Chapter 287: Chapter 118: Inspiration as Wonderful as a Volcano_5

No matter how Qiao Yu answered, he planned to have a good talk with this little guy to make him realize the seriousness of academic research.

Not working on your own proposed topic, and running off to nitpick when others publish important results—even if you’re young and uninformed, this behavior, if not corrected, would make you an enemy of the mathematics community in the future.

After all, people grow up, but habits may remain.

Although he decided to aid a bad habit this time, it was necessary to criticize sternly and at least make sure it didn’t happen again.

But who knew Qiao Yu would immediately reply: “Director Tian, it’s not like I suddenly became interested in the Geometric Langlands Conjecture. In fact, I’ve always been working on the topic you assigned to me, but during my research, I happened to come across this conclusion while looking up some things.

Then I found out that the Geometric Langlands Conjecture was actually helpful for my research on random prime models, so I started researching this series of papers with a learning attitude. And then I felt that there might be some imperfections in the papers.”

Tian Yanzhen frowned, this answer seemed to block the reprimand he had prepared.

So he instinctively put down the pen in his hand, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Come, explain in detail how you discovered that their conclusion was helpful for your topic. Make sure to describe your thought process completely.”

Actually, from the moment Tian Yanzhen asked that question, the words Yu Wei had said to Qiao Yu flashed through his mind.

“…When lying, you must be calm and composed, without any hesitation or giving away any flaws…” Well, actually, he did have some skill in this area, but not as concise as Yu Wei’s summary.

Truth be told, Qiao Yu didn’t want to deceive Tian Yanzhen. But he had no choice. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had a living father abroad.

Yes, even if that living father shamelessly wanted to acknowledge him in the future, he would absolutely never admit it.

So Qiao Yu replied calmly: “Because I wanted to take a different approach. Initially, I wanted to analyze primes using modular forms, and then I discovered that the Geometric Langlands Conjecture could provide a geometric perspective for understanding modular forms. I thought perhaps I could understand the distribution of primes through the geometric properties of modular forms.

Then I searched for the contents of the Geometric Langlands Conjecture and just happened to find that paper. After roughly reading through it, I found that in the limit of large numbers, the geometric structures and tools of representation theory they introduced could also be used to study statistical properties.

I also felt that the spectral theory of those geometric objects might have similar statistical characteristics with the distribution of primes, and you know what happened—I started studying their papers. But after reading them, something didn’t seem quite right. It’s rather complicated, you understand, don’t you?”

Tian Yanzhen stared at Qiao Yu for a long time. Indeed, he felt that this little guy didn’t seem to be lying, but this connection… to be honest, Tian Yanzhen thought it was a bit far-fetched, but not entirely impossible.

After all, research into the whole Langlands framework, including the Geometric Langlands Conjecture, is essentially aimed at providing a series of theoretical tools for mathematical research.

From Qiao Yu’s previous paper, it could be seen that his thinking was indeed broad, and he was very adept at using tools constructed by others to solve the problems he encountered, and even able to create more useful tools in the process.

Alright, it seemed he couldn’t reprimand him.

Because according to what this kid said, he was actually working on the topic assigned to him all along, but just wanted to borrow some of the tools others had developed, and during this process, discovered some flaws in their tools, and thus raised questions.

This reasoning made sense logically, but still felt quite strange.

After all, when studying random prime models, it’s generally difficult for someone’s thinking to suddenly veer towards the Geometric Langlands Conjecture. But this kind of veering… Tian Yanzhen felt it shouldn’t be criticized, but rather supported.

After all, what if it really worked and was highly effective?

One must know that if Qiao Yu truly could use this method to research an ideal random prime model, it would be another major breakthrough for the field of mathematics.

For example, not only would it comply with the Prime Number Theorem but also capture prime gaps, provide error margins, and stay consistent with important functions in number theory—considering phenomena like conjugate primes and prime pairing, coupled with exceptional adaptability…

The usefulness would be tremendous. It would not only promote the development of number theory but also play an important role in applications.

For instance, in popular fields like deep learning and machine learning, the properties of random primes could not only optimize algorithms, model parameter selection, and feature selection, but could also play roles in random weight initialization and generative adversarial networks.

So the criticisms he had prepared were forcibly suppressed, and when he spoke again, they turned into praise: “Your idea is good, math research is exactly like this, it indeed requires more expansive thinking.”

“Thank you, Director Tian, well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave first.”

“Hmm, go ahead. Rest well today, the seminar starts next Monday at the Huaqing Mathematics Research Center, make sure to prepare.”

“Alright, don’t worry.” Saying this, Qiao Yu walked out of the office with his chin up.

Tian Yanzhen smiled, then picked up the pen again, just about to continue writing his thoughts when he suddenly felt something wasn’t quite right…

When assigning the random prime distribution topic to this kid, Qiao Yu was rather reluctant, originally wanting to rest well during the training camp, even begged him with a bunch of messy requests to avoid tasks like reading assignments and research reports each week.