A Key Development Candidate

Director Feierman said, "The organizing committee asked me to recommend a young mathematician from Princeton to give a presentation at the conference, and I think you are the most suitable candidate. Your integration of the 'Muller -Shen Theorem' and the 'Shen Proximity Theorem' into a single document would make for an excellent presentation."

"As for whether you'll win, I don't know. Maybe you've already been shortlisted, who knows? This organizing committee operates exactly like the Oscars, only announcing the winners at the last minute."

"Okay, I'll prepare the report materials." Shen Qi accepted Director Feierman's recommendation; if there's an award, he should strive for it, regardless of whether it's a big or small prize.

The Breakthrough Prize is actually a very prestigious award, with a single prize of up to 3 million US dollars, far exceeding the Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal. Winners are generally well-known scientists in the academic community.

The Breakthrough Prize is accompanied by a New Horizons Prize, which is specifically awarded to young scholars in fields such as biology, physics, and mathematics, with a single prize of US$100,000.

Shen Qi, who never missed Wednesday coffee time, became a key student cultivated by the Mathematics Department at Princeton University. Among this batch of doctoral students, Shen Qi performed the best, and some young lecturers in the Mathematics Department did not achieve the same results as Shen Qi.

Since Terence Tao, Princeton University's Mathematics Department seems to have experienced a break in the training of young mathematicians. In the last twenty years, apart from Terence Tao, it is impossible to name another mathematician trained by Princeton.

Princeton needs a group of young mathematical stars as outstanding as Terence Tao to revitalize the Math Capital.

Mathematical stars must come from Princeton's educational system. Talented people who are produced by their alma mater are different from those who are recruited from elsewhere. Those who make a lot of money and become famous donate to their alma mater and mention it in their acceptance speeches.

Some resources from the Mathematics Department at Princeton University began to be directed toward Shen Qi. He was arranged to attend international mathematics conferences and Shen Qi name was frequently recommended for awards.

Because he did an outstanding job Recitation Class last semester, Shen Qi was invited to dinner by the dean of academic affairs this semester. The dean hoped that Shen Qi could teach the Recitation Class for another semester.

Shen Qi is Professor Muller's teaching assistant, and he could also become Professor Muller's research assistant.

Most professors hope their graduate students will devote more energy to helping them with research projects. People have selfish motives to some extent. Research projects can produce results, and tutoring undergraduates is considered fulfilling one's duty.

Princeton University a strict rule that professors must complete a certain number of undergraduate teaching hours each semester, with the remaining hours to be completed by lecturers.

As for Recitation Class, they are basically taught by teaching assistants. Princeton University also hires dedicated Recitation Class instructors, who are paid lecturer salaries, and exceptionally outstanding instructors can enjoy Associate Professor salaries.

The arrangement of the Recitation Class was the responsibility of the academic affairs group. Shen Qi agreed to the dean's request to Recitation Class for another semester.

Shen Qi doesn't have any mandatory research tasks right now. He enjoys interacting with energetic young undergraduates, and this semester he has personally selected four undergraduates to join his mentorship program.

A-Jie, Luca, John, and Stephen are four boys that Shen Qi particularly admires. In the Non-Euclidean Geometry tutorial class last semester, these four undergraduates had the best grades.

The dean of academic affairs added eight more undergraduate students to Shen Qi's tutoring program; these eight boys also had excellent academic records.

The twelve best undergraduate students in this year's Mathematics Department formed a "rocket class," and Shen Qi was responsible for tutoring them in two courses: number theory and Functional Analysis.

"It seems that Princeton University's Mathematics Department has realized the crisis. They really are starting from the very beginning." Shen Qi had long seen the crisis hidden beneath the prosperous surface of Princeton University's Mathematics Department. In the last ten or twenty years, the "West Coast Mathematics Consortium" composed of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech has had a great impact on the Princeton Mathematics Department.

Before the 1990s, Princeton University's Mathematics Department could rival the entire western United States.

Princeton University's Mathematics Department can only compete with California's math department on its own these days, and even that's a tough challenge.

If the Mathematics Department of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, and Stanford University were to join forces against Princeton University's Mathematics Department, Princeton University's Mathematics Department would probably have no choice but to seek help from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

It's not that the Mathematics Department at Princeton University has become weaker, but rather that its competitors have rapidly become stronger.

"To be complacent is to regress. To be unable to propose original theories is to have learned mathematics in vain," Shen Qi solemnly admonished his twelve students in the tutoring class.

"Qi, you sound like a professor. Only a professor would say that," Stephen said, lying on his side on the lawn. He had never seen a teaching assistant so arrogant.

As the weather gradually warmed up, Shen Qi arranged for the Recitation Class to be held on weekend afternoons, outdoors.

Outdoor academic exchange is a tradition at Princeton University. Outside the Mathematics Department building is a large lawn with several detachable blackboards standing in it.

The blackboard is about two meters high and four meters wide. Some academic teams brought chairs with folding tables and gathered in front of the outdoor blackboard for academic discussions.

Some people get tired of sitting on chairs and lie down on the grass, doing whatever makes them comfortable.

Bright sunshine, a free academic atmosphere—no one forces students at Princeton University to study, yet there's no excuse not to study, so let's just study hard.

"You are already third-year students. If third-year students can't write papers, it's tantamount to degeneration." Shen Qi attaches great importance to the Political Education of students, believing that those who are politically unqualified are not fit for important positions.

"Qi, in what grade was your first paper published?" Luca asked.

Shen Qi said, "My first math paper was published in my senior year of high school. Actually, I didn't complete my junior year of college. I studied for two years as an undergraduate in China before coming to Princeton for graduate studies."

"Qi, the longer I know you, the more setbacks I experience." A-Jie couldn't sit still in his chair any longer. He got up, lay down on the lawn, and turned to lie on his side next to Stephen, his face towards the blackboard.

American universities typically offer two undergraduate graduation periods each year: a spring graduation in May and a fall graduation in December.

Graduation from summer school in August is relatively rare, but it does happen.

These twelve boys enrolled two years ago in the spring and are now in their third year of high school. They will graduate in the fall next December.

In reality, Shen Qi had only started university a year and a half earlier than them, and was a year or two older.

One of the twelve third-grade students is from Arabia country. He dropped out of school for more than a year when he was young because his country was at war. He is seven months older than Shen Qi and will soon turn 23.

Shen Qi and his twelve tutoring students are the same age. The reason he was able to become a tutor and provide professional course guidance to his peers is because he is more outstanding than his peers.

Princeton students are also more outstanding than their peers at most other schools.

Princeton University has a very strong atmosphere of undergraduate research participation. Some undergraduate theses involve research that would otherwise be conducted at the graduate level at other universities in the United States. High-achieving undergraduates have the opportunity to access cutting-edge equipment that is only available to graduate and doctoral students at other universities.

Some of the papers published by Princeton in authoritative academic journals such as Science and Nature have undergraduate students as the first author.

Starting from their third year, undergraduate students at Princeton University are required to participate in thesis projects. They write theses not to obtain a diploma, but to improve their academic qualifications.

It's very difficult to get a degree from Princeton University. If you don't have anything substantial to show for it, they won't let you graduate. You'll graduate when you start to have the right attitude.

Shen Qi then moved on to the professional course tutoring segment. "This semester, I'll be responsible for your two courses, number theory and Functional Analysis. If you want to write papers in these two areas, I can offer some professional advice and suggestions. Next, would you like to take a lecture on number theory or Functional Analysis? In my Recitation Class, I don't encourage you to raise mathematical problems outside of number theory and Functional Analysis, such as topology or Partial Differential Equations. But if you really want to expand on these topics, I think I can handle it."

"So, you mean I can ask you any math question?" A-Jie asked.

Shen Qi nodded. "Jack, you can understand it that way. Now, do you have any math questions you'd like to ask?"