Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: Proof Verified
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Third Floor Conference Room, Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
"I'll bring up the materials now."
At the gesture of the Korean Mathematical Society's coordinator, the camera lights for recording flicked on. Moments later, the large scanner hummed to life.
The wall screen recreated a panoramic view of the Gifted High School seminar room.
The blackboard's automaton and the walls plastered with A3 sheets filled the display. The image quality was so sharp that even the faint traces of erased chalk marks stood out clearly.
The era when professors gathered in lecture halls, scribbling theories on paper with pens, was long gone.
Now, every paper was digitized, and when needed, proof assistants and mathematical software could recreate virtual experiments.
Kronen scrolled down the slides and spoke.
"You've all reviewed the materials thoroughly, right?"
"We'll proceed by the book: notation interpretation, consistency and completeness verification, then counterexample search."
Walter Scott wrote the four steps in the center of the whiteboard.
Chloe began converting Seo-ha's proof into standard notation on the electronic board right beside it.
"This symbol can be replaced with boundary loops. The subscripts can be handled with color codes and mappings. The set {1,2,3,4} I'll substitute with a 2-bit alphabet (a,b)²."
Georg nodded.
"So, you're transforming the color patterns on the boundaries into words of variable length, and then the finite automaton A reads those words to determine expandability or not?"
"Insane. How did he even come up with this?"
Shimura raised his hand.
"But was there a specific reason the boundary rules had to be exactly thirty-two?"
"It's in the notes."
Chloe zoomed in on the scan. Seo-ha's handwriting appeared crystal clear.
"The equivalence classes of local boundary rules induced by the exception groups number thirty-two. It's minimized in Myhill-Nerode style."
Walter chuckled.
"He could've just written 'minimal DFA.' No need to go all the way to Myhill-Nerode. Cute."
Seo-ha, without a college education, showed significant differences from established mathematicians in his notation and derivations. The verification team found it both endearing and astonishing.
There were ideas there that even seasoned researchers wouldn't easily conceive.
The verification continued for a full month.
Dozens of mathematicians pored over Seo-ha's theory from every angle.
They scrutinized even the tiniest details for any holes in the proof, checking off the list one by one.
They decoded all the unfamiliar symbols and replaced them, confirming no errors in consistency or completeness.
The final step left was finding counterexamples.
Young researchers at the back of the conference room opened their laptops.
They automatically generated small planar graphs, extracted just the boundaries, and ran them through Seo-ha's automaton.
On the other side, they implemented Seo-ha's Four Color Theorem as an algorithm to test if coloring was actually possible.
Every time the two results matched without a single discrepancy, a green light flashed on the screen.
As the number of cases piled up, tension filled the room.
The researcher running the algorithm held his coffee cup but couldn't take a sip, his fingers trembling.
'Today's events will be talked about among mathematicians for years.'
The sense of witnessing history excited him.
"Matching up to ten faces."
"Fourteen faces, matching."
"No issues up to twenty faces."
Hundreds of thousands of samples were fed in to hunt for counterexamples, but no alarms sounded.
And at some point, everyone realized it.
This boy's automaton was complete.
From early morning, the Korea Advanced Institute of Mathematics buzzed with activity.
Black vans and broadcast relay trucks lined the road in front of the building. Reporters from various countries clustered in groups, fussing over camera angles.
Voices in English, Japanese, French, and German mixed in the air.
MBS reporter Shim Hyun-woo looked around in wonder.
"Isn't this just a math announcement? Did it really turn into this big a scoop?"
His senior reporter tsked pityingly at him.
"Do you think these people are here for math?"
"Huh? Then why?"
"Look at the foreign press. Even if a Korean won the Nobel, they wouldn't swarm like this."
Shim nodded. It seemed plausible to him too.
"So what's the real reason?"
"You're a long way from landing scoops yourself."
"Obviously, it's because a thirteen-year-old kid proved some theorem. Remember that Western kid, the thirteen-year-old chess grandmaster?"
"Ah! Magnus Carlsen? I know him! CNN, BBC—all the majors flocked to Norway back then."
"Exactly like that."
A stage began to be set up in the open lot by the main entrance.
Soon after, the scholars entered one by one.
"It's Eliya Kronen!"
"MIT's Walter Scott is here too."
"Professor Shimura! Look this way!"
With world-class mathematicians gathered, they made a striking picture just standing there.
Reporters in the front rows hurried to adjust their camera focuses.
Flashes popped nonstop, and reporters with laptops busied their hands.
"Ready?"
Kronen's whispered voice reached them; a Mathematical Society staffer nodded.
Kronen stepped forward to the podium.
His gray eyes swept the audience briefly. Dozens of cameras followed him, flashes bursting relentlessly.
He lightly adjusted the mic and began his announcement in a low voice.
"Over the past month, my colleagues and I have verified a new proof of the Four Color Theorem proposed in Korea."
He paused, gazing at the crowd.
Reporters held their breath, fingers flying over laptop keys.
"To cut to the chase:"
"We meticulously analyzed every step of the proof and conducted nearly a million automated verifications."
"As a result, we found no fatal errors that overturn the proof."
"We deem this proof sufficiently convincing and evaluate it as one of the great advances in the history of mathematics built by humanity."
Mathematicians never speak definitively.
They always add caveats like 'further verification needed' or 'still just a hypothesis.'
They know full well a single tiny crack can topple decades of painstaking work.
In that sense, calling it 'one of the great advances' was practically the highest praise allowed among mathematicians.
The press room erupted in murmurs.
Reporters shot up hands, shouting questions.
"Does that mean you're essentially accepting the proof?"
"Where's the student? Isn't he here today?"
"Did that boy really prove it alone? Were there any adult assistants?"
The last question halted Kronen as he turned to leave.
"Who are you?"
An East Asian man stepped forward, stating his affiliation.
"Sankei Shimbun's Abe Shintaro."
"Are we really supposed to believe a thirteen-year-old solved a problem mathematicians couldn't crack for over 150 years? Wasn't there adult intervention in the process?"
Kronen stared straight at the reporter. Silence hung briefly before he spat out, visibly annoyed:
"Do we look like fools to you?"
"Pardon?"
"A proof isn't judged just by whether the conclusion is 'right or wrong.'"
"How the logic unfolds, which definitions and lemmas are chosen, the notation style—all that leaves a unique signature of the researcher."
"In this paper, we saw the raw passion of youth unrefined, alongside leaps of fresh insight no one else conceived."
"Your question is an outrageous insult to mathematicians."
Everyone in the room listened in rapt silence.
"Are you really saying that boy did it alone?"
The reporter pressed. Kronen fired back with a question.
"Mister Reporter, did you go to college?"
Caught off guard, the man stammered.
"Y-Yes? Yes, I did."
"Then, what's the longest you've ever wrestled with a single problem?"
It was a simple question, but he couldn't answer easily.
"Uh..."
"Ten minutes? Thirty? At most an hour, I'd wager."
"Not because you're dim. Most people are like that."
"But Yoo Seo-ha pondered this for over seven years."
"If you don't grasp what that means, I won't explain further."
"Sometimes, the heavens shower all the starlight on one soul."
His final words were barely audible,
but the meaning landed clearly. Relief and pride spread across the faces of the Korean broadcasters listening.
"Ahem!"
The Sankei reporter slunk back, embarrassed.
A brief silence fell.
As Kronen stepped down, a Mathematical Society official hurriedly wrapped things up.
"This concludes today's press conference. Further updates will be announced through the Korean Mathematical Society."
Though math was distant from public interest, the starved broadcasters aired massive coverage for once.
[Fields Medal Just a Matter of Time? World Spotlights 13-Year-Old Korean Genius]
[Korea Births 'Mozart of Math,' Global Media in Frenzy]
[Rewrite the Textbooks? Shocking Proof by 13-Year-Old]
[Boy's 7-Year Struggle Topples 170-Year Math Puzzle]
That evening, one network scrapped its schedule for an emergency special.
Usually ignored math and science YouTubers rushed live streams, teaming up unplanned.
But someone beat them all: Woo-hyun, who'd been itching to brag about Seo-ha.
"Hey guys, before diving into Lecture 5 today, let me chat about something else real quick."
"That 'no way' is exactly it. I told you, right? There might be a once-in-a-century genius in Korea."
"I said mathematicians speak through achievements. This qualifies."
"Do I seem like the type to hype this for sales?"
"I first met Seo-ha in first grade elementary. Hit me right away: 'Whoa, this kid's the real deal!'"
"A seven-year-old tackling the Four Color Theorem."
"Sticking colored paper on a sketchbook, drawing graphs with crayons. Up close, it was advanced college-level stuff. How do you think I felt?"
"I was shocked too. Didn't know he was still going at it."
"He wouldn't talk till the proof was done. Too stoic! Even after, totally chill. Seo-ha knew he'd solve it eventually."
"Didn't teach him. Just sent books he needed to see. Way beyond my league from the start. Say I just pointed the direction."
"Hey idiots! Fields is every four years. This year's done. Fastest is four years out."
"Math world's ten times more conservative than you think. Even Kronen said: 'No fatal errors found.' That's it."
"Formal paper drops, bored mathematicians swarm for more verification. Two years of that, maybe then they acknowledge."
"Anyway, Seo-ha's world-class now."
"Kronen also said: 'One of humanity's great mathematical advances!' Man, I know the guy—he doesn't toss words like that lightly. Means Seo-ha blew him away."
"Bragging done. Back to class!"
Woo-hyun smirked faintly and picked up the chalk.
But today's stream had an unexpected side effect.
Elementary parents started flocking to the SAT instructor Woo-hyun.
All asking: 'My kid's super smart too—could he become like Yoo Seo-ha? Can you guide him?'