Alex slowly leaned back in his chair.
“Mephisto... me?”
He mulled over the words Theo had left behind for a long time.
At first, he thought it was simply a metaphor. One of Theo’s characteristic exaggerations, or perhaps a cynical joke.
But the more he thought about it, the more stubbornly those words burrowed into his mind.
Alex recalled, one by one, the talents he had scouted.
Colleagues who had stayed up night after night for the sake of a single line of formula—every one of them had once been scholars absorbed in mathematics. After tasting money, had any of them ever returned to their former selves?
No.
Not a single one.
If anything, it was the opposite.
The moment research was converted into numbers on the market, they changed.
They came to him not with papers in hand, but proposals, and spoke not of mathematical theories but of profit models.
“Investors will like this theory.”
“This is research I did in the past. Do you think there might be some way to use it in finance?”
A bitter smile spread across Alex’s lips.
“I don’t regret it.”
Not once had he ever thought he had betrayed mathematics.
Proofs did not exist only on paper.
Between humans and capital, mathematics still functioned as the most powerful language.
Even after he returned to his office, his thoughts continued.
Rattle.
He stared at the pile of contracts in the drawer.
Countless names were written there.
People once called geniuses—had they already forgotten the difficult problems they had clung to for so long?
“I never forced anyone.”
Alex murmured in a low voice.
He stood by the window and looked down at the night view. Back when he had done nothing but mathematics, he could not even have imagined seeing such a scene from the city.
“Ah! Mephisto never took anything by force either.”
The contracts were fair.
He had merely given them options.
And he had never seen a single one of his contractors regret it.
But Alex knew better than anyone.
The first person to sign that contract had been none other than himself.
***
The atmosphere was strange.
During lunch, Seoha, who had been eating takeout pizza in the lab, turned his head.
Flinch.
The moment their eyes met Seoha’s, Sri and Sujeong hurriedly looked away.
‘Suspicious.’
Holding a slice of pizza, Seoha fell into thought for a moment.
Was it because the meeting had dragged on?
Had the paper’s reception been poor?
Or was there something he was missing?
Sujeong was reading a paper, but she had not turned the page for quite some time.
Sri was scrolling unnecessarily on his laptop screen again and again.
They were definitely hiding something.
“Did something happen?”
At Seoha’s words, the two of them reacted a beat late.
“N-no, nothing!”
“Nothing at all! It’s so peaceful it’s practically a problem.”
They looked suspicious to anyone’s eyes.
When Seoha stared fixedly at Sri, he eventually raised his hands.
“......An email came to the team account.”
“From where?”
Sri hesitated for a moment before answering.
“From Science.”
It was one of the journals with the greatest influence, alongside Nature.
Sujeong spoke as if making an excuse.
“It was an email from the editor-in-chief, but they said it wasn’t an official stance, just a recommendation.”
“What did it say?”
Sri opened the inbox.
“They said they wanted to publish our paper in the journal, but that the wording was too aggressive. They pointed out that the term ‘False Minima’ was unnecessarily provocative, and that if we kept this definition as is, a considerable number of existing researchers would have no choice but to react defensively....”
Seoha’s hand paused.
“So they want us to revise it?”
Startled, Sujeong waved her hands.
“That’s not it!
I mean.... They said the direction was interesting, but it would be better if we softened the tone just a little. That there was no need to make unnecessary enemies. If it goes out like this, people might misunderstand it as treating engineers like fools.”
Seoha let out a short sigh.
“Show me the email.”
Sri turned the laptop screen toward Seoha.
Seoha read the email, then took out his phone and dialed the phone number the editor-in-chief had written at the bottom.
Ring, ring, ring—
“Huh? Seoha!”
“A-a call?”
The two of them widened their eyes.
—Hello, this is Peter Reynolds.
“This is Yu Seoha from MIT. I read your email and called.”
—Oh! You contacted me sooner than I expected. I’m glad I left my number. I was actually waiting to see when you would call.
“Is this about the ‘tone’ issue you mentioned?”
—It was a remarkably interesting paper.
Very challenging, but we judged it to be more than worthy of discussion. That much is certain. However, would it be possible for you to change just one term?
“You mean dead solutions, ‘False Minima.’”
—That’s right. This is my personal opinion, but the term you used in the paper is extremely emotional.
Emotional?
A word he thought furthest from mathematics came out of the man’s mouth.
He tried to infer why he felt that way, but no appropriate answer came to mind. In the end, Seoha decided to speak honestly.
“It was for distinction, not criticism. Those solutions clearly seemed to be the cause of repeated failures.”
—If the paper is published as is, there is a possibility that the center of discussion will not be the proof of the theory, but an unproductive argument over word choice. That is what concerns me.
Silence followed.
Perhaps sensing Seoha’s stubbornness, Peter’s sigh could be heard.
—Very well. Then how about strengthening the introduction a little instead? Make the intent of the paper clearer.
“That’s fine.”
—One more thing!
There will be rebuttals. There may even be a request for public debate. Quite soon, too. You are prepared for that, I assume?
“Of course.”
Click.
He did not even have time to end the call and put down his phone.
Bang! Bang bang bang!
Someone was pounding violently on the lab door.
“Yu Seoha! I know you’re in there! Open the door!”
Theo was away on personal business. The knocking was so forceful that it felt as if the vibrations were reaching inside the lab. Suddenly, the warning Peter had given him flashed through Seoha’s mind.
‘This is too fast, even for fast.’
Hoo—
Seoha took a short, deep breath.
The moment he opened the door with a click, a man came crashing noisily into the lab.
He wore a neatly pressed jacket, but no tie.
Disheveled blond hair, fierce eyes, and even though he was not smiling, there was a sneer around his mouth. He was handsome, but overall he had a sharp impression, overflowing with energy.
“Chris Mercer!”
“Chris!”
Sri and Sujeong called out his name at the same time.
A superstar of the engineering world.
He was someone who had been pursuing his doctorate at Caltech when he dropped out, declaring that he would build a spacecraft himself.
Everyone had laughed at the reckless attempt, but his company succeeded in becoming the first private company to launch a fully independently developed launch vehicle into orbit.
There had been no government contract, nor help from a specialized agency like NASA. With that achievement alone, Chris became a legend in the engineering world.
And he was also a terribly arrogant elitist.
“Ahem....”
As if he had not expected the door to open, he awkwardly looked around.
“What brings you here?”
With his arms crossed defensively, Seoha’s voice sank low, as though he had no intention of welcoming him.
“So this is the famous Team Apex Lab? More modest than I expected.”
Pretending not to hear Seoha’s words, Chris walked slowly around the lab.
Equations written on the blackboard, pizza boxes on the floor, unorganized printouts. He looked as though he had come to an exciting playground.
“I spent quite a long time in places like this myself. Ah! Those were fun days.”
“Could you please state your business?”
Chris narrowed his eyes and strode toward Seoha.
“You think you’re the smartest person in the world, don’t you?”
Seoha seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head.
“I don’t think I am yet.”
He had not yet achieved anything he could show Newton or Gauss.
At Seoha’s answer, Chris laughed as if dumbfounded.
“This.”
Chris held out a tablet toward Seoha, almost throwing it at him.
“I came because of this paper.
It’s complete nonsense, isn’t it? That theory you’re calling wrong—we used it to put a spacecraft into orbit. Not some simulation in this little lab.
We actually built it and sent it up. With my own hands! And you dare call it a ‘dead solution’?”
Even after hearing him, Seoha looked indifferent.
“How many tries did it take you to succeed?”
“We barely succeeded on the fourth.”
“Then you must have modified the equations three times. You would have observed the errors directly while completing the conditions one by one.”
It was neither sarcasm nor provocation.
With a calm expression, Seoha walked toward the blackboard.
Scratch, scratch.
“You added an engine vibration term, adjusted the separation timing, changed the fuel mixture ratio.... You must have revised the fuselage design several times too, right?”
Chris’s face stiffened.
“What’s the problem with that?
If you fail, you fix it and launch again. In the end, I succeeded. That’s engineering.
But what about you? You sit in a lab, pushing a pen around and talking about right and wrong. You don’t even care how it’s applied in reality.”
Sujeong listened quietly to their conversation.
Chris was certainly high-handed and unreasonable, but Seoha’s expression as he dealt with him was no less irritating.
“Have you never failed again after succeeding?”
Chris let out a hearty laugh.
“Hahaha! This is why mathematicians are hopeless.
Of course we have. What you need to overcome that is the spirit of engineering. Frontier!”
As if he had expected as much, Seoha nodded.
“Yes. I understand, so please go back now.”
Perhaps it was not the reaction he had expected. Chris’s face reddened.
“Do I look like I’m joking right now?
The paper you wrote was an insult to us engineers. We collide and break countless times, but we fix it and launch again. That process accumulates and ultimately becomes success.”
Seoha looked troubled.
But he and Chris understood the world through different languages.
“That wasn’t my intention. I only said that what is not true is not true.”
“So why is it not true? Say it clearly!”
“Hooo.”
Seoha’s insides were boiling as well.
Chris was the type of person he found most difficult to deal with. Someone who smoothed over every valuable question with a few successes. He would probably take the very assertion that he was wrong as an insult.
But now that things had come this far, Seoha could no longer hold back.
“Chris, you can’t even accurately explain the cause of your own success! Naturally, you wouldn’t be able to reproduce it perfectly either. In mathematics, that is called failure.
You engineers, who think results are everything, probably wouldn’t understand.”
“What did you say? Say that again.”
He was impulsive because he was pure, and more sincere about engineering than anyone. And he hated losing an argument as much as death itself.
“I said results are not everything in mathematics. If you had properly read the paper in the first place, you wouldn’t have come all the way here—”
Seoha stopped speaking and made an expression as if he had slipped up.
He was not a mathematician.
But it was already too late.
Chris’s gaze changed in an instant.
“What were you about to say just now?”
When Seoha could not open his mouth, Chris took a step closer.
“You, just now.”
He raised a finger and pointed at Seoha.
“You thought I wouldn’t be able to understand your paper.”
Chris’s lips trembled.
‘What is with this person?’
Seoha was fed up with him. Perhaps because of that, his words did not come out kindly.
“Is that strange? I don’t understand engineering well either.”
“I’ve always hated the arrogant attitude of mathematicians. You talk as though the formulas you establish are the grand premises of all engineering.
Ah! Of course I know. I know that thanks to Newton and Euler, I was able to launch a craft. If those gentlemen hadn’t existed, who knows how much later humanity would have gone into space....”
He paused for a moment before continuing.
“But!”
“Fourier, who could be called the father of engineering thought, did not start by setting up equations the way you people do.
He applied fire to a metal rod, observed changes in temperature, and kept checking whether they matched his calculated values. Do you know what the greatest mathematicians of his time, people like Lagrange and Biot, said when Fourier completed the heat equation that way?”
It was a story Seoha knew well.
“That it was not mathematically rigorous. That just because an experiment conformed to a hypothesis did not make it a theory.”
Chris looked straight at Seoha and said,
“And what was the conclusion? Fourier was right in the end!”
Silence flowed through the lab.
It was not that he had nothing to say in rebuttal, but Seoha did not want to provoke him more than necessary.
Mistaking that for victory, Chris wore a solemn expression.
“It doesn’t matter what you mathematicians define. Whether a solution is dead or alive is nothing but a meaningless argument among yourselves.”
Seoha had never been this angry while conversing with someone.
“So are you saying you’re Fourier?”
“And you’re Lagrange, who failed to acknowledge him.
Admit that the development of mathematics has failed to keep up with technology. Calling something false just because you can’t explain it—there’s a limit to arrogance.”
At those words, Seoha’s patience, which he had been holding on to all this time, snapped.
“I can’t stand this.”
“And what will you do if you can’t?”
Suddenly, Peter’s words came to mind.
“How about holding a public debate on this topic?”
Chris bared his teeth in a grin, like a guest before a banquet.
“If we do that, you won’t be able to show your face at school starting the next day.”
“You seem so shameless that I don’t think I’ll need to worry about you.”
“Good. Where?”
“Ask Peter, the editor-in-chief of Science.”
“I won’t go easy on you even if you cry.”
“Come after you’ve properly read the paper.”
“Who do you think I am? Three days will be enough.”
Chris nodded, then strode confidently out of the lab.