38. Hanon Sixty Three
It’s finally Monday.
From the Math Olympiad to the phone call with Professor Park Bosun… .
Last weekend feels like a really great storm has passed.
So many things happened… The happiest thing is that Anglo-American won the Mathematics Olympiad, and the fact that Anglo-American added fun to their math studies.
It was on my way home from school.
Out of curiosity, I asked Incheol.
“In-cheol-ah, did Lim Yeon-ji go to school today?”
Incheol shook his head and said.
“He said he resigned.”
“really?”
“Because the vice-captain of our class did that… Is it true?”
Youngmi, who was next to him, said.
“I heard it too. A deal that dropped out of school before disciplinary action. They said that if they received disciplinary action such as probation or suspension, it would remain on the record, and they said that they applied for resignation immediately this morning.”
At Yeongmi’s words, Incheol let out a long sigh.
“Eww! Even if you do such a bad thing and drop out… You are going to a good place.”
“It’s a nice place, what do you mean?”
“He wants to study in the United States early. Sheesh!”
A bitter taste lingered in my mouth at Incheol’s words, but on the other hand… Now I was relieved to know that Young-mi could safely go to school.
The burn incident at the science contest is really dizzy even thinking about it now.
We entered the apartment complex, and In-cheol said as he walked towards 105 East.
“Jungho, will you come to my house today?”
“After a while, a guest was supposed to come. I don’t think we’ll see each other for a long time… If it’s over early, I’ll eat and go right away.”
When I got home, Professor Park Soo-soo was already in the living room.
There was a man in a suit next to Professor Park, who could be recognized at a glance.
It was the person sitting in the front row in the small auditorium where the closing ceremony of the academic conference was held yesterday.
He was the only one wearing a suit, but he was a person who stood out because his style was very different from the suits worn by office workers.
Mother prepared the fruit, and we moved to the table.
Professor Park and the man sat side by side, and my mother and I were seated across the table.
A man in a suit pulled out a business card and handed it to my mother and me.
James Kim, Ph.D.
Senior Developer and Manager
Mathematica Division
Wolfram Research
Wolfram is a software development company specializing in mathematics, and the Mathematica program developed by Wolfram is bisecting the mathematical computer tool market along with MATLAB of MathWorks.
For reference, while MATLAB is widely used in engineering fields, Mathematica is an essential program for many mathematical studies.
Of course, not now, in 1994… That is, after the mid-2000s.
He handed the business card and opened his mouth in fluent Korean.
“My English name is James Kim, and my Korean name is Kim Jae-sik… Just call Dr. Kim. Now I work at Wolfram as Senior Developer and Manager.”
After he finished speaking, he looked at me and my mother with a blank look, and there was an awkward silence for a while.
ah… ! American greetings!
It’s the American way of saying… There’s nothing special about it, but if someone introduces you by saying your name, it’s official etiquette to say your name too.
Even if Dr. Kim knew my name in advance through Professor Park.
Besides, asking him to call himself Dr. Kim instead of James is no longer a private conversation… It is an expression of intention to talk about hard business.
I opened my mouth.
“My name is Chae Jeong-ho, and this is my mother.”
“What is your mother’s name?”
My mother said with a slightly bewildered expression.
“My name is Sujeong Lee… Do you need my name?”
“Of course you should. Nice to meet you like this.”
Dr. Kim continued the conversation by writing her mother’s name in her notebook.
“It’s no different… In Professor Park’s speech yesterday, I saw a video visualizing the Riemann zeta function. However, according to Professor Park, the CJH program was all created by student Jeong-ho Chae. Is this true?”
“yes that’s right.”
I could feel his eyes changing at my answer.
“Honestly, I couldn’t believe it… It really was. This is a question I ask because I am personally curious, when did you start studying Riemann zeta functions and computer programming?”
“I, that’s… .”
read at noblemtl.com
Noticing my perplexed expression, he smiled and said.
“You don’t have to answer. actually… Professor Park warned me before I came here, but I was curious so I asked. Sorry.”
He apologized to me and said to my mother, not me.
“Then, to start with, I would like to purchase the copyright for the CJH program from Wolfram.”
My mother looked at me, and after thinking for a moment, I opened my mouth.
“thank you. But that… I think it will be a little difficult.”
It wasn’t that I refused because I didn’t want to sell the copyright.
To be honest, it’s because there’s nothing called copyright in the code I’ve written.
If you look at the CJH program code, there is nothing really special about it.
This is because all we have to do is to create a dense mesh of coordinates on the complex plane and calculate the Riemann zeta function value at each coordinate.
Since the three-dimensional image was drawn by inputting the calculated function value into the game development program installed by In-cheol, the CJH program does not have any copyright that I can claim ownership of.
Dr. Kim nodded at my explanation and said.
“We already have 3D imaging tools and programs that get function values by squeezing coordinates. What I was talking about is an algorithm that computes near the non-name zero of the Riemann zeta function.”
“ah… ! That’s it! But, that… It’s a really simple calculation algorithm, but does that also fall under copyright?”
“Sure.”
Dr. Kim nodded and continued with a bitter smile.
“This, as a developer who majored in mathematics, hurts my pride.”
Professor Park said.
“haha–. Why is Dr. Kim hurting his pride?”
“this… It’s a problem that 3 PhD-level developers, including myself, have been working on for a year and a half. And in the end I decided to give up.”
Professor Park asked Dr. Kim with a surprised expression.
“okay? What the hell is wrong with that?”
If we visualize the Riemann zeta function around the non-obvious zero, it has the shape of a pointed top, and the tip of this top is called a vertex or apex.
At this time, the point of the Riemann zeta function is slightly tangent to the complex plane, and this tangent point is the non-obvious zero point.
However, due to the sharp shape, the Riemann zeta function at the non-obvious zero point is not differentiable.
For this reason, it is not easy to draw a graph near the non-obvious zero point using a numerical analysis technique.
For example, if the coordinates are sloppy, the vertex appears blunt, and since the blunt vertex does not touch the complex plane, it becomes impossible to find the non-obvious zero.
The best way is to tightly weave the coordinates near the zero point, which is also not easy.
Because we don’t know where the zero point of the visa name is.
However, this is also not a good solution because the amount of calculation increases exponentially if the coordinates are tightly squeezed blindly.
Of course, if you are using a computer from the 2000s or later, it would not be a serious problem, but 586 computers have not yet been distributed.
At Dr. Kim’s explanation, Professor Park nodded and asked me.
“then… Jung-ho, how did you solve this problem?”
“If you look at the Riemann zeta function, it converges in the positive real direction and diverges to infinity in the negative real direction with respect to the critical line with the real part of 1/2… We took advantage of this feature.”
“… ?”
“First, at each coordinate in the negative real direction, the partial differential value in the y-axis direction was obtained. So I was able to easily find the pattern that I saw when I got close to the zero point of the non-signature.”
Dr. Kim nodded and said.
“ah… ! There was such a way. Still, it seems unreasonable to find the zero value to one digit after the decimal point… .”
I said in a pleasant voice.
“Right!”
It was really nice to know that someone knew this.
I spoke in a slightly excited voice.
“Once you get that rough range, this time I used the same method for the positive real interval. We found the partial derivative in the y-axis direction, and the point where the sign of the partial derivative changes was obtained using the interpolation method.”
Dr. Kim nodded and accepted my words.
“ah… ! I think you know. Since the positive real direction is a convergence section, the correct zero value must have been obtained by interpolation alone.”
“yes. Right.”
Dr. Kim nodded for a while, this time speaking to his mother, not me.
“Well, I think the validity of the algorithm has been fully explained… What do you think about selling the copyright of the algorithm to our Wolfram?”
At his question, my mother looked at me, and I said to my mother.
“Your mother decides this.”
My mother said to Dr. Kim.
“Then can I hear the terms of the contract?”
Dr. Kim took out a sheet of paper prepared in advance from his bag and handed it to his mother.
It was a fairly simple contract written in Korean.
I transferred all rights to this algorithm to Wolfram, and in return for this, Wolfram would pay me US$18,000.
The current exchange rate is about 800 won per dollar… .
$18,000 is a lot of money, over 14 million won.
After checking the contract, the mother opened her mouth.
“Can I change the language of the contract to English instead of Korean?”
Dr. Kim said to her mother’s question.
“I thought it was advantageous to use my own language in international contracts, so I purposely prepared a Korean contract.”
“Yeah, usually that’s right. If a dispute arises, the country of the language written in the contract has jurisdiction. But in Korea, there are almost no copyright laws.”
“… .”
“This means that when a problem arises, we, the underdog in the contract, are not properly protected. So, I think it would be better to do it based on the U.S. standard, in which the relevant laws are clearly prepared.”
Dr. Kim said with a surprised expression.
“yes… . Then, the contract will be prepared again in English. But, what are you doing… May I ask?”
Mother said with a relaxed smile.
“I am working on a translation. We often translate contracts, and if there are no laws in both countries, many of them sign contracts in English.”
Dr. Kim nodded, and Mother continued.
“By the way, how did you calculate $18,000?”
He said with a bright expression as if he was waiting.
“There are many things to consider, but above all, assuming that our company develops the algorithm itself, it was based on the necessary budget.”
My mother asked Dr. Kim’s words.
“So you mean that Wolfram doesn’t spend more than $18,000 to develop this algorithm?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
In response to Dr. Kim’s answer, the mother opened her mouth with a slightly serious expression.
“You said this a while ago. To develop this, three PhD-level developers worked for a year and a half.”
“… !”
“If you do arithmetic calculations, it means that the annual salary of a doctoral level developer in the United States is 4,000 dollars… If we do this with our money, we get 3.2 million won per year as a salary. of course… The three of you must have done other things besides this, but I thought it was too little for me.”
Dr. Kim said with a slightly bewildered expression.
“Yes, I understand. We will discuss this with our company.”
“When you talk to the company, I think you should talk about other things as well. But, these aren’t just one or two… Do you think you should take notes in your notebook?”