Chapter 206 - 154: I Know Nothing About This Field
She was wearing a well-tailored black trench coat, and a blue-and-white plaid scarf tied at her collar made her already fair skin look even more delicate.
Chen Lin discreetly sized her up.
The girl’s features were deep-set and well-defined, with a high-bridged nose and full lips. She was stunning.
Her eyes were especially striking—large, expressive, and the color of clear seawater. For some reason, they reminded him of a Western actress he’d seen, Daddario.
He just wondered...
The main reason was that the Imperial Capital had turned cold abruptly in the past couple of days. Even indoors with heating, everyone was bundled up, so he couldn’t tell if this young woman’s figure was as stunning as the actress’s, who was famous for her bombshell body.
’Ahem.’
Chen Lin quickly shook the inappropriate thoughts from his head.
Casting aside his stray thoughts, Chen Lin hesitated for half a second before giving her a slight nod.
When she saw his acknowledgment, a delighted smile instantly bloomed on the foreign girl’s face. She excitedly opened her mouth, as if about to gasp in surprise.
Chen Lin reacted quickly, raising a forefinger to his lips in a shushing gesture. He whispered in English, "Quiet, please."
The girl immediately understood. She quickly covered her mouth with her hands and nodded repeatedly.
She glanced at the empty seat beside Chen Lin, asking for his permission with her eyes.
Chen Lin shrugged nonchalantly.
Permission granted, the girl quietly sat down beside Chen Lin.
Nearby, Shen Yan’s attention was also drawn by the sudden interlude, and she glanced over curiously.
"Hello, my name is Annie," the foreign girl immediately began to introduce herself as she sat down, her voice quiet and filled with suppressed excitement.
"I’m a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA, specializing in artificial intelligence algorithms. I came to this mathematics conference with my advisor."
’A PhD from MIT. Impressive.’
Chen Lin thought to himself while maintaining a polite smile.
"I read your paper that was published in JAMS," Annie said, her blue eyes shining with adoration as her voice grew more excited. "To be honest, I hadn’t studied the field of Differential Geometry in depth before.
But after a few of my lab mates and I spent two whole weeks carefully studying your paper, and asking our advisor about the parts we couldn’t understand..."
She took a deep breath, looking at Chen Lin as if he were her idol.
"We all unanimously agreed that the ideas and methods you presented in the paper are absolutely brilliant! The concepts are pure genius! No wonder even Professor Tao Zhexuan praised your work so highly and couldn’t find a single flaw!"
Faced with such high praise from a peer from a top global university, Chen Lin simply smiled humbly. "You’re flattering me."
"No, no, no, there’s no need for modesty." Annie shook her head vigorously, her beautiful long blonde hair swaying with the motion. "A fact is a fact.
I can’t wait for your presentation the day after tomorrow! Seriously, I’ve already prepared several questions to ask you there!"
Hearing this, Chen Lin became genuinely curious.
He asked in return, "Since you research artificial intelligence algorithms, why come to this lecture? Are you also familiar with Professor Schulz’s field of research, arithmetic geometry?"
Hearing this, Annie playfully stuck out her tongue and shook her head candidly. "Nope, not at all. You could say I’m completely clueless about this field.
The only reason I’m here is purely because... well, it’s a rare opportunity to see the long-famous mathematical genius, Peter Schultz, in person."
’Fair enough.’
Chen Lin nodded silently to himself.
’Her mindset was pretty much the same as Shen Yan’s next to him.’
’He even had reason to suspect that at least half the people in the hall right now were here with that same star-struck mentality.’
Chen Lin was about to say something more, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure unhurriedly walking onto the stage.
He immediately sat up straight.
Beside him, both the focused Shen Yan and the still-excited Annie composed themselves at the same instant. They straightened up in unison, their gazes snapping to the stage.
Under the audience’s silent watch, Peter Schultz, with his flowing blond hair, walked to the lectern.
He didn’t start speaking right away. Instead, he walked to the side of the lectern and calmly adjusted the microphone’s height. He then said "test" into it softly twice, and after confirming the equipment was working, he returned to the center of the lectern and signaled for a staff member in the corner to turn on the projector.
As the projector screen lit up, a PowerPoint presentation with a simple title appeared before everyone.
𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
Schultz skipped any unnecessary opening remarks and dove straight into his topic.
The content of his lecture was largely the same as what he had written in his earlier email to Chen Lin, covering the latest developments in his research from the past two years.
However, compared to the somewhat scattered narrative of the email, the content in the presentation was far more detailed, with a more rigorous and clear logical structure.
However, for some in the audience, the content of the slides was practically indecipherable.
Things like "Motivic Geometrization of Local Langlands," "Theory of Berkovich Motives," "Wild Betti Sheaves," "Theory of Geometric Eisenstein Series on the Fargues–Fontaine Curve"...
These terms weren’t just incomprehensible to ordinary people; even professional researchers from other mathematical fields found them baffling and daunting.
But Schultz’s presentation style was completely different from the aloof, academic-god persona Chen Lin had imagined.
He seemed completely unconcerned with how many people in the audience could understand him. In fact, he actively encouraged them to raise their hands and interrupt his talk at any point if they had a question about something they didn’t understand.
This unexpected gesture instantly made the atmosphere in the hall far livelier than Chen Lin had anticipated.
’Chen Lin had been secretly worrying that if the whole thing fell flat with no one interacting with Schultz, the scene would be incredibly awkward. He even wondered if he would have to find a chance to stand up and break the silence.’
Now, it seemed his worries had been completely unnecessary.
To his surprise, there were actually quite a few people there who could understand the content of Schultz’s lecture.
Every so often, an audience member would raise their hand to engage in a brief and efficient academic exchange with Schultz.
What Chen Lin found even more admirable were several young people from Huaxia who clearly looked like students.
They clearly cherished this rare opportunity. Though their spoken English was halting, they mustered up the courage to use translation apps on their phones to express, word by word, the questions they had long been pondering.