Just, I always feel like there's some big thing I haven't done."

Xu Qingzhou came back to his senses and muttered.

Song Yao's eyes darkened, and she rubbed her feet against Xu Qingzhou's thighs.

"You're seducing me."

"Pfft~ Shameless." Song Yao wouldn't admit it.

Xu Qingzhou narrowed his eyes and slowly fell onto the school beauty. "Teacher Song, tonight... hmm?"

"No."

Song Yao still refused; it was too chaotic. She avoided her boyfriend's burning gaze, paused, and said, "At most, at most... I can accompany you to shower."

Xu Qingzhou smiled lightly.

From the sofa to the bathroom, hehe, boiling a frog in warm water, plan successful.

For the next period of time, Xu Qingzhou wasn't that busy. On Friday night, he treated the three people in his dorm to a meal.

Then he went to the library to read. Professor Zhao Shengwen later sent some more materials regarding lithium batteries.

In the past year, electric vehicles had shown explosive development. Although there was still a gap compared to more than a decade later, with support at the national level, the prospects were quite clear.

While reading the materials, he was also thinking about which direction to engage in research next.

Without a doubt, it must be the field of basic mathematics. Let's max out the math skill points first, and at the same time, push forward some other research while conducting mathematical research.

Of course, being abroad, even if doing other research and experiments, it would mostly be theoretical content.

Science has no nationality, but scientists truly have nationalities.

He was currently thinking about the specific field to engage in.

Most people follow their supervisor's projects during their graduate studies, but Xu Qingzhou still liked the feeling of being able to control everything himself.

Having livered for most of his life, he finally had the right to speak; he couldn't take the old path now.

Algebra? No need to consider it; quite familiar. Combinatorial mathematics studying discrete structures? Properties and counting problems of sets, graphs, permutations, etc. —seems like he could skip it directly; not interested.

Or... continue harmonic analysis?

Scattering theory of nonlinear dispersive equations, fluid dynamics equation theory...

Xu Qingzhou considered the directions in his mind and shook his head again. He had just been at it for more than a year, and it was Fourier again.

After all, whenever harmonic analysis is mentioned, it will be related to Fourier. It mainly studies the expansion of functions into Fourier series or Fourier integrals, as well as various problems related to such series and integrals.

According to Mr. Hua Luogeng, the operation of expanding a known function into a Fourier series is called harmonic analysis.

In short, he was a bit tired of it; he had to change his taste.

So, back to number theory?

Xu Qingzhou thought for a while and marked all the points in the field of number theory that could be pushed forward.

In the afternoon, the sun was bright.

"Hoo~"

Not a single word of the content was missed!

In the library, Xu Qingzhou exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair to rest.

On the draft paper was a mind map.

Analytic number theory: distribution problem of integral mean values of Hurwitz zeta-functions; weighted mean value distribution problem of Dirichlet L-functions...

Algebraic number theory: function approximation theory and summation theory of divergent series; fusion of topology and number theory.

Topology was also ticked off, marked with "Poincaré Conjecture" above it.

Also, prime number distribution theory...

"Since I'm back to number theory, then... can I..."

Xu Qingzhou narrowed his eyes, and a bold idea suddenly popped into his mind. He took out a new manuscript and wrote four words on it—Riemann Hypothesis.

This was something Academician Xu Shihui had mentioned a few days ago.

"Professor Maynard and the others have completed the recalculation of the new large values for Dirichlet polynomials..."

This actually had his contribution, proposing to transform the problem into research on energy distribution based on the positions of large value points of Dirichlet series, in order to achieve the goal of more accurately estimating the frequency of large value occurrences.

It seemed quite promising.

Xu Qingzhou tapped the tip of his pen on the draft paper.

"But..."

Xu Qingzhou hesitated a little.

Just like his previous metaphor, the Riemann Hypothesis is like the blueprint of the Eiffel Tower appearing in the Stone Age—depicted very grandly, but for the Neolithic Age, it is a castle in the air.

Of course, two years had passed, and the situation was a bit different.

The Twin Prime Conjecture had been handled by him.

The Twin Prime Conjecture focuses on the distribution pattern of prime numbers, especially the existence of prime pairs with a difference of 2. The Riemann Hypothesis focuses on the distribution of zeros of the Riemann zeta function; these zeros are closely related to the overall distribution of prime numbers.

The solution to the Twin Prime Conjecture made the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis possible to a certain extent.

Despite this, wanting to completely solve the Riemann Hypothesis still seemed indefinitely far off.

Library.

Xu Qingzhou spun the signature pen in his hand, considering whether to be stubborn.

"Xu Shen..."

Someone was calling.

He looked up and saw a little girl standing nervously in front of him.

"Xu Shen, can... can you give me an autograph?" The little girl's volume was very low, her face full of excitement.

"Sure."

The little girl immediately handed over a notebook.

Xu Qingzhou smiled and wrote his name.

"Thank you, Xu Shen!"

The little girl hugged the notebook and returned to her seat, then took out her phone and started snapping photos.

Xu Qingzhou couldn't help but laugh; he seemed even more popular than in his previous life.

"Wait."

Xu Qingzhou slapped his forehead, cursing himself for being sick. "Damn, I've been reborn, why am I still struggling with this? I don't know if I've lost face for reborn people."

As a cheater, if one isn't willful, this rebirth will be meaningless.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 385 =====