5. Eleven
“Ullery cholleri~ ulreri choleri~.”
“Jungho and Youngmi are dating~ They’re dating~.”
Last life I didn’t go to school to get a gifted education.
So, the first experience of elementary school life felt like surviving in the jungle.
The most fun time at school is PE class.
Even though I played soccer every gym class, I never got tired of it.
If I had good athleticism, this life would have made me want to become a soccer player.
Another reason I like gym class is probably because it’s not boring.
As an assistant professor of mathematics at a famous state university in the United States, I had nothing to learn in elementary school.
Finally, about a week after entering school, I started doing other things in class.
Class time.
I was writing something in my notebook… .
At that moment, I heard the loud voice of Hyungseok from behind me.
“Teacher!”
The teacher who was writing on the blackboard turned back and looked at Hyeongseok.
“Here, Jeong-ho is writing strange things in his notebook.”
Whoops!
“Chae Jung-ho!”
“yes… .”
“Come forward with your notebook.”
I walked to the front of the classroom with a clumsy pace, and eventually held out my notebook to the teacher.
The teacher’s face, which had a harsh expression, soon filled with a look of bewilderment.
The teacher opened his mouth with wide, round eyes.
“Hey Jungho… this… why… what?”
“… … .”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what this is?”
The teacher spoke in a harsh voice, but I knew that the teacher was lying and pretending to be angry.
“Sir, I was wrong.”
The teacher’s voice softened slightly at my words.
“Isn’t the teacher asking if Jung-ho was right or wrong? You’re asking what this is. The teacher is curious and asks Can you tell me what this is?”
I closed my mouth.
The goal of this life is to live a normal life… .
Within two weeks of entering elementary school, this goal seemed to crumble.
I said to the teacher with the most pitiful expression on my face.
“I will not do anything else in class from now on. Sir, please return the notebook. I promise you. I will not do anything else in the future.”
The teacher asked me again, but I couldn’t be honest.
After this nerve war between me and the teacher continued, the teacher eventually told me to enter my seat.
A classroom where silence flows.
I still stood in front of the school table and said to the teacher.
“Teacher, can you return that notebook?”
The teacher shook his head with an angry expression, and I returned to my seat in tears.
Returning to his seat, Hyeongseok’s eyes met, and his face was full of regret.
Class resumed, but I couldn’t concentrate.
My hands were trembling with the anxiety that the tragedy of my past life could begin again.
Perhaps he saw me like that, and when it was time to take a break, Hyeongseok repeatedly said he was sorry to me.
* * *
A classroom in the first grade, second class of Namseo National School.
In the empty classroom where the children had left, Kim Seon-jeong was left alone, and Jeong-ho’s notebook was in her hand.
A notebook full of signs and symbols… .
She wondered what these symbols meant.
‘Hmm… I think I developed a mathematical formula… .’
But apart from the fact that it was a mathematical symbol, she had no idea what the formulas in her notebook meant.
And the fact that all this was written by an 8-year-old child stimulated her curiosity.
She grabbed her notebook and headed to the office.
Returning to her office, she pondered for a moment.
But it seems that curiosity was greater than reluctance.
She eventually picked up the phone and dialed.
– Yes, it is a century of Korean newspapers.
“Hello, Segi-senpai. I am chosen.”
– Oh! Choice! Long time no see. I heard that you passed the recruitment exam last year or so. How have you been?
“Yes, I am doing fine.”
“But what happened? Did you call me because you wanted to see me? yes?”
At the end of the century, Seon Seon grimaced with regret to not call.
Segi was a senior in the university club of Seonjeong-eui. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics, he was working as a reporter in the culture department of a newspaper.
The selection said sternly.
“Senior, if you keep saying that, I will hang up the phone.”
-haha! sorry! It was a joke. You’re still hitting the wall. Anyway, what did you contact me for?
“Senior, you majored in math. I have something I want to show you.”
-okay? Anyway, I’m about to go home after sending an article, shall we meet tonight?”
“Yes, I like it. The bus to our house passes through Jongno, so I think we will meet in front of the office building of the Korean newspaper.”
* * *
A restaurant in front of the headquarters of the Korean newspaper.
Segi’s expression as he looked at Jeong-ho’s notebook was serious.
“So… Are you saying this was written by a first grader in elementary school?”
“I haven’t seen it myself, so I’m not sure… That’s how it should be.”
“Hmm… .”
“What the hell did you write? Actually, I was curious about that, so I contacted the senior.”
Segi turned the notebook to the front page and unfolded the part where the formula begins.
“This is the Riemann zeta function.”
“Riemann zeta function? It must be a famous function, right?”
He said with a sly smile.
“Not a little famous, but very—very famous.”
“okay? I thought it was just an infinite series… .”
“Five! infinite number right. It is a function made of infinite series. You studied hard in high school.”
With a surprised look on the face of the century, Seonjeong said.
“Senior, I was still in science. Of course, we know what an infinite series is. But why is this Riemann zeta function famous?”
“There is something called the Riemann hypothesis. This is a really famous puzzle in math, but maybe… In terms of difficulty, it would be in the top five fingers in the whole math world, right?”
“Is it difficult to prove?”
“right. If we prove this, we will probably have a blast trying to get each other to be professors of mathematics at Harvard, Yale, and MIT.”
“Oh! Is that enough?”
Segi nodded and said.
“What is written in this notebook… I don’t know for sure, but I think he was trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis.”
“Really? So, did Jung-ho prove it?”
“Is your child’s name Jungho? By the way… He probably didn’t prove it.”
“How do you know? It could have been proven.”
Segi burst out laughing at the words of the selection.
“Well… Can the Riemann hypothesis be proven with five notebooks? And in mathematics, when proof is finished, a sign indicating ‘end of proof’ is attached. It’s like putting a period in a sentence. But since there is no sign of the end of the proof here, it is certain that the proof is not over.”
Sejeong nodded, and Segi continued speaking slowly.
“By the way, can I take this notebook with me?”
“why?”
“Next week there will be a Newton and Leibniz feature. So, I have an interview with a professor of mathematics at Hankuk University, and I want to show that professor.”
“Well, is there even a need for that? I was just curious what this was, so I asked the senior… .”
“Honestly, it seems to me that the contents of this notebook only prove the Riemann hypothesis, but I do not know if I have actually tried to prove it properly. But if this is an attempt to prove it properly… Especially if a first grader in elementary school tried this kind of proof… .”
Segi continued with a meaningful smile.
“This is a huge scoop. Just imagine.”
“… ?”
“How about ＜The Genius of the Century, and Mr. Kim Seon-Jeong who found him>?”
In the moment, Seonjang remembered the face of Jeong-ho, who eagerly asked to return the notebook during class.
“Segi-senpai, I can’t give you the notebook because it’s my student. I need to get the consent of the student’s parents before posting such an article. Please return that notebook.”
Segi frowned at the words of the selection.
“No, I can’t. This is the people’s right to know. If there is such a great genius in our country, it is a right that our people should know.”
“Where is that nonsensical coercion? Please return the notebook!”
“It’s nonsense! This is the public’s right to know. And it is a sacred duty for me as a journalist to make this known.”
In this way, an argument between the two continued, and in the end, Sejeong was able to return the notebook to Segi on the condition that Segi copied a part of the notebook from a nearby copy shop.
* * *
I couldn’t sleep.
The fact that the notebook was taken away by the teacher kept bothering me.
The beginning of the problem was arithmetic time.
The teacher drew a circle on the blackboard, and suddenly a formula for calculating the circumference came to my mind.
Euler’s proposal for an infinite series of prime numbers.
And the thoughts in my head led to the Riemann hypothesis.
To put it simply, the Riemann hypothesis is a hypothesis created about 150 years ago by a German mathematician named Bernhard Riemann to predict the regularity of prime numbers.
For reference, a prime number is not a prime number when 0.001 is made.
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, … A number that is divisible only by 1 and itself.
The Riemann hypothesis was initially regarded as a problem in the realm of pure mathematics.
However, with the development of modern physics, it was discovered that the formula derived from the Riemann hypothesis perfectly matches the formula expressing the energy level gap of an atomic nucleus in quantum mechanics, and this has spread the word that the Riemann hypothesis contains the secret of the universe.
In my past life, I also challenged the Riemann hypothesis.
It was a challenge that I started with my major, topological mathematics, rather than the existing method of number theory, but it failed without any significant results.
To be honest… Rather than saying that I failed, it would be more appropriate to say I gave up.
Contrary to the Poincaré conjecture, which seemed likely to be solved if you challenged it for the rest of your life, the Riemann hypothesis was because the more you studied, the more you felt a huge wall that you couldn’t even fathom.
In this way, the thoughts in my head caught on to the tail, and in an empty notebook, I wrote down the proof of the Riemann hypothesis, which I challenged in the past, one by one.
Suddenly, my notebook was filled with formulas, and I felt the joy of being a mathematician of my past life without realizing it, and I fell into a trance.
He wrote down the formula in his notebook as if he was really excited.
How much time has passed?
In an instant, I realized that the children around me were glancing at me.
Oops!
And I heard Hyung-seok’s voice calling out to the teacher.
I lay in bed and thought.
Even if you regret it now, it is already too late.
But you have to get the notebook back from the teacher.
What should I say to the teacher when I go to school tomorrow?
I’m a genius, but shall I be honest and say I hate being famous?
I shook my head.
Based on my past life experiences, there are only two people I can trust in this world.
Mother and Youngmi.
Dad wouldn’t be of much help either.
In my past life, my father strongly pushed my gifted education.
And the same is true in this life.
My father still regrets that I failed the genius verification conducted at the broadcasting station two years ago.
And my father is vaguely aware that I have a special ability.
If the notebook falls into the father’s hands, everything will go back to the beginning.
What should I do?
Living normally…
This isn’t easy.