“Cold.”
Winter had arrived before he knew it.
‘Already a year has passed.’
It was only last winter when he had first come to Boston to attend a young mathematicians’ forum, and much had happened in the year since.
Back then, Seoha had merely been a student invited to the forum.
Those were days when he could never have known he would one day climb MIT’s snow-covered stone steps as he did now. Yet here he was, attending university, and as he went about on and off campus, he had become a celebrity whose face people recognized.
“Hey, Seoha!”
A classmate from the same department spotted Seoha, waved, and walked on by.
“Hello!”
Seoha exchanged greetings with him as naturally as always and entered the library.
Outside the library window, snow was falling bit by bit.
Whenever the wind blew in from the direction of the Harvard Bridge, the window shook ever so slightly.
‘I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable, though.’
When the first reports broke, he thought his phone had caught fire.
[MIT’s Young Mathematician Liberates City from Traffic Hell!]
[Undergraduate at the Center of Government Research — A Changing of the Guard in the Scientific World?]
Every time he saw the cringeworthy headlines, Seoha felt like crawling into a mouse hole. It was an achievement they had all made together, so it was uncomfortable that he alone received the attention.
Seoha felt bewildered by the explosive reactions from the public.
It wasn’t his first time in the newspapers, but this time the scale was incomparable to anything before.
Had the article been about mathematics, it would have fizzled out as usual.
But the ripple effect of a topic like traffic, so closely linked to people’s daily lives, was beyond what he had imagined.
The news reports didn’t end as a one-off that day; each newspaper dispatched its own coverage team and published in-depth articles.
On Reddit, ordinary citizens and experts gathered to hold heated debates.
[If they apply this, will commute times really get shorter?]
—It’s not just administrative showmanship, right? I don’t know anything about math or algorithms, so can someone just tell me the conclusion?
└It’ll probably be better than it is now, at least.
└I heard they’re running a pilot in Massachusetts. Anyone from there?
└I don’t drive, so I don’t really know, but the visible traffic congestion has decreased quite a bit.
└It definitely works. That left turn from Massachusetts Avenue toward Longwood, that place is hell every morning. But now it’s completely different.
└I cross there every day, too, and the tangible effect is undeniable. Patrick finally did something good for once.
[Just Who Is MIT Student Seoha?]
—These days, whenever the Boston traffic project comes up in the news, this student’s name is always mentioned.
But there’s so little information. There’s no profile on MIT’s official website, and no social media accounts either. How did an undergraduate become the research director of a government project?
└My friend is an MIT math grad student and said he’s a total monster? lol
└I searched for his papers on the archive and they were truly incredible. I heard it was an undergrad assignment, and at first I thought, “What kind of lame joke is that?” His mathematical ability is insane.
└Government officials aren’t idiots; they gave it to him because he’s capable. Look at his track record.
└I’m Korean, and he’s super famous back home, too. People expect him to be the first Korean to bring home a Nobel or a Fields Medal.
└He’s that “Dorky” lolol
└What the! Really? That programmer Dorky?
└Yeah, we know. He got verified on the developer forum. I think he’s literally insane. His STEM skills are all maxed out.
Still, Seoha’s daily life hadn’t changed.
He still attended lectures diligently and immersed himself in assignments. When he submitted all the p-sets that had piled up due to the city hall project in just one week, even the professors couldn’t hide their shock. And every submitted assignment earned an A.
Twice a week, he rode his bike to the bus stop to pick up Seoeun, and in the evenings, he had dinner with his family.
“Oppa, how do I solve this?”
Late in the evening, Seoeun brought her homework.
Seoha’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the problem.
‘It’s a linear equation?’
It wasn’t the kind of problem you’d expect from early elementary school.
‘Are they planning to skip her ahead a grade?’
Grade skipping was far more flexible in America than in Korea.
And right now, Seoeun was already ready to tackle middle school material.
After a moment’s thought, Seoha spoke nonchalantly.
“If you think about it a little more, I think you can solve it on your own.”
“Hmm….”
Seoeun placed her hand on her chin and struck a thinking pose.
The deliberately serious expression she wore was adorable.
“Got it! I’ll try it on my own.”
“Instead, I’ll explain a similar problem to you.”
He had never taught her equations before, but if she grasped the concept, she would be able to solve it easily.
“Really? Justin says thank you so much!”
Seoeun suddenly held out a beaver doll, and a programmed voice flowed out.
—Thank you, I love you!
Seoha patted Seoeun’s head and carefully explained the concept of equations.
* * *
Boston Traffic Authority Headquarters, 7:40 a.m.
CCTV footage illuminating the roads near Andrew Square appeared on the dashboard in real time.
On one screen were vehicle queues by intersection; on the other, communication logs scrolled upward.
An engineer burst through the door.
“Deputy Commissioner, today’s data from the second week of the pilot.”
“You have the statistical data, too?”
“Yes, average commute times are down 19 percent, and emergency vehicle wait delays are down 43 percent.”
Alan looked over the report. His eyes softened as he read the statistics.
“This is considerably better than last week.”
“That’s right. I think it’ll get even better next week.”
“The better things go, the more careful we must be. Consider the first week practice, and don’t let your guard down. Traffic is an unpredictable creature.”
The engineer pointed at the monitor and laughed.
“But this one seems to know? It adjusts the signals with uncanny precision.”
The sample size was still small, but as the signals grew smarter, accident rates had also dropped.
Gifts from citizens were flooding into the Traffic Authority.
‘This is probably the first time since the Authority was founded.’
It was only natural for the staff’s morale to rise.
Glancing to the side, field agents in the corner were loading carts with controller firmware they had fixed overnight.
Alan called out loudly for Tom.
“Tom! Today’s expansion is to Kenmore, right?”
“Yes! It’s the section the citizens complain about the most.”
“Their reactions will be worth seeing next week.”
Tom packed up his equipment and left with a confident face.
“Lisa! Seoha still says he won’t come to the press conference?”
Lisa made a troubled expression.
“Yes. He says he has too much studying to do and no time.”
They had reached out numerous times, but Seoha remained unmoved.
‘Even if I went, there’d be nothing for me to do there? You already know everything about the algorithm, Deputy Commissioner, so please handle my share as well!’
Alan was at a loss.
The media attention focused on the current signal optimization project was at an enormous level. Until now, there had been over a dozen interview requests from media outlets. Unable to respond to each one individually, the Boston Traffic Authority and MIT decided to invite all the media to a press conference.
But with the main protagonist refusing to attend, it was an awkward situation for Alan as well.
‘Building up his public profile would help his future career, too…’
It was clear that press conferences were at the very bottom of Seoha’s priorities. He was thoroughly uninterested in anything besides mathematics.
“It can’t be helped. Let’s do our best among ourselves. Make sure everyone thoroughly studies the manual Seoha wrote.”
Seoha had signed an official contract with the city and written a manual for staff training.
He had poured enormous effort into making the manual easy to understand, but for the staff who had to study it, it was torture.
“Deputy Commissioner! Isn’t this too much?”
“If I’d studied this hard in college, I wouldn’t be here.”
A project that had shown no path forward despite a massive budget had been made reality by a single genius.
Alan looked forward to what else this boy might change in the country in the future.
* * *
“No, these guys are really something!”
Root fumed at the screen.
“What is it?”
Entropy and Cipher stopped what they were doing and approached Root.
“Look, the Stanford kids are at it again on Reddit.”
[MIT is just an old name; now the capital of mathematics is Stanford.]
—You seen the Rogia rankings? MIT got pushed out of the top spots. It was only a matter of time. I heard their math department still insists on using chalkboards?
Times have changed, friends.
└MIT was in first place until last week. When did it change?
└Caltech and Princeton are climbing up, too. I think they’re triggered by people constantly flexing their Rogia scores on Reddit.
└Stanford’s momentum is scary. But isn’t this the program they made?
└Yeah, the Stanford AI team made it. An AI gives you problems suited to your level. I tried it too, and my hands shook when the score came up.
└It’s not a game placement test lolol
└Pretty similar, though. Solve problems, get a score, get a rank. Maybe they got the idea from there.
└I heard if you keep getting them right, algebraic geometry comes up? lol That’s overkill.
└You have to verify your student ID to participate. Which means grad students can join too. It’s probably crawling with PhD monsters.
└Honestly, it’s about time the center of academia moved out west. Just look at where Silicon Valley is lol
“Entropy, does the math department not really do Rogia?”
She paused to think at Root’s question.
“No, I think quite a few do. I was introduced to it and tried… I had an A rank.”
Tappity tap.
She accessed the homepage.
“Huh? It’s a B now?”
“It’s graded on a curve. S is exactly 100 people, A is 1,000. If you don’t keep at it, you get pushed out.”
“Then what’s your rank?”
“Ahem! I’m not even in the math department.”
“Then why don’t you guys make a coding version of Rogia?”
At Entropy’s words, Root and Cipher’s eyes went round.
“That’s genius?”
“Oh! I’m down.”
“By the way, those Stanford guys are annoying….”
Click.
Root clicked the ranking tab.
[1st Place: Theodore Lanford / S+ / Stanford / US / 998.7]
[2nd Place: Alfred Bennett / S / Princeton / GB / 992.1]
[3rd Place: Minoru Tanaka / S / Caltech / JP / 987.4]
[4th Place: Aiden Cole / S / MIT / US / 984.9]
[5th Place: Jeong Minu / S / MIT / KR / 979.3]
[6th Place: Rafael Moretti / S / Harvard / IT / 971.1]
.
.
“Fourth place, what the hell. Even within the top 100, Stanford has the most with 17 people.”
“What’s S+? Is that only given to one person?”
Root nodded.
“Yeah. That’s only given to the rank 1. There’s an emblem, too.”
Beside the name was indeed a glittering crown.
Entropy scoffed.
“Why are you so invested? Who cares about that? Do you really think the truly talented kids have time for this? The British and Chinese kids don’t even do it.”
“Entropy! This is a matter of pride.”
Ding—
The rankings from 10th to 20th fluctuated.
Students from China’s Qinghua University, Oxford, and Cambridge were fiercely climbing the ranks.
Cipher looked at the monitor.
“Huh? There are a lot of universities I haven’t seen in the rankings before, even within the top 100. University of Tokyo and KAIST. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the National University of Singapore are there, too.”
Root shrugged.
“See?”
“Huh? Should we take this a bit more seriously?”
As they were chatting, the door opened.
“Hello!”
Seoha entered the lab with a bright smile.
All three of their gazes turned toward Seoha at once.