As a mathematician born in France and working at the French Institute for Advanced Study, Evans was extremely familiar with Algebraic Geometry. After all, Grothendieck, the father of modern Algebraic Geometry, had once worked at their French Institute for Advanced Study. In a sense, they could even be considered colleagues.
Far Abelian Geometry, as a niche branch of Algebraic Geometry, had also attracted considerable attention after Grothendieck developed it. Eventually, it drew younger researchers like Evans into studying it.
Although after graduating as a graduate student, he no longer devoted all his attention to Far Abelian Geometry.
Because it was simply far too difficult. He could barely even find any literature on it online.
Yet the paper before him left Evans deeply astonished.
So Far Abelian Geometry could be studied this way!
"Right... A map f: T→T' to another topological space is continuous as long as the composite S→T→T' holds for every compact Hausdorff space S mapping to T, and the topological space T can be compactly generated..."
"The image of M→L/pL, for any n, is contained in a finite-type module over Ck... Why is that?"
"Mm, I see. I need to think in terms of nuclear Banach spaces. A nuclear Banach space is finite-dimensional, and for any open lattice LV, if the space V∈CK is called nuclear, then there exists another open lattice ML such that the canonical map between the completions VM→VL is compact!"
"What a marvelous step in the proof!"
He could not help marveling inwardly.
What brilliant insight must the author of this paper possess to have conceived such a step!
From this seemingly simple step alone, he could practically sense the paper's author's genius-like way of thinking, just like Grothendieck's!
In their eyes, mathematics seemed to possess countless angles from which its mysteries could be glimpsed.
Evans felt sincere envy.
And that envy gradually drew him into the paper without him realizing it.
Time slipped away quietly, until half an hour had passed.
"Hey, Evans, what are you doing?"
Suddenly, the surprised voice of David, Evans's colleague beside him, rang out.
What had he just seen?
Evans had actually taken out a sheet of scratch paper and was working through calculations on it!
Evans came back to his senses and explained, "Oh, I'm reviewing a paper. It's written so well, but there are some parts I simply can't understand unless I calculate them myself."
"You can't do that! You know that!"
David gave him a warning look.
Evans immediately realized what his colleague was warning him about.
His actions could very easily be seen by someone with ulterior motives as an attempt to plagiarize the submitter's work!
This sort of thing happened far too often in academia. Journal editors, being the first people able to access submitted papers, were also the ones most likely to steal the submitters' ideas.
And what he had just done clearly made him highly suspect.
If some petty-minded person present saw it and reported him, even if he had done nothing, he would still be in serious trouble.
A cold sweat broke out down his back, and he hurriedly thanked his colleague.
"Thanks, David. You reminded me. I'll buy you a drink later."
Hearing there would be drinks, David smiled. "No problem, we're colleagues."
But then he asked curiously, "Still, what paper are you reading that it managed to draw you in like that? Didn't you say you were going to look at that high school student's paper Bojielun gave you?"
"Uh..."
Evans froze at that, embarrassment appearing on his face. "The paper I'm reading now... is that one."
"What?" David was stunned. Hadn't Evans just said he was thinking about how to reject it?
So why was he suddenly reading it so seriously?
He suddenly realized something and asked, "How much did Bojielun pay you?"
"Fifty euros..."
The moment the words left his mouth, Evans spat.
"Merde! Now I'm the one who has to give him fifty euros!"
"What? Have you gone stupid from reading papers every day?"
David was dumbfounded. These days, there were people who paid others just to read a paper?
And fifty euros at that!
That was enough for him to spend an entire evening at a bar.
Evans felt like crying.
He had originally thought Bojielun would give him fifty euros, but according to their wager, with the paper written this well, he had clearly lost.
And he still had to buy David drinks afterward!
He had lost badly.
"Or did Bojielun scam you? Come on, let's go find him!" David continued from beside him, even planning to help Evans get the money back.
He figured that if Evans got the money back, maybe he would get a few more drinks when Evans treated him.
"This..."
But Evans hesitated. He turned back and looked over the paper again. "Forget it. Let me finish reading this paper first."
David was stunned, unable to make sense of it for a moment. "What are you doing? That's fifty euros, and this paper is written so badly. What are you thinking?"
"You're mistaken. This paper is written... extremely well," Evans said.
David was shocked. "How good could a high school student's paper possibly be? It even drew you in. I remember you graduated from the Mathematics Department at the École Normale Supérieure!"
"Take a look and you'll understand."
Evans pointed at the paper in front of him.
David refused to believe it and leaned forward to read it too, but he quickly gave up.
He said awkwardly, "I... can't really understand it. I don't know much about Far Abelian Geometry myself."
Evans smiled. "That's normal. Even I find it quite difficult to read. There are many parts I don't understand, so I just skip over them."
"The methods and theories this high school student used in this paper are far beyond anything I imagined. If he hadn't written it in enough detail, without steps like 'obviously,' I definitely wouldn't have been able to read it so carefully."
"This..."
David was stunned.
Evans had graduated from the Mathematics Department of the École Normale Supérieure. Its Mathematics Department was practically the best in the world, which was enough to show how outstanding Evans's talent was.
Yet even he could not fully understand a high school student's paper?
"Is he really a high school student?" David could not help asking.
"Perhaps we shouldn't view him as a high school student, but as a rising star who is about to emerge in the world of mathematics."
Evans turned his gaze back to the paper before him, a trace of regret appearing on his face because he could not understand all of it.
Having been very interested in Far Abelian Geometry, he was truly fascinated by this paper. It had given him an entirely new perspective, even rekindling his desire to study Far Abelian Geometry.
"All right, once I finish reading this paper, I'll go find Editor-in-Chief Bojielun."
Please bookmark, vote with recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, and continued reading!!!!