Great Country Academician

In mathematics, and indeed in most of science, it is still true that the majority of top prize winners are almost exclusively men.

However, mathematics is more rigorous in this respect than other fields.

Several world-class top prizes in mathematics, such as Fields Medal, Albert Prize, Wolf Prize, Crawford Prize, Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences, Mathematics Breakthrough Prize, etc., the only one women get is Phil hereby award.

Several other items have not been awarded to women so far.

This may have something to do with the fact that the mathematics community is particularly keen on "meritocracy" and wants to avoid the "stigma" associated with measures such as quotas.

Of course, it's not just math.

Many prestigious scientific awards also face this problem.

Some award organizers are trying to increase the diversity of nominees and decision-making committees. But it's hard to change that in a consensus-oriented group that's not used to rapid change.

In mathematics in particular, progress is frustratingly slow.

Professor Mariam Mirzakhani from Iran is the only woman who has won the Fields Medal so far.

In 2014, three years ago, she won the Fields Medal for her contribution to the study of surface symmetry. In one fell swoop, it broke the embarrassing situation that there were no women in the Fields Awards.

But today, the top female mathematician passed away forever due to breast cancer.

Hearing this news, Xu Chuan froze for a moment.

A Fields Medal winner died, and he was the only female winner. Why didn't he have any impression of this incident?

But immediately, he reacted, shook his head slightly and sighed.

He made a mistake. It is now 2017. If he hadn’t been reborn, he would still be a sophomore at Nantah University.

At that time, he didn't have much contact with mathematics at all. When major events happened in the mathematics world, no one in the physics department discussed them at all.

Later, when he went to Princeton to study with Witten and began to get in touch with mathematics in depth, this Professor Mariam Mirzakhani had passed away for several years, and no one mentioned it.

But speaking of it, this Professor Mariam Mirzakhani has a little 'relationship' with him.

At that time, he had just entered Princeton, and there was a girl named Pashia Miris who seemed to have studied under Professor Mariam Mirzakhani.

At that time, she also recruited him for her former mentor, and wanted to invite him to study at Stanford University, but he refused directly.

"That's really wrong."

Xu Chuan shook his head and sighed slightly inwardly.

If he had an impression of this incident, he would have remembered it when he was recruited.

Afterwards, he will definitely vaguely mention this to Professor Mirzakhani, and ask this Professor Mariam Mirzakhani to check his body.

Although there is no guarantee of a 100% cure for breast cancer, the current clinical cure rate is still very high. If patients are diagnosed and treated early, they can achieve better therapeutic effects.

What a pity for such a talented mathematician.

It would be great if he could step into the world of mathematics in his previous life. If he learned the reason and news of Professor Mirzakhani's death earlier, he might be able to save a great mathematician in this life.

However, this incident also reminded Xu Chuan. He tried his best to recall whether any relatives and friends in his memory would suffer from diseases in the future.

Thinking about it this time, it really reminded him of another thing.

In his previous life, when he was in his thirties, he once received a call from his parents, saying that his uncle seemed to have died of lung cancer, and asked him if he could come back.

It's just that he was already trapped in the United States at that time, and he couldn't rush home at all.

Apart from this, he has never heard of other things in this regard.

"Should be in time."

Thinking about it, Xu Chuan let go of the worries in his heart a bit: "In the future, let parents, relatives and friends go for physical examinations every year. It's nothing to spend a little money. The most important thing is to ensure good health."

The death of Professor Mariam Mirzakhani is a big deal for the mathematics community.

After all, she was the first female Fields Medal winner in history. Her death is a heavy mourning for the mathematics community.

Xu Chuan followed her mentor Professor Deligne to attend her funeral and expressed his respect.

Professor Mirzakhani, who sank in the ice coffin, had short black hair. Except for a slightly pale face, the whole person seemed to be asleep.

After walking around the ice coffin, Xu Chuan stepped back, looked at the blue sky in the distance, and sighed in his heart.

A 40-year-old Fields Medal winner, although she has passed the golden age of her academic career, she is only halfway through her life, and there is still a long way to go before she can bloom her brilliance.

But now, less than a small square meter, everything about her will be sealed.

This made Xu Chuan think of himself in his previous life, who was almost the same age and had the same future, but fortunately, he could do it all over again.

After dropping off Professor Mirzakhani, when Xu Chuan was about to leave, a young girl found him.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Xu Chuan?"

"It's me, may I ask who you are?"

Xu Chuan nodded, and looked at the girl who stopped him with some doubts.

"Hello, Mr. Xu Chuan, my name is Masefield Gwen, and I am a student of Professor Mariam Mirzakhani."

Like Professor Mirzakhani, some heroic girls with short hair stretched out their hands towards Xu Chuan.

"Hello, Miss Gwen, please forgive me." Xu Chuan stretched out his hand and shook it lightly, and then said, "What can I do for you?"

"Thank you very much for attending the teacher's funeral. Here is a letter that the teacher asked me to give to you." Masefield Gwen handed over a letter that was not too thick and handed it to Xu Chuan.

Xu Chuan was very surprised, looked at Masefield Gwen and asked suspiciously: "Are you sure it's for me?"

Masefield Gwen nodded and said, "If there is no one named Xu Chuan who proves Weyl-Berry's conjecture, it would be you."

Xu Chuan held the letter, feeling a little confused for a moment.

He had no recollection of his relationship with Professor Mariam Mirzakhani.

The two even only met once, during the exchange meeting in Princeton, and they didn't even have a few words to chat. Why did Professor Mirzakhani leave a letter for him?

But is this the time to study this? After confirming that the other party did not give it to the wrong person, Xu Chuan put the letter in his hand and thanked him: "I'm sorry."

"This is my job. I'm leaving first. The teacher left. I still have a lot of things to deal with." Masefield Gwen bent slightly, then turned and left.

As for Xu Chuan, he returned to the hotel with the letter and doubts.

Opening the letter curiously, there are two documents inside.

The most surface is a letter, written on standard letter paper, only two thin sheets, and the lower stack, Xu Chuan glanced at it, seems to be manuscript paper?

Looking back at Xinye, Xu Chuan looked.

"Hello, Xu."

"I'm glad you received this letter, but I should be dead when you see this letter."

"It was a pity that I didn't witness your report in person at the exchange meeting in Princeton last year, but after watching the video of your report, I benefited a lot."

"The proof of the weakened form of the Weyl-Berry conjecture and your presentation of the Weyl-Berry conjecture on the Princeton stage are excellent"

"..., to make a long story short, the reason why I left you this letter is that in your papers and reports, I saw some brand new methods and knowledge, recorded them, and made a part of the arrangement, just In the letters handed to you. I hope they can bring you some help."

"Unfortunately, when I was doing these arrangements, I found out that I had advanced breast cancer, and I didn't have much time, otherwise I could have done it better."

"I heard that you later applied the Xu-Weyl-Berry theorem to the field of astronomy. Unfortunately, I am undergoing chemotherapy, and I don't have much energy to read those papers."

"But I believe"

"."

"Forget it, let's stop here. If you keep nagging, I'm afraid you'll really become an old woman. I hope you don't mind. I hope those things on the manuscript paper can bring you some help."

[Mariam Mirzakhani. 】

After reading the letter left by Professor Mariam Mirzakhani, Xu Chuan sat there without moving for a long time.

After a long time, he finally raised his head and let out a long breath of stale air in his chest.

It's too late to say anything now, I just hope that he can get enough knowledge from the manuscript paper left by Professor Mirzakhani to fulfill her last wish and hope.

Folding the letter carefully, Xu Chuan picked up the manuscript paper and read it carefully.

The manuscript left behind by a Fields Medal winner before her death contains unfinished work during her lifetime, and deserves to be treated with caution by anyone.

Starting from the first page, Xu Chuan sat in the hotel room for more than five hours. It was not until late at night that he completely read the dozens of pages of manuscript paper.

After standing up and moving his body, he let out a long sigh of relief and sat down again.

These manuscripts are worthy of being left by a Fields Medal winner.

The knowledge in it spans from Teich-Miller theory, hyperbolic geometry to ergodic theory and symplectic geometry, to counting functions and the topological non-triviality of Berry phase, and the research on Berry curvature. It spans several fields of mathematics.

Moreover, the research in each field of mathematics is quite profound, and basically belongs to the most cutting-edge knowledge in the current field.

Even he, after reading it only once in a short period of time, dare not say that he fully understood all the knowledge points.

However, Xu Chuan has already figured out the general situation.

The route taken by Professor Mirzakhani is somewhat similar to the mathematics he had talked with Professor Atul Avila before.

Using domain expansion, functions are transformed into subgroups and associated with intermediate domains and ensembles, and then generalized.

However, what he talked with Professor Arthur Avila was to push him to some issues of the Langlands program, such as some conjectures derived from the self-defense L function.

And this professor Mirzakhani pushed it to the cohomology class of algebraic closed chain, and tried to use this method to penetrate into algebraic geometry.

This may be related to Professor Mirzakhani's previous research field. After all, her research field was in algebraic geometry.

It has to be said that this is a rather ingenious way of thinking.

The only female Fields Medal winner in history has richer insights and inspirations in mathematics than the world knows.

"Such a mathematical genius. Sigh~"

In front of the desk, Xu Chuan sighed, and carefully put away the paper documents on the desk.

Then get up and go to bed.

He will return to Princeton tomorrow, and he will study these things carefully.

Seeing him off, Xu Chuan followed Deligne back to Princeton.

But after he came back, he asked Professor Deligne for a week off, not to go out to play, but to devote himself to sorting out the manuscript papers that Professor Mirzakhani left for him.

After all, although the knowledge on it is rich, it is all Professor Mirzakhani's essays, some thoughts, and some unfinished things.

He needs to sort out these things systematically, and then conduct in-depth research on them.

As for his leave, Professor Deligne did not have any opinion, nor did he ask him what he would do for the leave.

Even if he asked for leave to play, he would agree.

If it wasn't for Princeton not having the habit of tutors taking the initiative to give students vacations, Deligne would have wanted to give Xu Chuan a vacation a long time ago.

Not to mention the study in the second half of the past year, the delay of several months at CERN is not counted. In the first half of this year alone, from February to May, he really saw the madness of this student.

Twenty-four hours a day, more than fourteen hours of study, he and Edward Witten combined could barely have enough energy to satisfy him.

Deligne wondered strangely, if this continues, will he have nothing to teach in another year or a half?

There is no way, the speed of understanding and absorption of knowledge by this student is really too fast.

Moreover, hard work makes people want to cry.

Deligne thought that he was diligent enough in his studies when he was young, but in contrast, his diligence can be said to be nothing.

No parties, no travel, no interest in electronic products and online entertainment. Every day, except for eating and sleeping, the rest is study.

Kind of like a robot built for learning.

Such people should be geeks and extremely difficult to deal with, such as Grigory Perelman who proved the Poincaré conjecture. Just one such weirdo.

He almost rejected all the social and awards. A person studies mathematics like an ascetic monk, and even the Fields Medal cannot attract the other party from the deep mountains and old forests.

It can be said that the personalities of the two are almost exactly the same. Apart from being interested in learning, they are not very interested in other things.

But compared to Perelman, his student's sophistication is not weak. At least, in the normal category of an average person.

For example, after he returns to China, he will bring him and Weiteng some special products and gifts, and he will also participate in various awards, receive and express his opinions and remarks. If he needs to hold a report meeting, as long as the reason is justified, he will not reject. This and Perelman are two complete extremes.