CHAPTER 301: CHAPTER 121: THEY MUST HAVE GIVEN TOO MUCH ON THE OTHER SIDE!

At 7:58 the next morning, Pan Jingyuan was already sitting upright in front of the computer, using the invitation link sent by Professor Dennis in the email to enter Zoom. Since the team members were distributed across different regions, even spanning three continents, he was already accustomed to using Zoom for meetings and communication.

As one of the platforms officially cooperating with Harvard, Pan Jingyuan had become accustomed to using this meeting system during his PhD studies at Harvard.

He was the sixth to enter the meeting room, and through the video, it was evident that everyone wasn’t in high spirits.

In fact, Pan Jingyuan felt the same way.

Although he had accepted this fact, he couldn’t quite cheer up.

However, the meeting organizer—his mentor Dennis looked quite calm.

About a minute later, Professor Sam entered the room right on time, and everyone was present.

"Alright, everyone should be aware of the situation now. Pan, you’ve had face-to-face discussions with Qiao Yu at Huaqing, why don’t you start by sharing your thoughts." As soon as everyone was present, Dennis didn’t exchange pleasantries but directly started calling names.

Of course, in this sort of small meeting similar to group meetings, everyone was familiar, and there indeed was no need for pleasantries.

Pan Jingyuan quickly outlined what was discussed in last night’s meeting.

Most of it was other professors’ opinions, as for himself... to be honest, he didn’t have many ideas.

Unless he could solve this problem immediately, saying too much was meaningless. But clearly, he didn’t have any clues now.

He couldn’t just tell everyone that he had been tutoring Qiao Yu and answering his various questions all this time, right? Although his mentor wouldn’t blame him, others might want to tear him apart.

Just by looking at a few people’s expressions, it can be seen that not everyone could calmly accept such sudden complications in times like these.

"Alright, thank you Pan, I believe everyone has also seen Qiao Yu’s proof process. Frankly, I think it’s very impressive, clearly, we underestimated the complexity of this problem. But I hope everyone can muster up the energy to tackle and solve problems as they come.

Complaining about anything else won’t help, so I hope everyone focuses on completely solving this problem. Sam, where do you think we should start to tackle this problem? Of course, others can also speak up if they have ideas..."

...

The video conference lasted over two hours.

Although everyone wasn’t in high spirits at first, Dennis is someone very good at motivating people’s enthusiasm.

For instance, in meetings, he never lets people choose whether to speak, but calls on them one by one. Those who are named, whether or not they have an idea, will say a few words.

At least Pan Jingyuan feels this way of meeting is more efficient and more useful.

Human thinking naturally tends to be lazy; during free discussions, many times people hope for others to think, while they themselves are too lazy to think, but in this way, calling on everyone by name forces each person to think and say something.

During this process, there might be inspiration, or even some perfunctory remarks might inspire others.

It’s just that today’s effect wasn’t too good.

Although many methods were proposed in the last hour, Pan Jingyuan knew very well that these methods all required a lot of time to validate.

Of course, it is normal to have a brief period of confusion when faced with a new problem when everyone had initially intended to pop champagne. At least Pan Jingyuan believes that in one to two months at the minimum or one to two years at the maximum, under Dennis’ leadership, they will definitely eventually solve the problem proposed by Qiao Yu.

The time span is a bit large, but mathematics is sometimes quite similar to those beside it involved in chemistry or materials science, very much reliant on luck. Or rather, scientific research also has some elements of mysticism in it.

Many scientific breakthroughs that impact world development stem from either accidents or sudden flashes of inspiration.

The former often appears in applications, while the latter applies to mathematics.

The most famous is probably the discovery of penicillin. Alexander Fleming originally only wanted to culture some bacteria, who knew improper operation would lead to mold contamination of the petri dish, then he observed and found that the bacteria around the mold were all killed, and so the first antibiotic in human history was discovered, and the medical world entered the antibiotic era.

When penicillin was first discovered, it was really like the magical elixir described in fantasy novels. Previously, the mortality rate of bacterial pneumonia and wound infections was extremely high; only after such antibiotics became available did the mortality rate reduce.

Mathematics is actually the same, maybe just a flash of inspiration after waking from a nap, could solve a difficult problem. Of course, there might not be any instances to point to because this sort of thing is very idealistic, mostly derived from the accounts of those genius mathematicians themselves, and it’s hard for outsiders to discern whether it’s really happening or just blowing bullshit.

For instance, Pan Jingyuan has temporarily never experienced a sudden flash of inspiration leading to enlightenment, as every time his breakthroughs come from solid learning and then naturally coming to discovery. But he believes in it because he has witnessed it with his own eyes.

Especially right beside him, when some young guy suddenly shouted "got it," and was then invited to the podium to elaborate with great fluency, he was convinced that this kind of mathematical epiphany inevitably exists.

...

As the meeting was about to end, Pan Jingyuan suddenly received a private chat message.

Yes, Zoom also supports private chat functions in video conferences, depending on the chat permissions set by the meeting host. However, as the meeting organizer, Dennis never restricted the team’s private chat functions. It was convenient for private communication between team members.