120: Chapter 120 Spread

The email from Princeton spread with lightning speed through the core circles of the world's top mathematicians.

Paris, École Normale Supérieure.

Professor Elena Popova had just finished a long, tedious departmental meeting and returned to her office, exhausted.

On her computer screen, the email from Wells with three exclamation marks in the subject line stood out, looking particularly jarring.

She frowned as she clicked it open, scanning the content quickly, her gaze locking onto the keywords: "arXiv," "handwritten photos," "Navier-Stokes Equation," and "rigor, depth, and groundbreaking nature are unquestionable."

"Albert... what earth-shattering crank discovery have you found this time?"

She muttered to herself, carrying a hint of that characteristic French skepticism.

But the phrasing of Wells' final sentence, "highly likely to be a proof," made her open the arXiv link regardless.

The sight of the scrawled manuscript photos made her knit her brows even tighter.

"Mon Dieu..."

She murmured.

As a world-class authority on the regularity theory of partial differential equations, she forced herself to ignore the terrible presentation and focused her attention on the surging mathematical symbols.

At first, it was a cautious scrutiny, then a stunned pause, followed by faster and faster page-turning.

The air in the office seemed to have frozen.

An hour passed. Professor Popova abruptly took off her glasses, rubbed her sore eyes, and took a deep breath.

She didn't write a long commentary like Wells; instead, she picked up the internal phone on her desk, her speech as fast as bullets.

"Jean-Pierre, Christopher, come to my office immediately! Bring your notebooks and coffee. Now! Immediately! Right now! We... might be witnessing history!"

New York, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Professor Michael Strange was deep in thought, facing a whiteboard covered in dense estimates related to the Navier-Stokes Equation.

His assistant carefully placed a printout of Wells' email by his side.

Strange glanced at the subject line and waved his hand impatiently.

"Is Albert fishing for gold on arXiv again? Just leave it there."

It wasn't until evening that he clicked the link, feeling like he was just killing time.

He scoffed at the crudeness of the photos.

However, after reading just a few pages of the core argument, the casual expression on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an unprecedented gravity.

He stood up with a "whoosh," strode to the whiteboard, roughly wiped away what he had spent half the day writing, and then began to frantically calculate, derive, and verify, comparing it against the key steps in the manuscript photos.

The night grew deeper, but the office of this top professor at the Courant Institute remained brightly lit.

Strange would occasionally ponder in deep concentration, then write furiously, then irritably mess up his hair, and then let out a low murmur of admiration at some ingenious construction.

Finally, he stopped writing. He looked at the series of derivations on the whiteboard that he had verified as correct, then looked at the blurry photos on the screen. After a long silence, he picked up his phone and dialed an encrypted private number, his voice hoarse and serious.

"Notify all core members of the Turbulence Project, regardless of global time zones, that there will be a highest-priority video conference in two hours. Subject: Emergency evaluation of arXiv:2310.xxxxx. Repeat, highest priority."

University of Cambridge, Department of Mathematics.

Professor Rajiv Mehta was enjoying a traditional English afternoon tea when he received the email.

He finished reading it slowly and deliberately, then elegantly wiped the corners of his mouth.

Unlike the eagerness of Wells or the gravity of Strange, a smile of keen interest appeared on Mehta's face.

"Chen Youhua... an interesting name, an interesting method."

He calmly logged into arXiv, downloaded the images, and then unhurriedly printed them out—a thick stack.

He brewed a fresh pot of tea, put on his reading glasses, and began to study it carefully, page by page, line by line, and even symbol by symbol, as if appraising an antique.

He was very slow, stopping from time to time to write dense notes, questions, and possible alternative paths in the margins of the printout with a very fine pen.

This process lasted for an entire day and night.

When the morning light shone into his study again, the manuscript in front of Mehta was so covered in his notes that its original appearance was barely recognizable.

He put down his pen, let out a long sigh, and his eyes flashed with shock.

He did not rush to contact anyone. Instead, he spread out new paper and began to try to verify several key points, using Chen's proof as the core framework, attempting to find its weakest link.

He would test this gift that had fallen from the sky in the most rigorous way possible.

...

Rabbit Country, ZJ.

Academician Zheng's private line suddenly rang in the dead of night.

On the other end of the line was the head of the department responsible for international academic intelligence analysis, their voice filled with irrepressible excitement and a hint of disbelief.

"Old Zheng, something big has happened! The international mathematics community, especially the top circles in fluid mechanics and PDE, has exploded!"

"The source is a preprint on arXiv signed by Chen Youhua, claiming to have proven the existence and smoothness of the Navier-Stokes Equation!"

Academician Zheng's heart skipped a beat: "Youhua?!"

"Yes! It's Comrade Chen Youhua!"

"He... he actually posted photos of the manuscript directly on arXiv!"

"Now, Wells from Princeton, Popova from École Normale Supérieure, Strange from Courant, Mehta from Cambridge... these titans of the field have all stepped in!"

"Wells gave it a very high evaluation, Strange is said to have convened an emergency global meeting, Popova called it potentially witnessing history in an internal meeting, and Mehta is verifying it through the night!"

The hand holding the phone trembled slightly.

He didn't know what Chen Youhua was doing, but he knew all too well the weight of the Navier-Stokes Equation.

But he never expected that this child would use such... such a crude method to throw this shining jewel of the mathematics world directly into the heart of the international academic community!

"Old Zheng, the situation is very delicate right now."

"The popularity of this preprint is growing exponentially, and the world's top mathematics teams are frantically verifying it."

"We... how should we respond? Do we need to use official channels..."

Academician Zheng took a deep breath, forcing down his turbulent emotions, his voice returning to its usual calmness and authority.

"No! Do not take any official action! Remember, we know nothing about this!"

"This is a purely academic act by Comrade Chen Youhua in his personal capacity."

"Truth knows no borders, and the verification of academic achievements has its own international rules."

"We will wait and see, closely monitoring all developments, but we will absolutely not interfere in the normal review process of the academic community!"

He paused, his tone carrying a hint of unquestionable resolve.

"In addition, immediately activate the highest level of information shielding and security protocols."

"Comrade Youhua's core information, especially information related to Qiming and Spark Base, must be strictly guarded!"

"Never let international attention shift from this mathematical paper to places it shouldn't go!"

"Before the academic results are recognized, he must be a pure, mysterious, genius mathematician from the East named Chen Youhua, and he can only be this identity!"

"Understood!" The voice on the other end was decisive.

Putting down the phone, Academician Zheng looked toward Z University, his heart surging.

At this moment, in every corner of the globe, countless top mathematical minds were engaged in a silent yet extremely intense debate, surrounding those hundreds of pages of scrawled manuscript from the Z University laboratory.

And at the center of this storm, the instigator...

Academician Zheng picked up the internal phone and dialed Chen Youhua's number.

The call connected, and in the background, there was a faint ticking sound of instruments.

"Youhua,"

Academician Zheng's voice was full of helplessness.

"The thing you threw out has now stirred up a monstrous wave."

There was a silence of a few seconds on the other end, then Chen Youhua's voice came through, as calm as ever.

"Oh? Is that so? Old Zheng, no matter how big the waves are, don't the experiments that need to be done still have to be done?"

"I'm watching the monkey training here, and the signal stability still needs to be adjusted..."

Academician Zheng: "..."