A Flood of Scholarly Inquiries
On the evening the special documentary aired.
Our family sat side by side on the sofa, watching TV together in cozy harmony.
On the screen, a cute version of me stepped up to the lecture hall podium, looking absolutely magnificent.
"Hewwo! I'm Yoo A-yeon!"
A-rin jumped up from the sofa and pointed her index finger at the screen.
"It's Sis! Sis is on TV!"
"Sit down, sit down."
Mom smiled and gently pulled A-rin back down onto the sofa.
Dad stroked my hair as he watched.
"Hehehe."
I swung my feet back and forth, watching my on-screen self.
Soon, the segment focusing closely on Yoo A-yeon's daily life began.
After a while of showing only me, A-rin's back appeared on screen, prompting her to leap up again.
"That's me! My back is on TV!"
"So it is. A-rin made it onto TV too."
"Ehehe!"
Then came Mom's interview scene.
"Mom, you look super pretty!"
"Hehe, thank you."
Pat, pat.
Mom demonstrated a masterclass technique of patting both of our heads at the same time.
Dad chuckled softly beside her.
Finally, Professor Park Mu-yeol's interview played, and the broadcast came to an end.
Dad got up first and opened the refrigerator.
"Today is a family celebration party."
Dad pulled out a cake box.
And it wasn't just a slice, but a whole cake...!
"Whoa...! It's a super-duper big cake!"
"Yay! Dad is the best!"
A-rin cheered, throwing her arms up in excitement.
Our family gathered around the dining table, happily munching away on the cake.
Sometime later.
Clips from the Yoo A-yeon special documentary began to spread on Meetube.
The scene of me lecturing in front of the professors, the scene of me reading journals with Mom, the scene showing off my IQ, and so on.
The comments were filled with reactions like "Amazing," "A real genius," "So cute," and "The mother is incredible too."
I borrowed Mom's laptop to read the comments on the videos.
"Hehehe."
I felt great being showered with so much praise.
Mom smiled as she watched alongside me.
"A-yeon, are you happy to get so many compliments?"
"Yes!"
As I read through them, a thought slowly began to form in my mind.
Compliments from the general public like "cute" or "smart" were certainly nice.
But I want to be praised for more specific things...!
Hup!
I stretched my arms high into the air and clenched my tiny fists.
I wanted to hear from actual scholars about exactly what made the paper I worked so hard to write so brilliant.
By now, universities around the world were probably busy conducting informal verifications of my paper, holding seminars and the like.
"I wonder if they'll give me feedback soon. Hehehehe..."
Anticipating the scholars' feedback, I grinned and swung my legs back and forth.
Not long after Yoo A-yeon held her special lecture.
And the special documentary was released to the world.
The academic community plunged into informal verification of the paper.
Although the Riemann Hypothesis seemed on the surface to be a number theory problem dealing with prime numbers, looking under the hood revealed a conundrum where multiple fields were tangled together.
Analytic number theory groups, automorphic forms groups, operator theory groups, spectral geometry groups, mathematical physics groups, and so on.
Mathematicians in each field began to slowly verify the sections corresponding to their specialties through seminars.
• Analytic Number Theory: Studies prime numbers, L-functions, and the zeta function.
• Automorphic Forms: Studies special functions possessing specific symmetries.
• Operator Theory: Studies operators on Hilbert spaces.
• Spectral Geometry: Studies the relationship between the geometric structure of a space and the eigenvalues of operators on it.
• Mathematical Physics: Studies the mathematical structures of physics, such as random matrix theory and quantum chaotic systems. Surprisingly, it is deeply connected to the Riemann Hypothesis.
The Analytic Number Theory Lab at Princeton's Department of Mathematics.
A professor printed out the paper and spread it across the seminar table.
Five graduate students sat around it.
"Today, we're going to verify Section 3. The part proving the self-adjointness of operator H in the Hilbert-Pólya approach. Take turns reading and mark any parts where you get stuck."
The graduate students began reading the paper on the table with intense focus.
About ten minutes passed.
A PhD student raised their hand.
"Professor, regarding the boundary conditions of the operator on page 37. I don't understand the justification for setting the conditions this way."
The professor flipped to the page and read down it for a moment.
"I read this part twice myself. First, tell me your interpretation."
"Well... I think they fixed the boundary conditions to allow for a self-adjoint extension, specifically to prevent the spectrum from spreading continuously."
The PhD student explained.
The professor nodded, then paused.
"I agree with that part. However, in the subsequent development, I'm still not convinced why this condition becomes a sufficient condition."
The seminar room fell silent.
Everyone stared down at the same page.
The Department of Mathematics at Cambridge.
A seminar of automorphic forms researchers was underway.
Five researchers were reviewing specific parts of the paper they had divided among themselves.
"This part... the connection to the functional equation. The logical structure itself is followable, but..."
Flip.
One researcher said, turning a page.
"There's a part in the middle that uses this estimation. It's unclear whether this is an already known result or a new proof introduced in this paper. The source isn't specified."
"Isn't it in the footnotes?"
"I looked, but it's not there."
"Then shouldn't we ask the author?"
"Is there an email address in the paper?"
Flip.
Someone flipped back to the cover page of the paper.
The email address of the second author, Han Seol-ae, was listed there.
"Here it is. They said the second author, Seol-ae Han, is the mother of the first author, A-yeon Yoo, right? If we send it here, A-yeon Yoo will probably read it too."
ETH Zurich.
A professor specializing in operator theory was reading the paper alone in his office.
Flip.
It was already his third time.
He got stuck at the exact same spot every time.
The claim that the spectrum of operator H corresponds to the zeros of the zeta function.
The method the paper chose to show that this correspondence was not just a simple formal similarity.
"The expansion of this trace formula..."
The professor muttered.
"It's correct, but... why choose this direction here? It's not very intuitive."
The professor sent a message to a colleague abroad.
"Hmm..."
The professor opened his laptop and typed in the email address written on the paper.
"Seol-ae... Han..."
The Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS) at Kyoto University.
The weekly seminar for spectral geometry.
Tack, tack, tack.
The professor explained as he copied the equations from the paper onto the blackboard.
The graduate students took notes rapidly.
"Well? Does everyone understand up to this point?"
The graduate students nodded.
"Then the next part. The section showing whether the spectral terms truly correspond exactly to the zeros of the zeta function..."
The professor tapped the blackboard.
A graduate student raised their hand.
"Professor, is it certain that the operator actually has a discrete spectrum under this condition? It's hard to grasp."
The professor checked that part again and tilted his head.
"Hmm... I'm not entirely sure either."
The professor said, walking back to his desk.
"I'll send an email to the author. It's faster to ask directly in cases like this."
And so.
Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, École Normale Supérieure, ETH Zurich, Bonn, Kyoto University, Tokyo University, Seoul National University, KAIST, and more...
Inquiry emails began flooding into Han Seol-ae's account from research institutions all over the world.
The contents of the questions varied, but they all had one thing in common.
They wanted to properly understand the author's intent!
If the logic was correct, why was it correct?
What was the reason for choosing this direction?
They wanted to hear it directly from the author.
Unread emails piled up in the inbox at a terrifying speed every single day.
"Heeeeeek...! There are way too manyyyy..."
Boing!
One day, I happened to open Mom's inbox and jumped back in surprise, looking like a cat that had just spotted a cucumber.
Far more emails had accumulated than during the reporter's passionate interview requests from before.
"It seems broadcasting A-yeon's lecture to the whole world had a huge effect."
Click. Click.
Mom said, sorting through the emails one by one.
"A-yeon, what do you want to do?"
"Of course we have to reply to all of them..."
But there was a problem: my tiny fingers weren't fully developed yet, so my typing speed was painfully slow.
"Should Mom help you?"
"Nuh-uh."
Shake, shake.
I shook my head.
"Mom, you've been super tired lately. Helping me prepare for the lecture, filming the documentary..."
Indeed, Mom had deep dark circles under her eyes lately. I felt too guilty to ask her to work even harder...
"But you've been just as busy lately, A-yeon."
"No, no! If I take a little night-night, my energy is fully charged! Yoo A-yeon is totally full of beans! But you aren't, Mom... so I want you to get some good rest..."
As a good little child of the new generation, I was an honorary citizen of Dreamland, sleeping over eleven hours a day.
So once I woke up from my night-night, my battery was charged to a full 100 percent.
But for an adult like Mom, energy recovery was slow even after sleeping.
That was why, now that all the major schedules were over, I wanted her to relax and rest without any worries.
"Still... it feels wrong for Mom to just rest while you're working so hard."
Mom wore a guilty expression.
"Mom, you're tired, right? I'll give you a scalp massage!"
Heave-ho.
I stood up on the sofa and waddled over to Mom's side.
Yoo A-yeon's secret technique: Scalp Kneading!
Squeeze, squeeze.
I worked hard, massaging Mom's scalp with my tiny hands.
"Hehe, what a dutiful daughter. Thank you for the massage."
Receiving my massage, Mom's eyes slowly drifted shut.
Thump, thump, thump.
I also lightly pounded Mom's shoulders with my tiny fists.
Mom looked peaceful, seemingly enjoying my clumsy massage.
"Phew..."
Soon, Mom's breathing began to slow down.
Soft, rhythmic breathing.
Mom had finally fallen asleep.
"Yes!"
I clenched my fist and cheered silently. Below thirty decibels, of course.
Tiptoe, tiptoe.
I tiptoed quietly, gently draping a blanket adorned with cute animals over Mom as she slept on the sofa.
Then, I pulled up the laptop Mom had been looking at just moments ago and opened the emails.
"Now, how should I reply to these..."
Clack, clack, clack.
I slowly began to type with my adorable little fingers.