[They say Yu Seoha showed up at a study café in Daejeon?]
-If it’s Daejeon, the kids from the gifted high school and KAIST are going to mobilize en masse. The group chat is going crazy right now.
└Wait, why Daejeon and not Seoul?
└He’s from Okcheon. Maybe he came because it’s near his hometown?
└It’s near the KMO Daejeon test site. Apparently Shin Uhyeon is with him too. Seems like he came because of his younger sibling.
└The café owner says they’re not taking any more customers today? Someone outside filmed and uploaded a video. Looks like Yu Seoha is writing something on the wall.
└Our professor just ran out in a hurry too lol
└Is this for real? Can I leave now? I want to get his signature on my paper.
└They say it’s not that kind of atmosphere lol It’s on the first floor, but there are already dozens of people watching from outside. More and more will probably gather.
An era in which mathematics drew attention.
Because of Seoha, the public had come to feel affection for mathematicians and basic scientists. At the moment, broadcasting stations were at war to book prominent scholars.
It was a situation similar to the days when men who cooked had been all the rage.
However, Yu Seoha, the number one choice for casting, had absolutely no interest in appearing on broadcasts, so the public’s curiosity only continued to grow without ever being satisfied.
“This is awkward.”
Uhyeon looked outside with a troubled expression.
He had thought that if they covered all the walls with large sheets of paper, no one would be able to see inside, but the glass door was the problem. As the snowfall grew heavier, people were lined up outside the door.
At first, there had been only five or six. Students in gifted high school uniforms, undergraduates wearing KAIST jumpers, young men holding cameras. Then, before long, the number had swelled to dozens. It was below freezing and even snowing, so leaving people standing outside weighed on his conscience.
He glanced at Seoha.
Ssk, ssk.
The wall was about half filled.
Even Seoha himself probably could not know exactly how much longer it would take.
‘It should be fine. It doesn’t look like his concentration will be broken.’
Uhyeon went over to the owner and said,
“Please let the people inside. Serve them hot chocolate or coffee too.”
“Will that be all right?”
“Yes. If they keep standing outside like that and catch the flu, it’ll be a serious problem. If more people gather, there could be an accident too. But please make sure to warn them that if they cause a disturbance, they’ll be asked to leave.”
“U-understood!”
People came inside, muffling their footsteps.
Kim Chanseong, a young KAIST professor whose lifelong regret was that he had not been able to go to the Auditorium, caught his breath and took a seat in a corner of the café.
Only after the fog on his glasses melted away did his vision finally clear. He looked around.
“What a sight.”
As an ardent fan of Yu Seoha, he had even made several pilgrimages to the seminar room at the gifted high school.
The walls papered with large sheets, and Yu Seoha’s marker racing freely across them.
‘Even his handwriting is good!’
Numbers and symbols of just the right size were being written so neatly they looked as if they had been printed.
A truth known only among mathematicians: handwriting says more than one might think.
Even in the digital age of the twenty-first century, they insisted on writing by hand. The main reason was that entering numbers and symbols on a keyboard was not particularly convenient, but the greater reason was likely that writing by hand helped organize the thoughts in their heads. Naturally, one’s psychological state was revealed in one’s handwriting.
‘Does he see the path?’
Lines and numbers extended without hesitation. There was a high probability that, inside Seoha’s mind, the theory had already reached a perfect conclusion.
But before long, his admiration turned into bewilderment.
‘Computability theory? But something’s different. Wait, why is this connecting here?’
Though he was a promising scholar who had been appointed a full professor at KAIST in his thirties, he struggled even to follow the concepts in the formulas Seoha was developing.
“Excuse me, Professor. Did you perhaps understand that?”
The man sitting beside him whispered to him.
It was “Mathholic,” an influencer with an unrivaled number of subscribers among math YouTubers. They had met a few times at events and conferences, and Chanseong had even appeared on his channel before.
“Uh, ahem! I also came in partway through…”
Chanseong turned his gaze aside, embarrassed.
A strange silence spread through the café. Though it was packed with people, the only sounds were the marker and the snowy wind. When someone set down a cup of hot chocolate, two or three people flinched and turned around.
Ssk, ssk.
The blank space on the wall was shrinking.
Mathholic was anxious. Something incredible was undoubtedly happening, yet he could not understand a thing. Nor did there seem to be anyone who could.
He quietly stood and approached Uhyeon.
“Sir, would it be all right if I started a broadcast? It’s too much of a waste for only us to see this.”
At his words, Uhyeon gave a faint laugh.
His expression seemed to say, What kind of snake oil are you trying to sell? But his face gradually turned serious.
“Hmm.”
‘Seoha is currently serving, isn’t he? The Ministry of National Defense might try to claim copyright.’
This was research conducted in a private space on the weekend, outside working hours.
It was a product of pure intellect drawn solely from Seoha’s mind, without equipment or data funded by the national budget.
‘We might have a chance.’
Though he had not majored in law, as an instructor sensitive to copyright issues, he had as much knowledge as was needed for a defense.
‘We need to leave evidence of the current situation.’
Surely the government would not go that far, but there was nothing wrong with taking out insurance.
If the formulas Seoha was writing were disclosed in real time, the Ministry of National Defense would lose its justification for tying them up under the excuse of “national secrets.” Even if they tried to claim ownership, they would have to endure social and international criticism. Of course, MIT would not stay still either.
His calculations were complete.
“You can start the broadcast.”
“Pardon?”
Mathholic’s eyes widened at the unexpected response.
“But please make it live. Set the image quality as high as possible. So that not a single character of the formulas is missed.”
“Just leave it to me!”
His hands trembled.
He hurriedly pulled a tripod and camera from his bag.
After connecting the equipment to the network and pressing the streaming button, thousands of viewers who had already heard the news and were waiting poured in like a waterfall.
[Urgent: Yu Seoha developing unpublished formulas at a café in Daejeon]
The chat window instantly became chaotic.
Messages flew by at a speed impossible to read.
As Uhyeon had requested, Mathholic fixed the camera’s focus on the wall. The 4K high-definition lens scanned every part of the formulas.
“Um… Could I perhaps ask you to provide commentary?”
He asked Uhyeon with an awkward expression.
He had turned on the broadcast without thinking ahead, but now that he thought about it, there was no one to fill the audio. He himself had a master’s degree in mathematics from a prestigious university, but the formulas written on the wall were something far beyond the scope of what he could understand.
Jingle—
At that moment, a group of people burst into the café.
Outside the door, the crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder, but people had recognized their faces and opened a path for them.
Uhyeon gestured toward them with his chin.
“The right person has arrived just in time.”
“Wow, jackpot!”
Sujeong entered at the very front.
Since it was the weekend, she had plans to meet up with high school classmates for the first time in a while. But just as she was about to leave home, a single photo posted in the Team Apex group chat made Sujeong turn back.
Theo, Sri, and Ben entered after her. Breathing hard, they first checked Seoha’s condition.
‘Thank goodness. He still looks fine.’
Theo let out a sigh of relief.
Only after his worry eased did his surroundings come into view. The four of them slowly moved along, examining the formulas written on the wall.
“Huh?”
Seoha was trying to break through the part where he had been stuck for some time. Startled, Sujeong nearly screamed.
The calculation of survival cost.
Seoha’s marker slid over the large sheet, drawing a smooth curve. A logic in which all manner of theories were condensed. To untangle the complicated knot, Seoha had introduced a variation into U-Riemannian geometry.
Sujeong quietly inhaled.
‘I think I can see it. The whole picture. Where his theorem is headed.’
Mathholic edged toward her.
“Ms. Im Sujeong? I’m a YouTuber called Mathholic. Do you perhaps know me?”
Sujeong’s eyes sparkled.
“Of course! I’m subscribed too!”
The largest channel in the Korean mathematics world!
His true value lay in his network. With his unique shamelessness and sociability, he had pulled off the feat of booking foreign Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners. Of course, the scholars, starved for public attention, had been completely won over when told he was a famous influencer with over a million subscribers.
“Really? What a relief! Could I ask you to provide commentary today? We have a lot of viewers watching, but no one, including myself, understands what’s happening.”
Sujeong’s expression stiffened. She had rushed over so quickly that she had not thought it through, but what was happening here right now was not normal.
“W-wait! I need to confirm something first.”
“I’ll explain that.”
A voice came from behind.
Uhyeon approached and shared with all the team members what had happened to Seoha today. Theo raised a thumb at him.
“That was remarkable quick thinking. It will definitely be a great help to us.”
Mathholic was checking the equipment with his staff.
Considering that he even had a producer and a professional cameraman, it was a scale befitting a major YouTuber.
“Then am I allowed to appear on the broadcast?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Sujeong looked into a mirror, then lightly tidied her disheveled hair with her hand.
Today’s outfit was a black overcoat and a neat brown skirt.
Her makeup happened to have gone on well too.
Hair was okay.
With an aloof expression, Sujeong clicked her way toward the camera.
“I’ll provide the commentary.”
“Really?”
Uhyeon slipped in a comment.
“You’re lucky. She’s probably the only person in Korea right now who can explain that in Korean.”
Once the hands of professionals got involved, a makeshift studio was set up in an instant.
Looking at the camera, he gave a meaningful smile.
“Hello, subscribers. Today, we’ll be broadcasting from a very special scene. And the person beside me! I have managed to bring on Researcher Im Sujeong of Team Apex!”
└Whoa, you startled me. Why is she so pretty? Is it okay to bring such an honored guest onto this shabby channel?
└Noona, how old are you?
└Her proportions are insane lol Her face is seriously tiny, isn’t it?
└Host! Hand the channel over to her right now! No, noona, just make your own channel. We’ll all move over together.
└What is happening lol Wasn’t this channel only supposed to have bald middle-aged men on it?
“You people, seriously! We can have days like this too. Enough fussing! Let’s maintain some dignity. I’m embarrassed.”
Praise poured in.
It was a sensation she had forgotten for quite some time. In middle and high school, this sort of thing had been a daily occurrence.
The gazes of envy and admiration she received while walking down the hallway.
After spending years worn down inside the lab every day…
Because there were so many outstanding people on the team, she had not had time to feel this way.
Sujeong’s confidence gauge filled all the way to max.
Looking into the camera lens, she gave a cold smile.
“I’m mathematician Im Sujeong.”
Sujeong glanced sideways at Mathholic, signaling him to hurry up and introduce her.
‘It’s not cool if I say it myself!’
A YouTuber with maxed-out social awareness.
He naturally took over the commentating.
“Ahem! She introduced herself very modestly, but Ms. Im Sujeong has truly ridiculous credentials. Even if you just search her on Google… Wow! Your jaw will drop, I tell you. For those who don’t know, we’ve briefly summarized her résumé.”
On the screen appeared photos and text that the producer had hastily edited together.
[South Korea’s first two-time consecutive IMO gold medalist]
[Recipient of the Award for Highest Grades in All Subjects at the gifted high school]
[Early graduate of the gifted high school and top entrant to KAIST]
[Admitted to the MIT Department of Mathematics and graduated with honors]
[Core researcher at Team Apex Lab]
[Designer of the causal analysis algorithm for New York’s “Project Oracle”]
[Coauthor of the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis]
[Codeveloper of Utopia, the next-generation post-quantum cryptography system]
A tremendous career appeared along with reference photos.
The viewers’ admiration did not stop.
└Just how good at studying do you have to be lololol
└This insane résumé existed in Korea?
“Everyone. There is one more important fact.”
Mathholic looked at the viewers with an astonished expression. He spoke in a trembling voice.
“She… is only twenty-three years old.”
└lolololololololololololol
└I thought she looked young, but she really was young.
└At an age when everyone else has barely graduated college, she already has Fields Medal-level achievements.
└I wish they’d write Yu Seoha’s credentials too.
└You’d faint if you saw them.
‘Ah, yes. This really is nice.’
With an expression as if none of it affected her, Sujeong very slightly lifted her chin toward the camera. But soon she composed herself and looked toward Seoha.
She was wondering how she should convey the fact that the Turing machine itself—the very foundation of modern computer science and computability theory—might be overturned by Seoha today.