It turned out to be the Cole Prize!

Lu Zhou was surprised.

Soon, he realized the problem.

"Wait, I remember that the Cole Prize is not only awarded to members of the Federal Mathematical Society?"

As if anticipating that Lu Zhou would ask this question, Mr. Qiu smiled and explained: "In addition to the prize money of $10,000 and a certificate, the best young speaker selected by the Federal Mathematical Society at the academic conference held in Princeton also has the status of honorary membership, and the status is probably between a member and a fellow. In fact, many national societies have similar rules for awarding honorary members, so you are fully in line with the award rules. ”

Including the Chern's Mathematics Award, although Lu Zhou has never applied to join any society, under normal circumstances, when he receives an award from a certain society, he will be granted the status of a member or honorary member of the society by default, and this is also a common practice.

After a pause, Mr. Qiu smiled and continued.

“…… Nominations for this award will be completed in September, and the selection will be completed in October, and the official written documents will come back in early December and will be sent to your school at that time. The awards were presented at the year-end academic conference about two days after Christmas, and if I remember correctly, it was at the University of California. Of course, whether the award will be presented at the opening or closing ceremony depends on the specific notice, and the organizer of the society will send the notification email to your mailbox, so remember to check your email regularly. As for this time, you should prepare your acceptance speech! ”

Hearing what Mr. Qiu said, Lu Zhou smiled embarrassedly.

I'm really embarrassed.

If you reveal this news to me in advance before the written documents come down, will you feel like a king?

In fact, he also wanted to ask by the way how much is the prize money of this Cole Prize?

But after thinking about it, everyone is a scholar, so it's better to be reserved.

So, he couldn't help but ask, but said.

"I'll be ready!"

"You should pay more attention to this yourself, and remember not to miss the award," Mr. Qiu nodded approvingly, changed the topic, and continued in a casual tone, "Speaking of that year-end academic conference, it is actually quite level, if your paper on group construction method is placed there for a report meeting, more people can learn about your research results." ”

"There will be an academic conference after the awards?" Lu Zhou asked unexpectedly.

"Of course, this is the norm, but it is better to say that the award is incidental. It's still very helpful for you to give a report at that kind of meeting," Mr. Qiu smiled and said, "But there are only two months left, and you just poured so much ink out, I think you probably don't have anything to publish, so take a break during this time, and take a trip to California in December." In addition, you can also take advantage of this gap to think about which direction to develop next...... By the way, do you have a general idea? ”

Lu Zhou thought for a while and said, "I plan to continue to dig deeper on the prime number problem, but I haven't found a suitable target yet. Do you have any good suggestions? ”

The study of the twin prime conjecture and the Polygnac conjecture has almost restrained his energy for a whole year, and now that this work has come to an end, his mind has not yet been detached from this work.

For him to choose a suitable proposition from many propositions about prime numbers to fill that gap, he has not yet figured out which one to start with.

The Jebov conjecture, which has been precipitated for more than a hundred years, looks quite interesting, similar to the Polygnac conjecture, except that one is to study the infinite distance between prime numbers, and the other is to study the existence of prime numbers between square numbers.

There is also the Brocar proposition, where there are at least four prime numbers between the squares of two primes, which is also of high research value.

Although these two conjectures are not as famous as the twin prime conjecture and the Polygnac conjecture outside the circle, it does not prevent them from standing in the mathematical community, and they are only higher than the two conjectures that Lu Zhou has completed.

And these are just one of his options.

"The study of prime numbers is a good direction, and it has a high status in the field of number theory. The distribution law of prime numbers indicates many practical problems, such as information technology and cryptography," Mr. Qiu nodded and said with a smile, "Although I have not studied much in the direction of number theory, with my understanding of the direction of number theory, your attainments in sieve theory are the most prominent among all the people I have seen." Many people think that the sieve theory has been achieved by Chen Jingrun, but now it seems that we are only hindered by the limitations of the times, and there is still a lot of room for this theory to continue to dig deeper. ”

After a pause, the old gentleman suddenly threw a bold idea to Lu Zhou.

"In that case, why don't you try to challenge the Goldbach conjecture?"

Goldbach conjecture?!

Lu Zhou was slightly stunned.

This......

The span is a little too big, right?!

Lu Zhou thought for a moment and replied cautiously, "I feel ...... This conjecture is still a bit difficult for me. Maybe when the time is right, I'll take this proposition out and study it again. ”

Although his math level has broken through lv4, according to the rules of this system, not only the authority of the database will be expanded, but also his ability to understand and analyze mathematics will be enhanced to a certain extent.

However, Goldbach's conjecture is, after all, one of the three major mathematical problems in modern times, and the difficulty is in the second tier.

Even if the work of the predecessors has advanced the results to "1+2", only the goal of "1+1" is missing, but it is not so easy to cover the last piece of bricks and tiles for this building.

Otherwise, this conjecture would not have been out there, and it has been put there for so many years.

"You misunderstood what I meant," Mr. Qiu shook his head, "I don't want you to give this conjecture an answer to prove or not at once, but I want you to try to study this method." ”

"Many mathematical conjectures do not necessarily have to be proven in order to be considered to have achieved significant research results. For example, when we were studying the Riemann conjecture, we accidentally proved the prime number theorem. The latter had a much greater position in the mathematical community at that time than the former. ”

"Again, sieve theory is a nice mathematical tool, since you can further polish it when you study the twin prime conjecture. By studying the Goldbach conjecture, I think you will be able to get more inspiration from it. Speaking of this, Mr. Qiu suddenly smiled and continued, "Of course, this is just an old man's suggestion, you can refer to it." How you choose is up to you! ”

After listening to Qiu Chengtong's words, Lu Zhou fell into deep thought.

What the old gentleman said seems to have some truth, and with the weight of Goldbach's conjecture, the empirical value behind it is also full of imagination.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Zhou nodded solemnly and said, "I will seriously consider your suggestion!" ”