[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-technology-invades-the-modern-world":3,"chapter-technology-invades-the-modern-world-technology-invades-the-modern-world-chapter-56":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Technology Invades the Modern World",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2269540,4430,"Chapter 56: How Did I Keep Getting More Regretful the More I Talked?","technology-invades-the-modern-world-chapter-56",56,"\u003Cp>“Nixon himself? Of course you can’t meet him,”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>John Morgan shook his head repeatedly:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If it were his own fundraising dinner, you wouldn’t see those amazing segments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And if I took you to his personal fundraising banquet, I’d need to prepare at least two hundred thousand dollars in donations.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Too expensive and too boring.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This campaign dinner is hosted by Robert Finch, Nixon’s assistant and his current presidential campaign manager.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“He’s a senior member of the Republican Party; he failed to win his last two bids for Congress.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Without a personal introduction, no one can attend his fundraising dinners—even if they donate a fortune. Tonight, I’ll take you to see for yourself.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Ran felt a flicker of anticipation inside—impart, huh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Room 313, south side, third floor, Columbia University’s administrative building.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Siegel and Horkheimer sat on brown leather single chairs in the Bauhaus style, sunlight streaming through New York’s classic iron-framed windows onto the circular teak coffee table between them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The light fell precisely on the latest issue of *New Advances in Mathematics* that Siegel had brought, illuminating the name Randolph Lin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Max, you bastard, you’ve made me unbearable at Göttingen University.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If you’d told me earlier that Randolph proved Fermat’s Conjecture, I wouldn’t be seen as a traitor by my colleagues here—someone who, because he’s retired, no longer cares about Göttingen.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before Doering, Siegel was the accused; now before Horkheimer, it was Siegel’s turn to play accuser.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Sorry, but science knows no borders. Wherever Randolph is, he’s still your student, isn’t he? And a graduate of Göttingen University?” Horkheimer argued:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“His achievements can never be separated from Göttingen’s training of him.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Just as philosophers shouldn’t serve the development of specific disciplines, they should guard the negative dimension of thought.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mathematicians work for all humanity, not for any single university. Mathematicians aren’t measurable outputs.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(“To treat thought as a measurable ‘output’ is precisely the symptom of enlightenment rationality’s self-destruction.” — Max Horkheimer, *Dialectic of Enlightenment*)\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Siegel was getting furious: “You bastard.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Being accused by Doering was bad enough, but what annoyed him more was realizing he was right—and still couldn’t win the argument.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In debate, mathematicians really seemed powerless against philosophers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No, this is deception!” Siegel couldn’t take it anymore.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Horkheimer raised an eyebrow: “How is this deception?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Is Randolph a mathematical genius? Is he qualified for a Ph.D. in mathematics from Göttingen University?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Horkheimer brought Lin Ran to Göttingen, he had guaranteed his merit with his personal reputation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because of that reputation, because they were old friends, because they were both German Jews, Siegel had reluctantly agreed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Siegel fell silent—he simply couldn’t say no. If Randolph wasn’t qualified, then Göttingen University would never have another mathematics Ph.D. graduate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No, what I mean by deception is—you never told me the full context.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Einstein proposed a unified theory in physics; Randolph proposed a unified theory in mathematics.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And compared to Einstein, his greatest advantage is his youth—he’s the most likely mathematician since Gauss to approach Gauss’s level, possibly even realizing the unified theory.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Siegel took a deep breath and continued: “You never made clear to me that Randolph’s talent isn’t just ‘genius’—it’s beyond that.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mathematical geniuses are countless, but he is unique. In number theory, I can state outright: he is already Gauss.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mathematics has no borders, and its results flow freely—but mathematicians do. If Randolph were at Göttingen, Göttingen could restore the glory Gauss once brought.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After speaking, Siegel sighed again, trying to comfort himself—fighting with Horkheimer wouldn’t help him bring Randolph back to Göttingen:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ah, Max, it’s not your fault. You’re right—Randolph is a Göttingen graduate, and that can’t be changed.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Göttingen produced Gauss, Riemann, Hilbert—and now Randolph. That’s not bad.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But when he comes back, you must help me persuade him to teach at Göttingen.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was why Professor Horkheimer had urgently called him back to campus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Siegel was waiting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Professor, Professor Siegel, good afternoon. These are specialty pastries I brought back from Xiangjiang—please try them.” Lin Ran placed the pastries on the coffee table between them and sat down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Good, Randolph, I’ve read your paper—it’s brilliant. Even the ABC Conjecture, the more I think about it, the more fascinating it becomes.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Fermat’s Last Theorem can indeed be seen as a consequence of the ABC Conjecture.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The fact that certain exponential equations have only finitely many solutions aligns with your ABC Conjecture’s prediction of the sparsity of high-quality triples.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The growth of rad(abc) relates to the distribution of prime factors in aaa, bbb, ccc.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your linear forms in logarithms theory can further analyze logarithmic relationships involving prime factors.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“For certain triples, one can estimate whether the expression log⁡c−log⁡rad(abc) is close to zero; lower bounds can show this closeness is strictly limited, thus supporting your ABC Conjecture’s sparsity claim.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Fermat’s Last Theorem, Fermat’s Diophantine Theorem, linear forms in logarithms, and the ABC Conjecture—you’ve woven them into one vast puzzle.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“From old problems, you’ve extended new ones; from old problems, you’ve distilled new theories.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This grand puzzle you’ve built subtly aligns with your Randolph Program.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s truly magnificent.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mathematicians who solve problems are impressive; those who pose problems are even more so.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Why is mathematical lineage important? Because a master guides you—his intuition reveals which problems are ripe for results, then hands those problems to students.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s like the master points out the minor enemies for you to start with, letting you train gradually from minor foes to bosses—your path is clear.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Otherwise, you’d start by fighting the boss—with no skill and no confidence.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And fighting minor enemies lets you publish papers, and those papers help you secure an academic position.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The journey from minor enemies to bosses also cultivates your top-tier mathematical taste.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Following a master gives you stable employment, systematic training, and refined mathematical taste.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“For a university’s mathematics department, a mathematician of Gauss’s caliber is enough to make it a center of mathematics. Haven’t you seen how the Russian mathematical community absorbed Euler’s work for two centuries?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Siegel’s eyes, the man before him—only in his early twenties—was already a mathematician of that caliber.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How the hell did I keep getting more regretful the more I talked? Siegel thought.\u003C\u002Fp>",1023,"2026-06-19T21:37:46.551Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","a6da61108456d0e24300a4b19c8579b8c1ea5e563c2b3f5ee608e0b9639f89e2","technology-invades-the-modern-world-chapter-57","technology-invades-the-modern-world-chapter-55",162,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Ftechnology-invades-the-modern-world-cover.jpg"]