Chapter 308 - 277: In Need of an Anchor
Just then, the lights on the stage dimmed.
The hubbub in the lecture hall instantly fell silent.
Professor Wiles walked out slowly from the side of the stage.
He was wearing a dark gray suit with a white shirt underneath.
His hair was almost entirely white, and his frame was thin.
But the moment he stood before the wooden lectern,
more than two thousand pairs of eyes in the entire Centennial Hall followed his every move.
He had no script and no PowerPoint.
He simply picked up the glass of water on the lectern.
He took a small sip.
Then he smiled.
"It’s a pleasure to be back at Yan University."
"The last time I stood here was in 2005."
"Some of the students sitting in the audience back then have now become my colleagues."
A wave of laughter went through the audience.
Wiles smiled as well.
Then he put down his glass and began to speak about how he had started down the path of mathematics.
He began with his childhood in Oxford, describing the first time he saw the page about Fermat’s Last Theorem in a library.
He wasn’t talking about math.
He talked about how a ten-year-old boy had read that footnote in the margin of an old book.
He talked about how he later went to university, got his Ph.D., went to Princeton, and opened that book once again.
He talked about how he spent seven years shut away in his attic.
𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
He talked about the joy he felt when he first thought he had proven the theorem.
He talked about the despair he felt the next day when he discovered a hole in his proof.
...
Li Dong sat in the front row, listening intently.
He had originally thought Professor Wiles would talk about mathematical concepts.
But he didn’t.
He spent the entire time talking about himself.
Not a single formula.
He didn’t even...
mention the technical details of Fermat’s Last Theorem once.
Yet with every sentence he spoke, the more than two thousand pairs of eyes in the audience grew a little brighter.
Something clicked in Li Dong’s mind.
’Is this how top scholars give these major lectures?’
He suddenly recalled something Wang Hao had once told him.
"Brother Dong, when you explain problems, you’re not relatable at all."
Li Dong hadn’t taken it seriously at the time.
But now, listening to Professor Wiles, he was suddenly beginning to understand.
This old gentleman wasn’t teaching the students mathematics.
He was telling them how an ordinary person finds their way to the world of mathematics.
The power of this lecture wasn’t in its depth.
It was in its direction.
Li Dong mentally filed this lecture away.
He even started to think...
’Maybe I should try giving Haozi a lecture like this when I get back?’
Wang Hao, who was squeezed under a ginkgo tree outside Sunshine Hall, currently standing on his tiptoes and peeking inside: ???
...
The great curtain fell.
The lecture was over.
Li Dong moved slowly toward the exit with the crowd.
The departing crowd was still murmuring in low voices.
"Professor Wiles is such a great speaker."
"He didn’t write a single formula."
"I was worried I wouldn’t understand."
"See? People from Princeton don’t try to sound overly profound when they talk."
"When you reach his level of prestige, you don’t need to beat around the bush anymore."
"When Teacher Zhang from our school gives a lecture on Algebraic Topology, he puts us to sleep."
"Is this what you call a gap in quality?"
Most of this chatter came from the undergraduate and graduate students from other universities.
There was something in these comments that the speakers themselves didn’t realize.
From a technical standpoint, what Wiles talked about today wasn’t "specialized knowledge" to begin with.
He was talking about direction, about spirit; he was a man who had dedicated his life to scholarship, turning back to tell the younger generation, "This path isn’t as scary as you think."
That kind of thing was meant to be understandable.
As for finding regular specialized courses abstruse and difficult, that was also normal.
Specialized courses were just like that by nature.
Hartshorne, Bourbaki, Lang—opening any of them was like facing a wall.
They didn’t get any shorter just because someone was a good speaker.
...
But the people in the chattering crowd wouldn’t consider this layer of nuance.
They just thought...
"Why is it that a public lecture from a Princeton professor is so pleasant to listen to?"
"And why is it that when our own school’s teachers give a specialized lecture, they talk in circles until our heads spin?"
At this point, other voices joined in on the topic.
"Look at the people in our country who work on gauge theory or geometry... check their résumés. PhDs from Princeton, two-year stints at the IAS, postdocs under some Princeton professor—you can find them a dime a dozen."
"But what about the other way around?"
"Have you ever heard of Princeton inviting any of our domestic scholars to give a public lecture?"
"I certainly haven’t."
"We send a lot of people over, but few are invited back."
The words weren’t particularly harsh, but they carried an indescribable undertone.
As Li Dong shuffled along, he overheard this exchange.
He didn’t join the conversation.
He just kept his head down and walked slowly toward the exit on his own.
When he reached the side door of Sunshine Hall, Liu Ruochuan hurried out from inside and waved at him.
"Kid."
"Professor Wiles is looking for you."
Li Dong nodded and followed Liu Ruochuan toward the side of the stage.
...
The backstage lounge wasn’t large.
Wiles was sitting on the sofa. Having shed the commanding presence he had on stage, he seemed to have shrunk, looking like an ordinary old man.
Tian Gang and Liu Ruochuan sat across from him.
Li Dong entered the room and nodded to each of the professors.
He sat down in the chair next to Tian Gang.
Wiles looked up.
He looked at Li Dong and got straight to the point.
"Li Dong."
"I would like to invite you to Princeton."
"To give an academic talk at the Institute for Advanced Study."
"Additionally, I hope you will give a public lecture for the students at Princeton."
When these words came out, the corners of both Tian Gang’s and Liu Ruochuan’s eyes twitched slightly.