In this empty hall.
In this quiet space.
Hundreds of years ago, this might have been a place where clergy of the Holy Roman Empire worshipped, filled with the sacred voices of devout believers praying to God.
Or perhaps what echoed here was the Symphony of Fate. Though Beethoven left Bonn and never returned to his hometown, perhaps his soul came back after his death to listen to his proud masterpiece being performed here—the sound of Fate Knocking at the Door.
Then, a century ago, it became a bustling post office, where all the city's letters converged and were distributed. Perhaps what echoed then were the anxious voices of people desperate for news from family far away.
Twenty years ago, the sounds here became the sounds of the universe, because mathematics was the language of the universe, and tiny lives raised voices in discussion as they tried to glimpse that language.
Today, those voices of discussion rose once more.
Except, as that tense yet youthful voice rang out, this "glimpse" seemed to begin announcing its conclusion.
Hundreds of eyes throughout the hall turned toward the source of the voice.
And the young man's face finally came into everyone's view.
He sat at the main table, and he was indeed very young, looking utterly out of place among the other mathematicians seated there—men who had already established their reputations in the mathematical world.
His face carried the same trace of nervousness as his voice.
Yet paradoxically, despite his nerves, his gaze was full of confidence.
People realized who he was.
A participant personally invited by Schultz, the author of the paper recently published online by IHES, "Non-singular Analytic and the Absolute Remote Abelian Conjecture," the genius teenage mathematician praised in the news—Xiao Yi.
Though surprised, people began to consider what he