Marcello looked to the side.
Hans, the chairman, was clapping with a pleased expression. Sensing his gaze, he asked with a sullen look,
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I seem to recall you were opposed because he was too young.”
Seoha had gone up onto the platform and was giving his remarks.
“…Mathematics is often called a solitary discipline, but there was never a single moment when I was alone. Mr. Shin U-hyeon, who has helped me so much since I was young; MIT, which gave me unstinting support; my team members, who believed in me; and my family, who have been my pillar. Above all, I would like to express my gratitude to the heroes of the past and present who live and breathe within my mathematics.”
Clap, clap, clap!
Seoha bowed deeply and came down from the stage.
Watching him, Hans said,
“During the review, I went over his paper again with the committee members.”
His eyes fixed on Seoha’s back, he continued.
“It was truly peculiar. Seoha’s theory contains almost every element of mathematics.”
“He is talented in many fields, after all.”
Hans shook his head.
“It is not merely to that extent. I mean, not only the classical insights of the great masters of the past, but even the latest theories of the professors sitting here right now were woven into it with extraordinary precision. If I had not looked closely, even I would not have noticed.”
“Oh?”
Marcello narrowed his eyes with interest. Hans let out a light sigh and added,
“There was even a paper I wrote ten years ago in it. He had used the theory so well that he grasped its essence like a researcher who had devoted decades to that field alone. Perhaps our mathematical community has been a little narrow-minded.”
“Hahaha! A little narrow-minded? Even in the twenty-first century, we insist on an apprenticeship system.”
“The tradition passed down from master to disciple will still be necessary in the future. But Seoha was someone for whom there was no need to discuss lineage. If I had to put it into words, should I call him ‘everyone’s disciple’?
“He had taken the entire legacy of mathematics built up by humanity as his teacher.”
Leaving aside the matter of age, there was no candidate who surpassed Seoha.
There were differences in degree, but the committee members each found their own traces in Seoha’s paper. The genius they had thought had simply fallen from the sky was, in truth, a miracle that all of them had shaped little by little.
Clap, clap, clap!
The applause showed no sign of stopping. The entire time he descended from the stage and returned to his seat, the mathematicians in the audience gave him a standing ovation filled with respect.
‘They must have been surprised.’
Hans looked around at the committee members.
Once Seoha’s hands had touched their theories, uses they had never expected emerged. Once they realized that, no one could readily cast a dissenting vote.
The result was unanimous.
But at the same time, they felt bitterness. Though the theories were ones they themselves had created, they had failed to see what Seoha had seen.
* * *
[Plenary Lecture : Seoha Yu]
After a brief break, the plenary lecture followed. The boy who had just hung the Fields Medal around his neck walked back up onto the platform.
The audience looked at Seoha with eyes full of anticipation.
Seoha let out a small sigh.
‘Of all days, it had to be today.’
Equations were thrashing endlessly inside his head.
The years of knowledge he had accumulated while studying the Riemann Hypothesis were expanding. Ducky was greedily absorbing it all, probing the possibility of solving the conjecture.
‘Let’s think about it later.’
Seoha tried to push the noise in his head aside for the moment. But regardless of his will, Ducky continued to writhe.
He cautiously tried to soothe Ducky.
‘There’ll be a chance soon. When that time comes, I’ll let you run wild as much as you want.’
But that much could not quench Ducky’s thirst, which had been held back for so long. It was as if something enormous beneath the surface of the water was slowly raising itself up.
The waves surged. It seemed certain they would soon overflow.
‘What should I do?’
The cameras were rolling. The world’s greatest mathematicians were holding their breath. More than anything, his family was watching. Showing himself running out of control in this situation was not what he wanted.
Seoha did not know it, but the news of his Fields Medal win had gone out as breaking news and was shaking all of Korea.
[Yu Seoha, first Korean to win the Fields Medal! Claims the Nobel Prize of mathematics!]
[At 18, he breaks the record for youngest winner in history by 9 years.]
[Proud son of Korea rewrites the history of world mathematics.]
11 a.m., German time.
In Korea, it was just about time for dinner.
Hands that had been scooping up stew across dining tables all stopped at once. At the urgent voice of the announcer coming from the living room TV, families in their rooms put down what they were doing and gathered in front of the screen.
“This is the scene at the Hannover Dome right now! Just moments ago, we received news that Yu Seoha has won the Fields Medal. I repeat: you are watching the moment a record in the history of human mathematics is being changed.”
Office workers heading home by subway and bus all pulled out their smartphones at once, as if by prior agreement. Hundreds of comments per second poured into the live broadcast window on portal sites.
In restaurants where pork belly was sizzling, and in cafés where people had been chatting, exclamations and applause burst out.
“Wow! That’s insane!”
“He really won it? Isn’t he not even old enough for college yet?”
“What is it? Is that really such a big deal?”
Seoha’s award lit a blazing fire in the hearts of Koreans, who had often mocked their own country as a barren land for basic science.
The ICM had no separate broadcasting rights. Rather, because it operated with the purpose of sharing humanity’s intellectual assets, it was highly open when it came to broadcasts and dissemination.
“Everyone! You see this, right? This is live. I’ve come all the way to Germany to bring you this broadcast. If you subscribe and turn on notifications, I, a master’s degree holder in mathematics, will do my best to explain it for you!”
Math YouTubers were enjoying a rare boom.
At the number of concurrent viewers dozens of times higher than usual, they screamed with joy. Broadcasting stations also competed to cancel their regular programming and switch their screens to live coverage from Hannover.
“Now, the plenary lecture is beginning.”
Amid the heavy silence, Seoha raised his head.
Millions of eyes turned toward the boy standing at the lectern. But Ducky had now passed the critical point and was trying to encroach upon Seoha’s consciousness.
During the Four Color Theorem, when he opened his eyes, three days had passed. This time, he could not even imagine how long it would be. Once he lost his mind, there would be no bringing it back.
‘Accept it. That’s who you are. Let’s go into the equations together. And even if it takes days and nights, we’ll solve it to the very end.’
Ducky whispered as if sneering.
The rippling water overflowed. And just as it was about to become an irresistible tidal wave and crash down over Seoha—
‘Huh?’
He saw Gyeoul.
She was pointing to her own ear with her hand. Seoha suddenly remembered the object Gyeoul had placed in his hand the day before.
Rustle.
He took the earphones out of his pocket.
Only then did Gyeoul look satisfied.
‘I knew something felt off.’
For some time now, Seoha’s condition had not been good.