Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 91 I know Russian! (1010)

"Sir Robert Black, long time no see. It's a shame I don't have time to give lectures to Hong Kong students at Hong Kong University this year."

In the drizzle of London, Lin Ran stood under a black umbrella and said to Robert Black with regret.

"This is a pity for Hong Kong," said Robert Black, "but the students in London are fortunate to be able to hear you teach in person."

"Hello, Inspector Thomas." After shaking hands with Black, he turned to Thomas.

Lin Ran speculated that before he took office as the White House Special Assistant for Space Affairs, Chen Jingrun was not brought out as a witness, probably because of the help of Thomas.

So he was also friendly to Thomas.

What Lin Ran did at NASA was reported in great detail by the outside world.

Every now and then, someone from NASA would come out and tell the media that Lin Ran had said something outrageous again.

Hong Kong newspapers even like to add fuel to the fire and write stories like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Lin Ran was written as a Zhuge Liang-like character.

How he went from being a special assistant for space affairs to becoming the shadow director of NASA was a matter of one thing: his own abilities, and his methods of struggle were another.

Even a veteran like Thomas, who has worked in Special Branch for many years, can roughly understand Lin Ran's methods even in the fog.

The smile squeezed the fat on Thomas's face together: "Sir Lin, England welcomes you."

Thomas, who was standing next to Robert Black, was secretly glad that he had the foresight to not offend this newly-crowned knight, the most powerful Chinese in the world, when he was in Hong Kong last year.

If I offend someone, I don’t know where I’ll be banished to and sit on the bench for the rest of my life.

Hong Kong is already far away enough. If they throw him to the Indian High Commission, he will be helpless.

The award ceremony was held at Buckingham Palace. Fine raindrops fell at Buckingham Palace. The gardener who was wiping the statue of Queen Victoria suddenly stopped and looked back. He heard the sound of the black car of the Oriental scientist rolling over the wet and slippery stone slabs.

Lin Ran deliberately wore a gray Zhongshan suit instead of the suit John Morgan gave him.

In addition to the Governor of Hong Kong, Robert Black, also present were local celebrities in London and representatives of wealthy families who flew from Hong Kong to witness Lin Ran's awarding of the medal.

Lin Ran thought to himself that my knighthood was probably much more valuable than those Justices of the Peace in Hong Kong.

Li Fook-shu, chairman of the Bank of East Asia, whispered in Cantonese to the eldest son of the Ho Tung family standing behind him: "Look at his armor, it's even sharper than the cast iron gears of the Victoria Peak Cable Car."

(See him sitting there like he's in armor, even more so than the cast iron gears of the Victoria Peak Cable Car)
Queen Elizabeth, wearing the crown of George IV's coronation, awards Lin Ran an award with a sword in her hand

"In the name of Saint Michael and Saint George," Queen Elizabeth added softly as she pinned the KBE star on Lin Ran's left chest:
"Before his death, Governor Young instructed that this medal be found a Chinese owner."

After the awarding ceremony, at the celebratory dinner, Li Fushu approached Lin Ran and said, "Sir Lin, congratulations."

Lin Ran smiled and clinked glasses with him: "Thank you for coming all the way from Hong Kong."

Li Fushu felt very emotional. He had known for a long time that the young man in front of him was no ordinary person, but he did not expect that he could run so fast.

He originally thought that the other party would become famous in the mathematics world and become a master of mathematics.

Unexpectedly, Lin Ran successfully made a name for himself in American politics in just one year and became an indispensable and powerful figure in NASA.

Whether it was a lifetime knighthood in England or a special assistant for space affairs in the United States, in Li Fushu's eyes, they were both far beyond his daughter's reach. If it was just a mathematical master, then there was still a possibility, but with the other party's current status, trying to reach out would only harm his daughter.

"It's not hard. You are half Hong Konger. It is our honor to send representatives from Hong Kong to attend your awarding ceremony," said Li Fushu.

Lin Ran thought to himself, Hong Kong is one of the few symbols of England's former British Empire. You are not representing Hong Kong, you are representing the Chinese.

The next day, mathematicians from all over England gathered at the London School of Mathematics, filling the hall.

Hello everyone, it’s a great honor to be here in London to share with you a story about mathematics, patience, and discovery. Today I want to talk about Fermat’s Last Theorem, a puzzle that has puzzled mathematicians for three and a half centuries, and how I was fortunate enough to be the one who solved it.

Pierre de Fermat, a 17th-century French mathematician, proposed this conjecture around 1637, that for any integer nnn greater than 2, the equation an+bn=cn a^n + b^n = c^n an+bn=cn has no positive integer solutions a, b, ca, b, ca, b, c.

He claimed to have a wonderful proof, but was unable to write it down because the margin was too small. This is also the most famous unsolved mystery in the history of mathematics.

This theorem has puzzled mathematicians for more than 350 years in history and has attracted countless attempts, including some progress by Euler, Cauchy, Lamé and others.

The first time I heard of this theorem was when I read a book in the Göttingen library the year I entered Göttingen to study.

The book described Fermat's Last Theorem, a simple proposition that no one had been able to prove. I was fascinated. I thought, maybe one day, I could find the answer.

At that moment, math to me was no longer just numbers, it was an adventure.

I knew that proving Fermat's Last Theorem using traditional methods was nearly impossible—we needed new tools. Fortunately, mathematicians had already paved the way.

The key clue came from Japanese mathematicians Yutaka Taniyama and Goro Shimura. They proposed a bold conjecture: every elliptic curve represents a special kind of algebraic curve, which in turn corresponds to a mathematical object called a modular form. This became known as the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture.

My intuition told me that if the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture held, then Fermat's Last Theorem also held. In other words, if I could prove a subset of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, Fermat's puzzle would be solved. This became my starting point.

My strategy was this: suppose Fermat's Last Theorem is false, and there exists a set of numbers a, b, c, n a, b, c, n a^n + b^n = c^n such that an+bn=cn. Using this set of numbers, I could construct an elliptic curve—later known as a Frey curve. Then, I would prove that this curve cannot be modular. This is a contradiction, so conversely, Fermat's Last Theorem must be true.

After the lecture, Lin Ran returned to the room prepared for him by the University of London and took a short rest, waiting for the students to leave before having an academic exchange with the mathematicians.

The door suddenly opened and an unremarkable old man walked in.

Lin Ran didn't look up. "What's the matter?"

Then he felt a little strange, because if it was someone from the University of London, he would definitely knock on the door first, but this person came in without even knocking.

Lin Ran looked up and asked, "Who are you?"

"Hello, Randolph, my name is Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.

Well, you may not have heard of this name. I have another nickname in America, Chief Designer. ” The old man laughed.

Lin Ran was furious. He knew London was a sieve, but it couldn't be sieved to this extent.

Are the people from IIA and NOPS who are in charge of security just there to do nothing to let Korolev enter his lounge so openly?
NOPS, NASA Office of Protective Services, NASA Office of Safety and Protective Services.

"Hello." Lin Ran said in Russian, If you play tricks, I will play tricks too.

You didn’t expect that I can speak Russian.

(End of this chapter)