They’re all reborn, what’s wrong with being a little more almighty?

Chapter 230 Operation of the Fields Medal
There was no trouble in publishing "The Big Short". Before Zhang Wei could even open his mouth, Thomas offered him the maximum royalty of 15%.

Zhang Wei is now a best-selling author and is definitely worth the entire price.

What's more, Amazon is still waiting for the second part of Zhang Wei's "The Thirst Games", so it must provide good support to Zhang Wei at this time.

As for whether "The Big Short" can sell well, Thomas does not have high hopes.

This type of financial novel has a relatively limited audience and a certain threshold for reading. It is unlike youth novels, which have a large audience and a relatively low threshold for reading, and can be read by people of all ages.

In fact, the content of the novel "The Big Short" is not very exciting. The amazing thing about this book is that it reveals the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis and the greed of Wall Street.

If there had been no subprime mortgage crisis, "The Big Short" might have been liked by many specific groups, but it would definitely not dominate various book sales lists.

So this book actually took advantage of the popularity of the subprime mortgage crisis. When the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, the US financial system almost collapsed, and the global economy was also dragged down. At this time, a novel that introduced the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis would naturally attract widespread attention. Once it was released, it attracted a large number of readers, and became popular through word of mouth.

Zhang Wei published "The Big Short" in advance, but he didn't expect the book to become popular immediately.

The first domino to fall in the subprime mortgage crisis was in February 2007, when New Century Financial collapsed in the United States. After several months of volatility, in the second half of 2007, the problems of Bear Stearns also surfaced. At this time, the Federal Reserve also began some small-scale rescue efforts, but to no avail.

In March 2008, the Bear Stearns moment arrived, officially kicking off the subprime mortgage crisis. This was followed by a large number of bad debts at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. real estate market began to collapse, and finally in September, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The entire U.S. financial market was on the verge of collapse, pushing the subprime mortgage crisis to its peak.

By that time, all the predictions in "The Big Short" will come true, and the book will surely be a big seller.

……

After resolving the issue of publishing "The Big Short", Zhang Wei went to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to visit President Barlow.

Zhang Wei had met President Barlow at a gathering at the Santa Fe Institute before. President Barlow also knew that this young man was not only a mathematician who discovered five Mersenne primes, but also a very powerful physicist and biologist in the industry.

Therefore, when Zhang Wei came to visit, President Barlow did not dare to neglect him and personally and warmly received Zhang Wei.

President Barlow took out an album containing all the past photos of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Using these photos, President Barlow introduced the development history of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to Zhang Wei.

After doing some superficial work, Zhang Wei finally told them the purpose of his visit.

"President Barlow, I came here this time to talk to you about the Meisen prime number." Zhang Wei said.

When President Barlow heard the word "Merson prime", he was shocked. He subconsciously calculated how much money was left in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's account.

"It's almost the end of the year, and this year's budget has been almost spent. Next year's funds have not yet arrived. If Zhang Wei takes out a Mersenne prime number to ask me for a bonus, then our operating funds for this month will be spent."

Thinking of this, President Barlow asked with a guilty look on his face: "Mr. Zhang, have you discovered a new Mersenne prime number?"

"Yes!" Zhang Wei nodded, and then said, "And there's more than one! There are two!"

President Barlow seemed even more nervous. If they gave out a prize of one Mersenne prime number, the Electronic Frontier Foundation would be on the verge of bankruptcy. If they gave out two prizes, the Electronic Frontier Foundation would definitely become a deadbeat.

Zhang Wei quietly observed President Barlow's expression, and then said, "Before I came here, I didn't know much about the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I only knew that you were a legal organization related to intellectual property.

But just now after your introduction, I learned that you are a non-profit organization that has been committed to protecting intellectual property rights worldwide over the years and has provided legal assistance and defense to many individuals and new technologies.

I think what you are doing is very meaningful, and I admire your behavior. In order to express my admiration and respect for you, I decided to donate the Mersenne prime numbers I discovered to you free of charge. "

"Free donation?" President Barlow took a deep breath. Does this mean he doesn't want the bonus anymore?
This is a good thing! The Electronic Frontier Foundation no longer has to eat dirt!
More importantly, every new Mersenne prime number will bring newer and more complex encryption modes to the computer encryption system. If you can get a new Mersenne prime number in advance, it means that you can use more complex algorithms in the new encryption system, which will be more difficult for hackers to break.

What does the Electronic Frontier Foundation do? It was originally a hacker organization. A group of hackers wanted to protect their rights, so they formed this organization and started a legal battle with the FBI. Later, it gradually evolved into an intellectual property organization.

Providing cybersecurity services to large companies is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's main source of income.

With the new Mersenne primes, the Electronic Frontier Foundation can provide better network security services, so Mersenne primes are extremely important to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, so they are willing to pay money to induce the world to search for new Mersenne primes.

Zhang Wei is willing to donate the new Mersenne prime to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is a generous gift.

But there is no free lunch in the world, and free things are often the most expensive.

President Barlow immediately asked, "Mr. Zhang, how can we at the Electronic Frontier Foundation help you?"

“To be honest, I do have something that I need the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s help with. Next year will be the Fields Medal selection, and I hope the Electronic Frontier Foundation can nominate me as a candidate for the Fields Medal,” Zhang Wei said.

The Fields Medal is the highest international award in mathematics and is also known as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

This award is given every four years to a maximum of four people each time, and the winners must be under the age of 40.

The sponsor of the Fields Medal is the International Mathematical Union. This award was advocated by Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, so it is called the Fields Medal.

In 1924, the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Toronto. After the meeting, there was a large amount of funds surplus, so Fields proposed to use the funds surplus as a fund to establish a mathematics award. After the award was established, Fields made a will and donated his property to the prize fund.

Since the Fields Medal Fund uses Canadian currency and is operated and managed in Canada, the prize money is also paid in Canadian dollars.

The prize money for the Fields Medal is not much, only 15,000 Canadian dollars, which is about 12,000 US dollars according to the exchange rate at the time, and there is also a gold medal. This reward is far less than the Nobel Prize.

Mathematicians are not short of money, and they don't care about this little money. When the awards are presented, most of the winning mathematicians will directly express that they will donate the prize money.

But this honor is priceless. Winning the Nobel Prize in Mathematics is the dream of countless mathematicians.

It’s just that the restriction of being under 40 years old has caused many mathematicians to miss the Fields Medal, which has also greatly increased the value of the Fields Medal.

This requirement also indirectly shows that mathematics actually depends a lot on talent.

To become a top mathematician, you don't need to accumulate knowledge over time or slowly build up your talent. As long as you max out your talent points, you can achieve world-class results before the age of forty.

But if you don’t have enough talent, then I’m sorry, the upper limit of what you can achieve in your lifetime is just a project that others can complete with a little time as graduate students.

There are often news reports in the media about amateur mathematicians who have studied mathematics for decades and have developed amazing theories. Some even claim to be able to prove the Goldbach conjecture.

People who don’t understand mathematics will think that this is a case of experts being among the common people, and that talent is being wasted. But people who really understand mathematics will only see this as a joke.

Mathematics is the scientific field that is least likely to bury talents, because the so-called mathematical research does not rely on research, but on talent. Mathematical talent is like a villa or a supercar. If you are born with it, you will have it in this life. If you are not born with it, then you will probably never have it in this life.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation itself is a North American organization, and Canada is considered their home base. They have a certain influence on the fund management of the Fields Medal, so it is not difficult for them to recommend a candidate for Fields Medal nomination.

Being nominated for a Fields Medal is indeed a piece of cake for President Barlow, and Zhang Wei is also qualified for the nomination based on the five Mersenne primes he discovered.

President Barlow felt that it was worthwhile to exchange the nomination for the Fields Medal for a Mersenne prime number.

But as an American, President Barlow's eyes were full of interest exchanges, so he asked, "Mr. Zhang, in addition to being nominated, don't you want to win the award?"

"Of course I do!" Zhang Wei nodded. "But every four years there are so many geniuses competing for the Fields Medal. I'm afraid it won't be my turn to win it!"

"Mr. Zhang, if you can find an advanced method to calculate Mersenne primes, I think you will definitely win the Fields Medal!" President Barlow said.

Zhang Wei smiled slightly, and he instantly understood President Barlow's intention.

Before this, it took several years for a Mersenne prime to appear. Even in the computer age, after the GIMPS project was launched, people around the world who were interested in looking for Mersenne primes came to look for them, but it still took a year to find a Mersenne prime.

But Zhang Wei was able to come up with five Mersenne primes in a short period of time. This completely unreasonable behavior was equivalent to telling the world that he had a new method to calculate Mersenne primes.

However, Zhang Wei never admitted it and just said that he was lucky.

Now President Barlow’s subtext is to let Zhang Wei make this method public.

"As the saying goes, it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. You are eyeing my fishing boat! But my fishing boat is a devil. You can't take it away even if you want to!"

After a moment's silence, Zhang Wei smiled and said, "I also want to find a new method to calculate Mersenne primes, but I can't find it!"

"That's such a pity! It looks like Mr. Zhang will miss this year's Fields Medal!" President Barlow smiled coldly.

"I don't think so. After all, discovering new Mersenne primes is still very valuable. Last year I discovered five Mersenne primes. If I discover a few more this year, I wonder if I will have a chance to win the award!" Zhang Wei said.

President Barlow calculated in his mind that there were five last year and two this time, a total of seven. This means there is a real chance to win a Fields Medal.

However, President Barlow said coldly: "Mr. Zhang, you don't know that the competition for the Fields Medal next year will be much more intense than in previous years!

As far as I know, there are several Russian scientists who have made outstanding contributions in geometry in the past four years, and they are all favorites to win the award.

In addition, there is a young Chinese scientist in Australia who seems to have just turned 30 years old. He also has unique insights into harmonic analysis and heap number theory. He is very likely to become one of the winners.

In the past two years, there have been breakthroughs in the research of Langlands program, the planar Ising model, the Boltzmann equation, the Riemann curve, etc.

Just discovering five, no, seven Mersenne primes, is not competitive enough in the face of these research results!"

"Seven are not enough. How about I find a few more Mersenne primes?" Zhang Wei laughed and continued, "It doesn't matter if I find a few more. I'm lucky anyway, so it shouldn't take much time."

"Can you find more Mersenne primes?" President Barlow was surprised and asked, "How many more can you find?"

"How many do you want?" Zhang Wei asked without hesitation.

"How many more do I want?" President Barlow grinned slightly. This is a Mersenne prime number, not a McDonald's hamburger. Can I get as many as I want?

But the next second, President Barlow suddenly realized the meaning of Zhang Wei's words.

How many do you want? I can find as many as you want!

Zhang Wei continued, "Last year, I found five Mersenne primes. How about I find five more this year? If ten Mersenne primes are not enough to win a Fields Medal, I will try to find five a year at worst.

Anyway, I am only 20 years old this year, and I still have 20 years to go before I turn 40. If I find more Mersenne primes, I should be awarded the Fields Medal!

By the way, I remember the prize for a Mersenne prime number with over 100 million digits was about 150,000 or 200,000 US dollars?"

The last sentence was already a clear threat.

If Zhang Wei really came up with five Mersenne prime numbers in a year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation would go bankrupt just to pay the prize money.

After feeling threatened, President Barlow's eyes suddenly became sharp, and murderous aura filled his entire body.

However, Zhang Wei said slowly: "President Barlow, if I can find five more Mersenne primes, I will definitely donate them to your Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Of course, it would be even better if I could win a Fields Medal while donating!”

Zhang Wei's subtext is, I will donate five Mersenne primes to you, and you help me get the Fields Medal.

President Barlow weighed the options in his mind.

If Zhang Wei really discovered ten Mersenne primes, he would indeed be qualified for the Fields Medal.

With the qualifications and the operation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the chances of winning are very high.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation can get five Mersenne primes first, and the time difference of these five Mersenne primes can bring a lot of profits.

All in all, this deal is not a loss, as both parties get what they need.

Considering that Zhang Wei is not only a mathematician, but also a well-known physicist and biologist, his future is limitless. Being able to make friends with such a scientist is also a kind of network resource for me.

In this respect, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has made money.

After realizing this, President Barlow immediately smiled.

"Mr. Zhang, don't worry. We at the Electronic Frontier Foundation will definitely work hard to help you run it."

Zhang Wei immediately extended his right hand, indicating that the deal was done, and said, "President Barro, I look forward to your good news!"

(End of this chapter)