Chapter 72: Master-level Demeanor is Unrivaled

Although the Cultural Huaguo side had done sufficient work on Chen Jingrun's growth background.

But it still wasn't enough.

Some more essential things are very difficult to cover up.

Harvey Cohen had guesses about the origin of this young Chinese-American named Chen Dehui; he suspected the other party came from Cultural Huaguo.

The other party's foundation in the field of number theory was very solid, and he had unique insights into the sieve method, but what he knew was too narrow, and there was a relatively serious disconnection from contemporary mathematics.

Just from the interview and daily chats, Harvey Cohen felt that the techniques the other party knew were very similar to those of his mathematician peer Hua Luogeng, who had already returned to Cultural Huaguo.

Hua Luogeng was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the 40s, and later was a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois for two years before returning home; Harvey Cohen had intersections with Hua Luogeng at academic conferences.

Being similar to Hua Luogeng in technique was one aspect, while wanting to use the sieve method to solve the Goldbach conjecture was another point.

The sieve method Chen Jingrun mentioned clearly had the shadow of Hungarian mathematical master Alfréd Rényi.

Alfréd Rényi had already used the sieve method to study the Goldbach conjecture as early as 1948; he used the large sieve method to prove that there is a number K such that every even number is the sum of a prime and a product of at most K primes.

Chen Jingrun's subsequent Chen's theorem was a further strengthening of this work by Alfréd Rényi.

Clearly, Chen Jingrun had come into contact with Alfréd Rényi's work and had a deep understanding and mastery of his work; this was because Hungary and Cultural Huaguo currently belonged to the same camp, and academic-related achievements from both sides could flow to each other.

This is like in a martial arts novel, where every move and style of yours can reveal which sect you come from. You put on a mask and try every possible way to hide your sect and origin, but a top-tier master can still see through it at a glance.

Mathematics is the same.

You can perfect your identity background, but you cannot cover up the traces of mathematical techniques in front of a master.

In other words, this also blames Lin Ran; during the seminar in Xiangjiang, Lin Ran didn't teach much about number theory, lecturing entirely on harmonic analysis and algebraic geometry, always trying every possible way to stuff private goods to Chen Jingrun, causing Chen Jingrun to be exposed immediately in front of Harvey Cohen.

Fortunately, Lin Ran had carefully selected when helping Chen Jingrun choose a mentor; Harvey Cohen wouldn't care whether you came from Cultural Huaguo, and he even wanted to take the initiative to help Chen Jingrun cover it up.

Letting Chen Jingrun make up for the shortcomings in other fields was actually hinting to him: learn more martial arts from other sects; as your master, I can help you cover it up, but if others see it, they might not necessarily help you cover it up.

"Also, Chen, the sieve method is a very useful tool. Brun used it to prove the convergence of the reciprocal of twin primes, and Selberg used it to achieve more precise upper bound estimation.

But it has very obvious limitations. On one hand, the sieve method relies on combinatorial techniques rather than profound functional analysis; it is a bit too rough.

Do you understand? It is very difficult to control the error term. Like if we handle prime number problems, the error term will accumulate as your sieving range expands.

I don't deny it is a very effective tool, but it needs to be combined with more methods to exert a greater effect.

Like Selberg's sieve method, it used analytical tools; he introduced the Riemann zeta function and the Dirichlet L-function, using the analysis technique of sum of squares to optimize the upper bound.

Only by combining it with other mathematics can the power of the sieve method be improved, including number theory; you also have to read more cutting-edge papers and improve your methods..."

Harvey Cohen had a flavor of earnest advice; his subtext was actually: learn more martial arts, and cover up your roots for me.

Limited by the fact that everyone had just met, Harvey Cohen had no way to point out his true thoughts.

Lin Ran was about to go to work in the White House; if he pointed it out now, who knew what kind of trouble would be stirred up.

Harvey Cohen didn't care at all whether Lin Ran was working for Cultural Huaguo; among the top scientists in America, were there few working for Soviet Russia from the Manhattan Project to NASA?

Even if Lin Ran was really working for Cultural Huaguo, so what?

However, Harvey Cohen also didn't believe Lin Ran would really work for Cultural Huaguo. He could smell the Cultural Huaguo flavor from Chen Jingrun's moves, but from Lin Ran, he could really only smell the flavor of a master.

Every move and style was natural, master-level demeanor, unrivaled.

When everyone was having the seminar earlier, saying "submit" sounded a bit exaggerated, but Harvey Cohen understood very well that it wasn't exaggerated at all in reality.

Because the most perverted thing about this guy Randolph is that it's one thing to make successive Fields Medal-level achievements, but after everyone finishes reading his papers, they can't find any angle for improvement.

Generally, a master makes an achievement, and then everyone can go along this direction to make a series of achievements.

The easiest thing is to improve the master's paper achievements.

Like Wiles's Fermat's Last Theorem, it was subsequently improved from 130 pages to 50 pages by everyone. This is also an achievement.

But Lin Ran's papers cannot be improved; the published version is already a perfect result, at least no one can find an angle for improvement at the moment.

Also, Lin Ran not only solves the problem himself and creates universal methods, but even makes a new conjecture for you.

It's truly a bit too perverted.

Therefore, in the number theory seminar in New York where Lin Ran didn't come, everyone privately discussed and was amazed by Lin Ran, really unable to imagine how Göttingen could let such talent run away.

Siegel, as the former head of Göttingen and a master-level figure in the field of number theory, had also been called by Harvey Cohen to participate in the number theory seminar when he came to New York, but he couldn't stand being constantly asked why Göttingen let Lin Ran go.

Siegel originally planned to be a visiting scholar at Columbia University for half a year, but because he was asked until he was speechless, he only stayed for a month before returning to Göttingen.

Rather than being mocked in New York, it was much easier to go back and face Döhling alone.

Precisely because of this, for the mathematical master who was only in his twenties, Harvey Cohen subconsciously wanted to protect the other party, and also didn't believe Lin Ran was really a person from Cultural Huaguo, at most sympathizing with Cultural Huaguo.

This is perfectly normal in America.

The American academic world has a lot of Jewish scientists who came from Germany, and quite a few of them also supported Germany's development through various ways; is it strange for Chinese-Americans to sympathize with Cultural Huaguo and want to help out?

The academic circle atmosphere in the 60s was still quite open.

"Appointment of Randolph Lin as Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs

Randolph Lin is hereby appointed as Special Assistant to the President for Aerospace Affairs, responsible for aerospace affairs. Mr. Lin will report directly to Vice President Lin Deng Johnson, and his duties include providing policy suggestions related to aerospace to the President, supervising the execution of NASA-related work, and participating in aerospace-related affairs.

This appointment is effective from March 1, 1961.

Signed: John F. Kennedy

United States of America" ===== CHAPTER 73 =====