Chapter 448: Divinity Never Fades
The entire conference process was arranged very loosely.
Considering that Lin Ran had to intersperse negotiations with the Chinese side midway.
Four years ago, at the Mathematician Conference held in Moscow, America only sent a few representatives, and the Chinese side similarly only sent a few representatives.
But this time, at the Mathematician Conference held in France, both countries sent a large number of mathematicians to participate.
Among them, the Chinese mathematicians were divided into two factions: those who went to Area 51 were one faction, led by Hua Luogeng and Su Buqing; those who stayed at the Mathematics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yanjing were the other faction, led by Wu Wenjun.
Wu Wenjun was Shiing-Shen Chern’s student before 1949.
This kind of classification was somewhat like exoteric and esoteric sects.
This time, almost all of Wu Wenjun and these mathematicians came.
Including the former director of the Mathematics Institute of Academia Sinica, Jiang Lifu.
Jiang Lifu could also be considered Shiing-Shen Chern’s teacher, although not in the direct mentor relationship, just a teacher from whom he had taken classes, with some teacher-student affinity.
Jiang Lifu’s son entered Area 51 through an examination without finishing university and became a member of the esoteric sect, while he, due to his identity, continued to stay in Yanjing to teach.
Chinese mathematicians also seized every gap to chat.
First was Shiing-Shen Chern, who came to Lin Ran’s side and exchanged pleasantries, mentioning the problem he was recently working on, hoping for an opportunity to cooperate with Lin Ran.
Then Wu Wenjun, who expressed thanks and invited him to attend the bilateral Mathematician Conference to be held in China.
Lin Ran thought to himself, still too naive; if I could attend, would I not come?
Then Jiang Lifu came to express thanks, and Lin Ran didn’t know what he was thanking for.
Listening carefully, he realized that back then Shiing-Shen Chern had asked him to sign on New Progress in Mathematics, and that magazine had crossed the ocean to Jiang Lifu’s hands, whom he used to motivate his son Jiang Boju.
Jiang Lifu, as a father, thanked Lin Ran for giving his son spiritual encouragement.
This International Congress of Mathematicians was also a grand event for Chinese mathematicians.
Everyone could engage in sufficient exchange at this grand event.
When many, though in different countries, communicated in Chinese language, they gained a new understanding of the Cultural China concept mentioned by Lin Ran.
In France, Americans and Chinese people exchanging mathematics in Chinese language, using similar allusions, made the cultural bond never so clear before.
On the third day of the conference, in the auditorium of the conference center in Nice, committee chairman Jean Leray stood on the podium and announced the next speaker: “Next, please welcome Professor Gian-Carlo Rota from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the topic of prospects in matroid theory.”
This name felt familiar to Lin Ran.
Rota?
Was it the Rota Conjecture?
Rota, an Italian-descended American mathematician, walked to the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began: “Matroids as abstractions of linear independence have come from Hassler Whitney’s work, but today, I want to propose a bold conjecture, a unified framework for representability over finite fields.”
In the audience, Lin Ran sat in the first row, notebook open, vaguely feeling that what the other was talking about was the Rota Conjecture.
Rota continued: “Consider a finite field F_q, where q is a prime power.
If matroid M is representable as a linearly independent set in a vector space over F_q, we say it is F_q-representable.
Whitney’s theorem tells us that for the real or complex field, representable matroids are characterized by finite forbidden minors.
But for finite fields? I conjecture: For every finite field F_q, there exist finitely many forbidden minors such that a matroid is F_q-representable if and only if it does not contain these as minors.”
Discussion arose among the mathematicians in the auditorium.
Rota drew examples with chalk: For GF(2), known forbidden minors include uniform matroids and certain binary affine geometries; for GF(3), forbidden minors are more complex.
He explained: “This is similar to Kuratowski’s theorem in graph theory, but generalized to matrix realizations of matroids.
Proving this conjecture will unify the representation theory of matroids, providing finite obstacles to determine whether a matroid can embed in a vector space over a finite field.”
By the time Rota said this, Lin Ran could confirm that this was the Rota Conjecture.
The Rota Conjecture remained unsolved up to the time point when he came, that is, 2025.
During the Q&A after Rota’s report ended, not many hands were raised in the audience, and in the first row, only Lin Ran raised his hand.
Leray immediately said: “Professor, please go ahead.”
Lin Ran stood up and asked: “Professor Rota, your conjecture is fascinating.
I notice that for finite fields of characteristic 2, we might partially verify it.
Suppose we consider binary matroids, which correspond to representations over GF(2).
Known forbidden minors include the Fano plane, the dual of PG(2,2), and certain non-Fano configurations.
But if we restrict to matroids of rank r ≤ 4, I believe we can prove finite forbidden minors exist.
May I come up to demonstrate?”
Rota’s eyes lit up: “Of course, please come up, professor.”
This was like you being a nobody, and a big shot suddenly taking interest in your report.
You would naturally be overjoyed.
Rota was not a nobody, but Lin Ran was not an ordinary big shot either.
Lin Ran went on stage, borrowed the blackboard, and began his explanation.
He first erased some notes and drew a matrix representation of a rank-3 binary matroid: a 3xn GF(2) matrix with linearly independent columns.
“Let’s start from the basics. The bases of matroid M are its maximal independent sets. For GF(2)-representable M, the columns of its representation matrix satisfy: linear dependence of any subset corresponds to circuits of the matroid.”
Everyone on site realized that Lin Ran was about to start his performance.
Lin Ran continued writing: “Suppose M avoids known forbidden minors: the 7-point matroid, its dual, and the 5-point rank-3 uniform matroid.
For r ≤ 3, we classify using Whitney’s matroid breaking theory: all such M must be graphic matroids or their complements, or subclasses of binary affine geometry AG(3,2).
Now, extend to r=4: Consider the Tutte polynomial T(M;x,y), a bivariate polynomial encoding the independent sets and circuits of M.
T(M;1,1) gives the number of bases”
When Lin Ran finished, he wiped off the chalk dust: “This provides a partial proof for the low-rank case over GF(2).
If extended to higher-order fields, perhaps Schauder-Leray topology tools are needed.
Professor Rota, your conjecture is very interesting.
In haste, I can only give a complete proof for a specific case.”
Rota was already immersed in Lin Ran’s solution and unable to extricate himself; the reaction from the audience was even more surging like tides.
From front to back, Grothendieck led the way in standing up to applaud.
“Is this the Göttingen miracle reappearing?”
“Rota was completely stunned.”
“I just want to ask, is the professor married? I want to marry my daughter to him! Or not marry her to him, just have them nurture a next generation together!”
Discussion buzzed in the audience.
This was for mathematicians who couldn’t understand Lin Ran’s solution in the short term; if not in this field, they definitely wouldn’t understand so quickly.
The big shots were discussing Lin Ran’s solution itself.
Lev Pontryagin discussed softly with the mathematician beside him: “The professor’s induction is too ingenious; he bridges representation theory and combinatorics with the Tutte polynomial—this is genius! Jumping directly from Whitney’s 2-isomorphisms to Tutte’s decomposition, filling the low-rank gap—is this the flash of genius?”
Pontryagin was the first Soviet mathematician to win the Fields Medal, which he received this year.
Grothendieck shook his head helplessly: “This guy, everyone says mathematicians rely on flashes of genius, but why do I feel his flashes never stop.”
Jiang Lifu, attending such an occasion for the first time, discussed softly with his student Shiing-Shen Chern: “Shing-Shen, I’m not doubting, I’m just curious—is the professor really that miraculous?”
He further lowered his voice: “Could this be packaged? Did the professor know the problem in advance, think of the answer, and then perform at this conference?”
Jiang Lifu even suspected that the answer wasn’t thought up by Lin Ran, but an operation by America to package a mathematical god.
Shiing-Shen Chern smiled wryly: “I wish it were so, but unfortunately not.
The professor really is that miraculous; his intuition in mathematics, I believe, is no less than Gauss’s. If you had seen him prove the Twin Prime Conjecture on site in Göttingen, you would know that what he said in the interview is true—mathematics is like breathing to him.
This is just another verification of his words.”
When Lin Ran returned to his seat, applause rang out again.
Jean Leray sighed: “Professor, your on-site proof has added some legendary color to this Mathematician Conference, making it not so lackluster.”
The next morning, at the newsstands in Nice, local French newspapers and international media headlines had begun capturing this unexpected academic storm.
Although the mathematics community doesn’t attract public attention like the political circle, that depends on who it is and whether the event itself has drama.
Lin Ran’s on-site breakthrough, due to Lin Ran himself, its drama, and potential influence, quickly became a hot topic.
Le Monde’s headline: “Another Professor Moment at Nice Conference: Breakthrough in Matroid Theory Shakes Mathematics Community”
The New York Times’s headline from America: “From Göttingen to Nice: Professor’s Divinity Never Fades”
America loves to deify the most.
As for what Jean Leray said about this Mathematician Conference being lackluster.
Lackluster?
How could it be.
This Mathematician Conference had negotiations between China and America—how could it be lackluster.
Just this negotiation alone could fill this Mathematician Conference with legendary color, okay?
According to Lin Ran’s request, they were arranged in villas around Nice, with Lin Ran and the Chinese representative each in one.
But the two villas were separated by a certain distance, ensuring both sides had sufficient privacy.
Lin Ran’s meaning was that this would be a long negotiation.
Starting from the fourth day of the Mathematician Conference, the negotiations began.
Negotiations, attending the Mathematician Conference, and returning to the 2020 spacetime to prepare for the Cyber God of 1960—these three things were interspersed.
Lin Ran stood to greet, but the Chinese representative waved his hand signaling him to sit.
“Professor, no need to stand on ceremony; this isn’t our first meeting, though it’s been many years since we last met—that was in Geneva, and now we’re in Nice.
Nice’s night breeze is nice, reminding one of the Yangtze River’s waves.
I heard you were born in Berlin, went to America after the war, and likely never set foot on Chinese soil in this life, yet have such feelings for Chinese culture—it shows your family background is deep-rooted, not an ordinary family.”
In that era, those who could go to Berlin were mostly not ordinary people.
At worst, they went to Berlin to fill the front lines during World War I—that was elite soldiers; to stay, one needed some connections.
“A mathematician, yet embroiled in politics—the world never develops as we expect.”
Lin Ran always felt he could hear the subtext: were you hinting at High Castle anomalies, hinting at the Raspberry Pi I gave you?
In Lin Ran’s villa, he was alone, with security personnel on duty outside.
So this conversation was only between him and the Chinese representative.
But that didn’t mean he could say anything casually.
No one knew if there were recording devices here.
Both sides were very cautious.
“Yes, after World War II ended, people thought peace was coming, but what arrived was the Cold War.
The Cold War caused heavy losses to all countries.
No one knows whether peace or war will come first.
Whether the Cold War can stay cold forever, or eventually the temperature will rise one day.
But we hope to make the greatest effort to strive for peace.
The shadow of the Soviet Union looms over the East.
The normalization of our relations should not be just geopolitical games, but mutual appreciation between two civilizations.
Think about it: the harmony path of Chinese civilization and the freedom spirit of America—if fused, will bring true multipolar balance to the world.”
Lin Ran quickly got to the main topic.
“In America, I’ve seen racial divides, immigrant struggles, and fought for the due rights and equality for Chinese people!
We Chinese, surviving in the cracks, always harbor dreams of revival.
President Nixon’s proposal is pragmatic, because he understands: a strong China is not a threat, but an anchor of stability.
If we can transcend ideology, jointly face global challenges—peace under nuclear shadow, development amid poverty—that will be our Chinese people’s pride.”
Actually, Lin Ran was already hinting here.
Nixon could accept a strong China.
If another president came, it might not be the case.
“Professor, your affection for your homeland moves me.
We Chinese people, wherever we are, are of one lineage.
Negotiation is not a zero-sum game, but finding a common solution.
The Cold War’s division split the world into two sides; we need to mend it, allowing different camps to interact—China is willing to be this pioneer.
Tell Nixon: we are willing to dialogue, but the premise is respect—respect for our sovereignty, respect for Asian nations’ self-determination.
In the future, if both sides can join hands, it will not just end the tragedy of the Vietnam War, but open a new era, an era where Chinese people can take pride.”
Of course, this couldn’t be negotiated in one go.
This was the main axis of the negotiation, which would take a full month.
Negotiate during the day, talk slowly—there’s much to discuss.
As for after nightfall when it’s quiet, Lin Ran would return to modern China to continue the final sprint on the moon superconducting chip.
By the way, sell some rockets to Russia, then produce a 5nm lithography machine, and give the White House a little surprise.
