Chris hurried back to the company. As always, the company was running at full speed.
Test schedules, procurement meetings, the engine ignition sequence for the next launch vehicle—through these processes, machines that had been no different from scrap metal were given life. Chris liked watching that.
“Yo! No problems, everyone?”
Bang.
When Chris flung open the door and stepped inside, the members who had founded the company with him looked at him with cold, unimpressed eyes.
“Chris, what did you do this time?”
Stanley, the CTO, who was holding a cup of coffee, looked at Chris as if scolding a child who had gotten into trouble.
The CFO, another founding member, clicked his tongue and shook his head, while the head of legal adjusted his glasses as if nothing had happened. It was a scene that had repeated countless times before.
“What’s with those faces? This time, it’s really no big deal.”
Chris dragged over a chair and plopped down into it.
“No big deal? Every time you say that, I feel like we end up in serious trouble... There are already sightings all over social media saying you were seen at MIT.”
“Ah, I went. There was a brat with no manners, so I taught him a little lesson.”
“Don’t tell me it was Yu Seoha from the mathematics department?”
“Chris........”
Stanley swept a hand through his hair as if his head was starting to hurt.
But Chris merely shrugged.
“What could I do?
The paper they published overlaps exactly with our control model, and that’s the kind of issue that could make our contractors sensitive.”
The chief legal officer spoke in a low voice.
“He has a point. It could turn into an issue of trust rather than technology.”
But the board members seemed to think differently.
“That’s something we can prove by succeeding. The bigger we make the issue, the more we lose. So what exactly did you go all the way there and do?”
Chris flashed a mischievous smile.
“We agreed to hold a public debate.”
“What?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I know why you’re worried. But I’m confident. I’ve never lost a debate.”
Stanley cut him off urgently.
“Yu Seoha is seriously no joke! He’s already famous among MIT researchers! What are you going to do if the debate turns into a math quiz?”
Chris smiled and shook his head.
“As if I’d fight him that way.
We have results. Hundreds of failure logs, explosions, vibrations, fluctuations in tank pressure. All this time, we’ve accumulated evidence from experience that mathematics can never refute.”
Chris leaned forward.
“I’ve seen plenty of kids like him.
The pen-pushers believe theory changes the world. But reality isn’t like that. Reality comes first, and theory follows.
Don’t worry. Refuting one little kid like that is nothing.”
“E-even so!”
Stanley raised a hand and stopped the others from speaking.
“Wait! It was impulsive, but it might not be so bad.”
“In what way?”
“They can’t present an alternative. If we frame it as, ‘So what are you saying we should do?’ then it’s a fight Chris can’t lose.”
Chris nodded.
“I’m of the same opinion. They’re probably thinking about explaining mathematical theory, but not a chance.”
“Still, let’s prepare thoroughly. We have several PhDs in mathematics on staff, so from now on, get tutored and tear that paper apart.”
“I was already planning to.
Contact Peter Reynolds, too. Tell him to set a date for the debate. And get in touch with PR so they can prepare the promotion and the scenario.”
His eyes gleamed sharply.
***
On the bus heading to Boston,
Theo, who was reading an article on his smartphone, could not hide his troubled expression.
“This has become a headache. He came in after setting the frame first.”
[Chris Mercer: “The stagnation of theory must be broken through by technology.”]
—8 p.m. yesterday, Boston local time,
Chris Mercer, founder and CEO of the private space company Sierra Space, publicly criticized Team Apex of MIT’s latest paper, throwing a spark into the controversy.
The paper in question concerns the existence and stability of minimum-energy solutions, and it is being evaluated as a direct denial of the assumptions that form the foundation of engineering optimization models.
The editorial department of Science is known to have proposed a public debate to both Mercer’s side and Team Apex, and it is expected that a forum for public discussion may be arranged in the near future.
ㄴI don’t understand any of this. Can someone explain?
ㄴI’m perfectly healthy vs. just because your fever went down doesn’t mean the illness is cured. If you don’t know the name of the disease, it can relapse at any time.
ㄴOh! Now I get it right away.
ㄴAs someone who studies math, the phrase “stagnation of theory” does sting a little. There are definitely areas where modern mathematics can’t keep up with the speed of reality.
ㄴTechnological progress has been dazzling since the 2000s. In the mathematics world, it feels like nothing has happened since the Poincaré conjecture was solved.
ㄴIsn’t Yu Seoha supposed to be a real genius? Are we finally going to see Chris get owned? He acts so smug that it turns me off. As an aside, I do think he’s genuinely impressive.
ㄴYeah, if only he’d watch that mouth of his.
Chris was naturally planting the perception in the public’s minds that mathematics could not keep up with technology.
He would surely, in the debate as well, relentlessly attack the weakness that mathematics could not provide answers right now.
‘Will this be okay?’
After hearing about it from Sujeong and Sri, it was a complete spectacle.
How he had managed to pick out exactly the kinds of things Seoha would hate to hear, one after another. It was understandable that Seoha had gotten angry.
When Theo returned to the lab, Seoha was immersed in his research as usual. No, if anything, he looked even more absorbed.
Sujeong and Sri were gathering materials to defend against Chris’s logic in the debate.
‘Is it water under the bridge?’
Seoha’s breadth of knowledge was surprisingly wide.
If he showed himself holding his ground against a big name like Chris, it might instead become a blessing in disguise for the team.
A few days later, a short video was uploaded to Science’s official channel.
[When Theory Meets Reality]
The video began without any explanation.
A time-lapse camera rolled.
Pitch-black night.
The day gradually brightened.
As the sun rose, a massive launch vehicle could be seen standing tall between steel structures.
The screen shook.
With a low-frequency roar that seemed to tear the air apart, violent energy poured down beneath the launch vehicle.
Shoooooooo—
And then, launch.
A rocket soared upward, piercing through a curtain of smoke.
The camera deliberately avoided a perfect composition to convey realism. Amid shaking footage and brief moments when the focus slipped, short captions appeared.
—Test Failure #1
—Test Failure #2
—Test Failure #3
Silence.
The rocket shook but maintained its trajectory to the end. Then it grew smaller and smaller until it vanished into the sky.
After a short silence, another caption followed.
—And Success.
“Waaaaah!”
The passionate cheers of the staff rang out.
In the next scene, Chris Mercer appeared for the first time.
With the launch site in the background, he was wearing a helmet and rolling up his sleeves.
Chris looked straight into the camera and said,
“Just because theory has stopped, must we wait for them?”
A brief silence.
He shook his head with a confident smile.
“That is not the spirit of engineering. We will break through it head-on. Just as we always have.”
—Sierra Space’s current average rocket launch success rate exceeds 95%.
The next scene followed.
Scratch.
Scratch.
The location was a classroom, with no stage or lighting.
Only a massive blackboard and one person standing before it.
The proof Seoha was writing filled an entire wall.
—A complete proof of the Four Color Theorem.
The screen changed, showing Seoha explaining the Smale problem at a colloquium.
Every time he gestured, the failure conditions on the screen were neutralized one by one.
—Resolution of the Smale problem, a difficult problem in analysis.
—A sixteen-year-old boy rewriting a classic in the history of mathematics.
Seoha looked at the camera and said,
“Chris seems to be under a major misconception.
For the past three thousand years, mathematics has not stopped advancing for even a single moment.”
Within only a few hours of the video’s release, an explosive response erupted.
Engineering forums, mathematics communities, and even ordinary citizens who had been watching for the right moment to invest.
Science placed Team Apex’s paper on the front page.
Ordinarily, it would have been a title unlikely to draw readers’ interest, but this time, the situation was different.
From the day of publication, it was selling in far greater numbers than usual.
Time passed quickly, and the day of the debate arrived.
Inside the Science studio, tension hung in the air.
Two cameras, simple lighting, and a space that would normally have been used to invite professors or famous scholars for a calm conversation. But today, the production staff’s footsteps were busy.
The reason was the number displayed on the monitor.
[41,920]
“The waiting audience has already surpassed forty thousand.”
The number of real-time viewers was soaring by the minute.
It was a level of attention unlike that of a science channel. Though the channel had millions of subscribers, given the nature of its topics, live viewership usually barely exceeded a few thousand at most.
Peter, the editor-in-chief, glanced at the number that had just passed fifty thousand, then cleared his throat.
“Thirty seconds.”
The camera director signaled with his hand.
The noise in the studio died down.
Everyone stopped walking and looked at the monitor.
[91,002]
“Unbelievable!”
It was a number they had never seen even once in all the broadcasts they had done.
Someone could not hold back and let out an exclamation.
As Peter walked toward the podium, the countdown began.
5.
4.
3.
Peter looked one last time at the two guests appearing today.
A neat suit with no tie. It was Chris as he was often seen. In contrast, his opponent looked as if he had walked straight out in the middle of doing research.
Sunken eyes, a bloodless face, wrinkled jeans, and a checked shirt.
‘This is actually better.’
The way he looked today fit the public perception of him as an unprecedented mathematical genius.
In a corner of the studio, team members who seemed to be his companions were watching Seoha with worried eyes.
2.
1.
[ON AIR]
The instant the red light came on over the camera, the number on the monitor jumped again.
[103,614]
“Viewers, welcome to Science Live.”
He slowly looked around the studio once. The camera director gave him an okay sign with his hand.
“Today, we will be holding a discussion on the topic, ‘When Theory Meets Reality.’
Has technological development already gone so far that mathematical theory can no longer explain it? Moreover, there are quite a few scholars who argue that ‘technology is instead leading theory.’
That is the subject of today’s discussion.”
The host’s remarks continued.
Then Chris was given the floor and began laying out his argument.
“...So what, exactly, is this so-called living solution he speaks of? Can he prove even a single one and show it to us? If not, then it has not the slightest bit of developmental potential.......”
Seoha had been in a daze all week.
By the time he came to his senses, several days had already passed, and when he looked around, he was inside a studio.
“...Mathematicians say there is no solution if the answer does not appear on their notebooks. But what matters to us is one thing and one thing only. ‘Does it work, or not?’
If it works, then it means there must exist a realm in reality that theory cannot explain.”
‘That man is noisy again today.’
Seoha turned his head.
Sujeong, Theo, and Sri’s faces were white as sheets.
“Ah! I’d stopped in the middle of writing the equation.”
There was paper and a pen placed in front of him on the desk.
Seoha unconsciously picked them up.
Scratch, scratch.
‘This is a little better.’
An unresolved knot in his head was gnawing at Seoha’s nerves.
Scratch, scratch.
The sound of the pen moving was unusually clear.
“...The changes the public actually feels have always been led by engineers.”
Seoha had now forgotten where he was.
The cameras, the lights, the live broadcast with a hundred thousand people watching. All of it had been pushed outside his awareness.
Inside Seoha’s head, everything was tangled.
The materials the team members had gathered for him, the countless meetings in which they had discussed difficult problems, fragments of unfinished equations, counterexamples he had removed from the paper, the vibration patterns he had seen in the launch vehicle footage.
Information from different layers was flooding in without distinction.
“...Seoha? Are you listening? Seoha, what do you think of Chris’s opinion?”
Peter handed the floor to Seoha.
Seoha sat there blankly, then rose from his seat. Right now, he had no choice but to solve this.
The paper was quickly filled.
“This isn’t enough.”
Seoha lifted his head.
As it happened, there was something suitable nearby.
“Huh? Seoha? You need to answer!”
“What are you trying to do?”
A whiteboard that Science had prepared just in case.
Seoha stood before it and began writing equations in one breath.