Chapter 46
Chapter 46
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: Proof Under Review
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Seo-ha was in a bind.
'What happened?'
Beep... Beep...
Machine beeps echoed around him.
Glancing sideways, he saw his mom sitting there. It was hard to tell if she was thrilled he'd woken up or furious with him.
"Oppa, you're awake!"
Seo-eun was gripping his hand, her eyes all puffy and swollen.
That was when it hit him.
'Ah! I really screwed up.'
He remembered finishing the proof crystal clear.
After that? Nothing.
Judging by the situation, he'd collapsed for sure.
The room around him was unfamiliarly spotless and spacious.
Polished wood-paneled walls gave off a luxurious vibe. There was even a small sofa and a bed for a guardian right by the patient bed.
'This room feels way too pricey...'
He turned his gaze, spotting Woo-hyun leaning against the doorframe.
'Ah, the teacher's here... Still, I gotta get outta here quick.'
As Seo-ha tried to sit up, Woo-hyun hurried over to stop him.
"Take a few days to rest. You're lucky there were no major issues—just eat well and sleep it off, and you'll be fine."
"Yes, sir..."
Seo-ha bowed his head, fully aware of the mess he'd made.
If everything had gone according to plan, he'd have wrapped up the proof on Sunday and erased every trace by Monday. But he hadn't.
He silently berated himself for setting such a ridiculously tight schedule. In the end, he'd worried a ton of people.
He endured a barrage of nagging over the next few days, but hospital life wasn't half bad.
When his classmates said they'd come visit, Seo-ha begged them not to. He wasn't seriously ill or anything—just dehydrated and passed out. He figured they were all overreacting.
He shared hospital meals with his little sister and snuck in snacks for evenings.
The two of them made up for lost time, playing games they'd missed out on and having a blast.
'No more headaches now? And my body's got plenty of strength.'
He was just about to bring up discharge when Woo-hyun showed up—with a scary expression unlike his usual self.
"Seo-ha."
"Yes?"
"You've been working on the Four Color Theorem since back then, haven't you?"
Even on the day they'd first met, Seo-ha's research had already been well advanced.
That meant at least seven years.
"Yes."
Woo-hyun was pissed.
Guilt washed over him for dragging a happily living kid down the path of math, mixed with self-loathing for failing to stop Seo-ha from obsessing over that problem for years.
Woo-hyun's serious look made Seo-ha's face stiffen too.
"Why'd you have to solve it no matter what?"
Seven years, for crying out loud.
Woo-hyun couldn't wrap his head around Seo-ha's fixation on the Four Color Theorem. It was already proven—did it really warrant that kind of obsession?
Seo-ha stared straight at Woo-hyun.
"Teacher."
"Yeah."
"I was planning to solve the Four Color Theorem even if it took my entire life."
That was Seo-ha for you.
Once he set a goal, he never backed down, no matter how reckless it seemed.
"So why?"
"Because if I couldn't solve it, I wouldn't accomplish anything anyway."
"What?"
The unexpected answer stirred a strange unease in Woo-hyun.
"Newton laid the foundations of calculus, optics, and universal gravitation by age twenty-three. Pascal proved the mystic hexagon theorem at sixteen and invented the calculator by nineteen.
Gauss proved the fundamental theorem of algebra by twenty. Galois founded group theory as a teenager, and Abel died at twenty-six—but every mathematician today still remembers his name."
Woo-hyun shook his head.
The eras were different.
No matter how he thought about it, Seo-ha's reasoning didn't hold water.
"You can't directly compare back then to now. Wiles solved Fermat's Last Theorem, but that doesn't make him greater than Euler."
Euler had tackled Fermat's Last Theorem too but never cracked it.
Not because he lacked the skill—it was a problem no one could solve until new mathematical theories emerged.
Woo-hyun took a steadying breath and met Seo-ha's eyes.
"Math's a marathon, not a sprint. Some problems go unsolved your whole life. That's because achievements always fit their era.
You were too reckless—clinging to the Four Color Theorem for seven years, and then trying to dash through it like a hundred-meter race in just a few days."
Deep down, Woo-hyun was concerned about Seo-ha's mathematical tendencies.
This wasn't the age for lone geniuses sitting at desks with paper and pen, shaking the world like in the past.
The top skill modern mathematicians needed was collaboration. Teams of dozens diving into a single problem from multiple angles—that was the norm now.
Otherwise, why would Eliya Kronen, hailed as humanity's greatest mind, bother forming a team?
But this kid had tackled a problem solo for years and pulled it off.
Would luck hold next time? Woo-hyun wasn't so sure.
"Sure, they all achieved things suited to their eras. That's exactly why I want to do something suited to mine."
Woo-hyun raised his voice in frustration.
"Why are you so damn stubborn! Tackling hard problems alone is for fools. Promise me you won't do it again. It's a waste of your precious time."
He could see it: Seo-ha's future, filled with monumental achievements.
But modern math was too intricate and specialized for anyone to conquer solo.
If he kept this up, that brilliant talent might fizzle out worthless.
"Teacher."
"I'm listening."
"What if I really am the genius you described—one of those once-in-a-century types?"
Seo-ha looked him dead in the eye.
"There's no way I'd fail at something like the Four Color Theorem, right?"
Woo-hyun was at a loss for words.
Arrogant as hell—but coming from Seo-ha, it somehow rang true.
That was how Seo-ha saw it.
This wasn't like unveiling the laws of the universe like Newton or laying math's foundations like Gauss. It was far simpler.
"The Four Color Theorem was my test to see if I qualify to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with history's greats. If I couldn't crack it, I'd drop my own high expectations.
Newton or Gauss definitely would've solved it."
"Th-then..."
Confusion flooded Woo-hyun's face.
"You're misunderstanding, Teacher.
I have zero intention of doing old-school solo math. I'll take all the help I need. If tech's required, I'll use it. If a team's needed, I'll collaborate."
"Huh?"
"Why waste effort doing everything alone? The only time you go solo is when it's the most efficient option."
Woo-hyun's face flushed red.
He was embarrassed by his earlier tirade.
"Forget everything I said today."
He swept a hand down his face.
"Yes, sir!"
Seo-ha grinned mischievously. Feeling awkwardly sheepish, Woo-hyun quickly changed the subject.
"Oh! The Korean Mathematical Society's going to verify your proof. No interest in helping out? Explaining it yourself would speed things up a ton."
Solving a major problem required multiple verification rounds. This one was the first pass to weed out obvious nonsense.
Woo-hyun thought it was a solid idea, but Seo-ha seemed lukewarm.
"They're verifying it? I don't think that's necessary..."
"Huh? Why not?"
"I know I solved it perfectly. I wrote down every single step. If they have doubts, isn't clearing them up their job?"
His face was utterly innocent, but it grated all the same.
Woo-hyun stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
Thud, thud...
Once he felt far enough away from Seo-ha, the laughter he'd been holding back burst out.
"Hahaha!"
It was a hollow, exasperated laugh.
Seo-ha harbored zero doubts about his proof—not a shred.
A typical researcher would've been fretting over acceptance, but the kid treated verification like someone else's problem, utterly detached.
Academic validation probably meant little to him, either.
Like how Newton completed calculus but sat on it for over thirty years without publishing.
"Us mere mortals can't comprehend it."
Woo-hyun shook his head with a mutter.
Korean Mathematical Society conference room.
The professors tasked with the primary verification were wrapping up the minutes.
"That was unexpected. The logic was way more solid than I thought."
One professor spoke in admiration.
"I was debating if we even needed to take a thirteen-year-old's work seriously, but I'm glad we did."
They'd started out skeptical.
A high school kid's new proof for the Four Color Theorem? Come on.
They'd expected a mountain of simple errors and sloppy developments.
But they'd been dead wrong.
The logical flow was astonishingly tight, and the symbols defined with new concepts midway wove in as naturally as if they'd been part of an ancient system all along.
Gaps or leaps that any mathematician would spot? Hardly any.
They marveled even as bewilderment set in.
The web of logic spanned combinatorics, graph theory, computability—impossible to judge by one field's standards alone.
At some point, the professors just exchanged glances and shook their heads.
"We can't issue a final verdict at our level."
Someone finally spoke up.
Skilled researchers though they were, not one could fully grasp Seo-ha's proof enough to declare it right or wrong outright.
It was just too vast and unfamiliar.
"Good. Let's fire off the email right away. We'll need to request cooperation from overseas societies too. Since it spans multiple theories, we'll need field-specific experts."
Click.
The email spread like wildfire to mathematicians around the globe.
2:00 a.m. Eastern Time, United States.
Eliya Kronen powered on his laptop in a darkened lab.
"Four Color Theorem?"
He hadn't paid it much mind in ages. It was essentially proven—no reason to revisit.
"New approach? And no computers involved?"
It left a bad taste. He'd love to overturn the whole thing if he could.
But he had too much on his plate.
Click.
He opened the email and slowly scrolled through the attached summary.
'Automata theory for local rule reduction, boundary encoding?'
His eyebrow twitched.
With his uncanny mathematical intuition, Kronen could visualize how the proof unfolded in his mind.
After a long think, he stroked his chin.
"This might actually work."
Eliya swiveled his chair to eye the world map on the wall.
Late as it was, his heart began to race inexplicably.
He opened his email client and started typing a reply.
A few days later, emails bearing Kronen's name flew to luminaries worldwide.
MIT's combinatorics authority. A topologist from France's ENS. Tokyo University's computability theorist. Bonn University's graph theory expert.
And dozens of other eager researchers...
Upon seeing his name, they all nodded solemnly.
No one could brush off a request from him.