Winter days are short in Munich.
By four in the afternoon, dusk has already settled in and the streets grow dark. With the rain drizzling down as well, the chill seemed to seep all the way into one’s bones.
Felix sat alone by the window, watching the raindrops fall.
“I was right this time, too.”
Three months since he had presented his paper.
The world was still mired in chaos. Every day, scholars appeared on television and engaged in fierce debates over whether the Riemann Hypothesis had truly been conquered.
Yet even those who looked on skeptically could not present a proper counterexample. The scales had clearly tipped to one side.
Public opinion in Germany was already in a festive mood.
“The work Riemann began has been completed by Felix, a fellow German. I hope that, starting with him, the miracle of Göttingen (Göttinger Nobelpreiswunder * the phenomenon in the early twentieth century when the University of Göttingen in Germany produced over forty Nobel laureates) will be recreated once again.”
“As someone from Hanover, Riemann’s hometown, I’m moved to tears. We have finally found an answer to a giant’s question.”
“The era dominated by America is over. Now the center of science will return to Germany.”
The citizens’ bright expressions and voices.
Before the microphones thrust out by reporters, they openly displayed their joy, one and all.
Germans did not remember the number of Nobel Prizes won by their countrymen.
Since there were many years when the number increased by several at a time, perhaps it had simply been too much trouble to remember each one. But that, too, was a thing of the past. Before they knew it, there were more and more years when no German stood on the podium.
Felix’s achievement had become the spark that reignited the fading pride of the Germanic people.
“Science can be called the strength of a nation itself. That was true in the past, and it remains true now. Germany’s glory is not over yet.”
The single remark left by the Chancellor at a press conference sent all of Germany into a frenzy.
Nineteenth-century Germany had been a cradle of intellect where giants such as Gauss, Riemann, and Hilbert commanded the world. This trend continued into the twentieth century and even gave birth to the miracle of Göttingen, but circumstances changed after the Nazis came to power.
Countless German minds flowed across the Atlantic to the United States. The fact that Einstein, born in Germany, had lived and died as an American still remained a deep wound to them.
“A medal, is it…”
The Max Planck Medal and the Order of Merit. In the past, he could not even have imagined such things.
On top of that, he was even being mentioned as a candidate for the Leibniz Prize, so it was no exaggeration to say that every honor a scholar could enjoy had been laid at his feet.
Bzzzt—
—Professor, I heard Professors Whitman and Leonard at MIT are verifying the paper. It looks like you’ll soon have America’s recognition as well!
Felix gave a faint laugh after seeing the message.
“They must be hoping there’s an error. But it won’t do them any good. The proof is real.”
He believed this sincerely.
Not every theory needed to be mathematically flawless. Even Newton’s laws were not rigorous by modern standards.
Even so, humanity had built civilization by relying on that imperfect theory.
‘If the essence is correct, minor errors are nothing more than noise.’
If an error was discovered, someone would supplement it someday. Just as Einstein had done for Newton. That was how science had developed from the beginning.
He recalled the scrap of data he had erased thirty years ago.
At the time, he had been a promising physicist, but he had always lacked that final inch.
The results of the quantum interference experiment to which he had devoted years had deviated ever so slightly from the theory he had envisioned.
It had been only once.
The time he erased the noise beyond the fourth decimal place from the data sheet and smoothed out the graph.
‘This is only natural. There is always a gap between theory and reality.’
The paper he had published while comforting himself in that way had been a great success.
At first, he could not sleep at night. The fear seized him—what if someone reproduced the experiment, what if his career as a scholar came to an end?
But nothing happened. On the contrary, everyone praised it as a splendid paper. Research funds poured in, and offers of professorships came from prestigious universities.
A scholar’s ethics are like a levee; even one small hole will eventually bring everything crashing down.
‘If the result is correct, then minor omissions in the process can be tolerated. In terms of increasing efficiency, shouldn’t they actually be encouraged?’
The taste of success was like a drug.
He was a man who knew how to handle capital and the media, and he poured great effort into networking as well. At times, he did not hesitate to steal his students’ achievements. And at last, he had finished preparing to rise to the summit of European science.
Sitting by the window, he closed his eyes and savored the afterglow brought by success.
***
“Hey! Did you see today’s Nature?”
“No? Why are you making such a fuss?”
“It’s absolute chaos right now. They say MIT has gone insane.”
A paper had been published in Nature, one of the two great pillars of scientific journals.
This was an exceedingly exceptional event. It had passed the rigorous peer review process, which normally took several months, in just one week and had been distributed in the form of an Extra Edition.
“An extra edition? Seriously?”
“Yeah!”
Authoritative academic journals like Nature and Science strictly maintained their publication cycles. What had made such a thing possible was Dean Whitman’s decision.
In his meeting with Nature’s editor-in-chief, he had not yielded a single step. Across the table, Philip’s face was full of bewilderment.
“Dean, you are currently asking us to break a tradition we have upheld since our founding. Posting it on the archive first is customary, but that isn’t without precedent, so it’s fine. However, give us half a year to review it.”
Whitman shook his head with a stern expression.
“That will be too late.
The Riemann Hypothesis is like the Holy Grail of mathematics. If Felix’s theory becomes established as orthodoxy, the damage humanity will have to endure will be far too great.”
Philip pressed his fingers hard against his temples.
“No definitive counterexample has come out yet, has it? How certain are you to say something like that… Show me the paper first.”
“Here it is.”
[An Analysis of the Topological Inconsistency Revealed in the Operator of the Felix-Arthur Model]
It was an aggressive title, but within acceptable bounds.
But the moment he turned past the cover, he was so shocked he nearly spilled his coffee.
A list of no fewer than 512 coauthors.
The names of professors from MIT’s departments of mathematics and physics, as well as the hundreds of master’s and doctoral students and postdocs who had been there on site, were densely printed in four columns.
Gulp.
Philip swallowed dryly and scanned the list with his eyes.
From next-generation aces like Hugo and Laura to candidates for the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal whose names were known to anyone in the field, they were listed one after another.
“Th-this is madness. Are you saying a university on the scale of MIT is putting up its entire name as a guarantee?”
He could not even dream that all these people had actually participated in the paper.
“What are you talking about? It is only natural to write the names of the authors on a paper. Are you perhaps mistaken, thinking I used my authority to borrow only their names?”
Philip’s eyes widened.
“You mean that’s not the case? Good God!”
“There was no coercion whatsoever. At least when it came to writing their names as authors, everyone was delighted. Do you feel like reading it now?”
“I… need time.”
“Of course. One week. I would like you to finish it within that time. This is a matter of urgency.”
During the review process, Philip realized that Whitman’s confidence had not been mere bravado.
The reviewers whom Nature urgently convened could not hide their shock. It was the result of all of MIT’s most eminent experts gathering together and dissecting the paper down to the last detail under a microscope.
It was a vast undertaking that an ordinary verification team could not have completed even in decades. They had done it.
[Topological Discontinuity Confirmed in the Operator Mapping Process Established by Professors Felix and Arthur]
Philip stayed up all night reading the paper.
And he came to fully understand what Whitman had meant by humanity’s losses. Their paper was an exquisitely designed trap.
If this had become established as orthodoxy, mathematicians and physicists around the world would have wasted precious resources for the next several decades chasing a mirage that did not exist.
More than anything, the fact that Felix had deliberately omitted data enraged him.
He roughly rubbed his dry face.
“We have a role to play as well.”
He immediately mobilized every capability of Nature’s editorial department.
The printing presses turned with a scream.
‘There can be no other cover than this.’
Instead of the usual ornate cover, there was a black cover bearing only the title of the paper and 512 names. Later, the world would call it by a decorous name like “Black Nature,” but MIT had a separate term for it.
“Hey! Did you see the ‘draft roster’? My name was above yours.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, it’s in alphabetical order?”
“Hugo and Laura are at the top, though. It must reflect contribution.”
“Except for the dean and those two, it’s all alphabetical!”
It was the most alien cover in Nature’s nearly two-hundred-year history.
On the day the magazine was distributed, laboratories at major universities around the world were swept up in a strange silence. The colossal intellect known as MIT had staked everything and declared it: your theory is nothing more than a malicious fraud.
The moment the paper was released, online science communities exploded. Traffic surged in all at once to the point where the servers nearly went down.
[Is MIT out of its mind? Holy crap]
—In all my life, this is the first time I’ve seen a university stake its whole account like this. What are they going to do? I’m just a lowly master’s student so I don’t know much, but wasn’t verification usually done quietly?
└ Princeton is in an uproar because of this too. But Professor Elijah Cronen said one thing: the old men caught the fraudster in style.
└ Yeah, pointing out errors is usually supposed to be done quietly. But committing fraud with a fabricated paper? And over a problem on the level of the Riemann Hypothesis? That’s not something anyone can tolerate.
└ My professor read the paper and his face turned bright red. He said they should send him to prison.
└ But seriously, what is with that boldness? They must be that confident, right? Is there no chance they’re wrong?
└ If there had even been a 0.1 percent chance, the board would have stopped them. The damage would be beyond imagination.
└ I got chills looking at the cover…
Breaking news poured out from every broadcasting station.
Ordinarily, affairs in the scientific world did not have this much impact. In reality, even if a famous unsolved problem was solved, most people did not take much interest. But the essence of this incident was a sensational fabrication scandal.
[Felix-Arthur Paper Shows Signs of Deliberate Data Omission]
[German Society in Shock, From Festival to Lamentation]
[Felix Suspected of Manipulating Experimental Data in Past Papers as Well]
[Arthur Pendleton of Cambridge: “I Didn’t Know.”]
[British Government: “We Are Victims of Fraud as Well”]
[Is the Riemann Hypothesis the Wailing Wall? Was It Truly a Mountain Humanity Could Not Conquer?]
[Science Has No Nationality. German and French Academia Issue Statements Supporting MIT]
[German Chancellor: “The Felix Incident Is an Individual Deviation; Germany’s Scientific Competitiveness Remains Intact”]
The German federal government drew a clear line through a swift statement regarding suspicions that Professor Felix had fabricated his paper.
Felix completely denied the allegations in an interview.
He argued that they had been “adjustments” within the margin of error commonly occurring in any high-precision experiment, but when past cases of fabrication were unearthed one after another, he fell silent.
Not only was he expelled from academia, he now faced the difficulty of having to respond alone to lawsuits from the federal government and the university.
“Ah! It feels like a ten-year-old knot in my stomach has finally come undone.”
Ben muttered as he watched TV.
“That is the end of a man who sold a scholar’s soul.”
“Theo, you’re merciless.”
“Once you compromise, it’s over. Especially for those who deal with numbers.”
MIT became the center of attention in an instant.
With a proud expression, a TV reporter looked at the viewers and said,
“Deans Whitman and Leonard of MIT concluded the paper with the following words.”
With a solemn expression, she opened the paper and read as if taking an oath.
“Truth is not decided by majority vote. Yet in order to defend justice, there are times when the courage of a vast collective is required.
For truth may be discovered alone, but preserving it requires everyone’s effort.
Today, by inscribing our names upon this paper, we swear to become a bulwark protecting humanity’s intellectual heritage.
Signed, Harold Whitman, Ruben Leonard, and 510 others.”
Beep—
The TV turned off.
Seoha broke the silence with a single remark.
“Wow, that’s so cool.”
Seoha had always been weak to mathematical romance. At the spirit shown by the old professors and his seniors, his eyes turned dreamy.
“That’s really moving.”
“I feel incredibly pressured, though. It feels like those 512 people have handed the baton to us.”
Sri and Sujeong also looked choked up.
“Of course, we have to be the ones to decorate the finale.”
“I… I’ll try my best to be of help too.”
Theo and Ben also steeled their resolve with firm expressions.
Only Cecilia tilted her head alone and muttered.
“…Eradicating heresy, that decisiveness—yes, the Knights Templar really would suit them.”