Chapter 91: I Speak Russian!
“Sir Bailiji, long time no see. Unfortunately, I don’t have time this year to go to Hong Kong University to lecture to Hong Kong students.”
In the London drizzle, Lin Ran stood under a black umbrella and said regretfully to Bailiji.
“This is Hong Kong’s regret.” Bailiji said, “But London’s scholars are fortunate to hear you lecture in person.”
“Inspector Thomas, hello.” After shaking hands with Bailiji, he turned to Thomas.
Lin Ran guessed that before he took office as Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs at the White House, Chen Jingrun had not been pulled out as a witness, probably with the help of this Thomas.
Therefore, he was also very friendly to Thomas.
What Lin Ran was doing at NASA was reported in great detail by the outside world.
Even inside NASA, someone would pop up every few days to leak to the media, saying that Lin Ran had made some wild statement again.
Hong Kong newspapers especially liked to exaggerate, writing it like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
They portrayed Lin Ran as a Zhuge Liang-style character.
How he went from Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs to Shadow Director of NASA—his own ability was one aspect, and his fighting tactics were another.
A veteran like Thomas, who had worked at Special Branch for many years, could get a general idea of Lin Ran’s tactics even through the fog.
The smile squeezed the fat on Thomas’s face together: “Sir Lin, England welcomes your arrival.”
Thomas, standing next to Bailiji, felt inwardly relieved that last year in Hong Kong he had had the foresight not to offend this newly minted knight, the most powerful Chinese person globally.
If he had offended him, he didn’t know where he would be sent to sit on a cold bench for the rest of his life.
Hong Kong was already remote enough; they might throw him to the High Commission in India, where he would truly be calling to heaven with no response and to earth with no reply.
The investiture ceremony was at Buckingham Palace. Fine rain threads fell at Buckingham Palace. The gardener wiping Queen Victoria’s statue suddenly stopped and turned back to look—it was the sound of an Eastern scientist’s black car rolling over the wet stone slabs.
Lin Ran deliberately wore a gray Zhongshan suit instead of the suit John Morgan gave him.
In attendance, besides Hong Kong Governor Bailiji, were local London celebrities and representatives of prestigious families who flew in specially from Hong Kong to witness Lin Ran’s investiture.
Lin Ran thought to himself that his knighthood was probably worth much more than those Justices of the Peace in Hong Kong.
East Asia Bank Chairman Li Fushu whispered in Cantonese to the eldest son of the Ho Tung family behind him: “Look at him sitting straight like wearing armor, even tougher than the cast iron gears of the Peak Tram.”
(Look at him sitting upright as if clad in armor, surpassing the cast iron gears of the Peak Tram)
Under the crown worn by Queen Elizabeth, which was used for George IV’s coronation, she used the sword in her hand to invest Lin Ran.
“In the name of Saint Michael and Saint George,” Queen Elizabeth lightly added as she pinned the KBE star on Lin Ran’s left chest:
“Governor Yang Muqi instructed before his death to find a Chinese owner for this medal.”
After the investiture ceremony, at the celebration banquet, Li Fushu came up to Lin Ran. “Sir Lin, congratulations.”
Lin Ran smiled and clinked glasses with him: “Thank you for making the special trip from Hong Kong.”
Li Fushu felt deeply emotional inside. He had long known that the young man before him was no ordinary person, but he hadn’t expected him to rise so quickly.
He had originally thought the other would become famous in the mathematics community and a master of a generation in the mathematics world.
Unexpectedly, in just one short year, Lin Ran had succeeded in making a name for himself in America political circles, becoming an indispensable figure of real power at NASA.
Whether England’s lifelong knight or America’s Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs, in Li Fushu’s eyes, they were all existences his own daughter could not hope to marry into.
If it were just a mathematics master, there might be some possibility, but with the other’s current status and position, trying to aim high would only harm his daughter.
“No trouble at all. You can be considered half a Hong Kong person. For us Hong Kong to send representatives to your investiture ceremony is our honor.” Li Fushu said.
Lin Ran thought to himself that Hong Kong, as one of the few symbols left of England’s once vast empire on which the sun never set, you are not representing Hong Kong—you are representing Chinese people.
The next day, at the University of London Faculty of Mathematics, mathematicians from all over England gathered, filling the hall.
“Hello everyone, it’s an honor to be in London to share a story about mathematics, patience, and discovery with you. Today, I’d like to talk about Fermat’s Last Theorem, the puzzle that has troubled mathematicians for three and a half centuries, and how I was fortunate to be the one to solve it.
Pierre de Fermat, this 17th-century French mathematician, proposed this conjecture around 1637: for any integer n greater than 2, the equation a^n + b^n = c^n has no positive integer solutions a, b, c.
He claimed to have a marvelous proof, but the margin was too small to contain it—this is the most famous unsolved mystery in the history of mathematics.
This theorem troubled mathematicians for over 350 years in history, attracting countless attempts, including partial progress by Euler, Cauchy, Lame, and others.
The first time I heard of this theorem was the year I entered Göttingen to study, when I read a book in the Göttingen library.
The book said that Fermat’s Last Theorem was a simple proposition, yet no one could prove it. I was fascinated. I thought, maybe one day, I could find the answer.
At that moment, mathematics was no longer just numbers to me—it was an adventure.
I knew that proving Fermat’s Last Theorem with traditional methods was almost impossible—we needed new tools. Fortunately, mathematicians had already paved the way.
The key clue came from Japanese mathematicians Yutaka Taniyama and Goro Shimura. They proposed a bold conjecture: every elliptic curve corresponds to a special algebraic curve and thus to a mathematical object called a modular form. This is known as the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture.
My intuition told me that if the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture held, then Fermat’s Last Theorem would hold too. In other words, if I could prove a subset of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, Fermat’s puzzle would be solved. This became my starting point.
My strategy was this: assume Fermat’s Last Theorem is false, and there exists a set a, b, c, n satisfying a^n + b^n = c^n. Using these numbers, I could construct an elliptic curve—later called the Frey curve. Then, I had to prove that this curve could not be modular. This is a contradiction, so conversely, Fermat’s Last Theorem must be true.”
After the lecture ended, Lin Ran returned to the room prepared for him by the University of London for a brief rest, waiting for the students to leave before academic exchanges with the mathematicians.
The door suddenly opened, and an unremarkable old man walked in.
Lin Ran didn’t look up. “What is it.”
Then he felt something was off, because if it were someone from the University of London, they would definitely knock first, but this person had come straight in without knocking.
Lin Ran looked up. “Who are you?”
“Hello, Randolph, nice to meet you. My name is Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
Well, you may not have heard this name. I have another nickname in America: Chief Designer.” The old man laughed.
Lin Ran was shocked inside. He knew London was full of spies, but not to this extent.
For Korolev to walk openly into his lounge like this, were the people from CIA and NOPS in charge of security just eating rice for nothing?
NOPS, NASA Office of Protective Services, NASA Security and Protection Services Office.
“Hello.” Lin Ran said in Russian. You play tricks, and I’ll play tricks too.
Bet you didn’t expect that I speak Russian.
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