Chapter 230: Running the Fields Medal
The publication of "The Big Short" was not in trouble. Before Zhang Wei could speak, Thomas offered a 15% top royalty.
Now Zhang Wei is a best-selling author and is definitely worth the entire price.
What's more, Amazon is still waiting for Zhang Wei's second part of "The Thirst Game", and it must provide Zhang Wei well at this time.
As for whether "The Big Short" will be a hit, Thomas doesn't have high hopes.
This kind of financial novel has a relatively limited audience, and there is a certain threshold for reading it. Unlike youth novels, which have a large audience and a relatively low reading threshold, anyone of any age can read it.
In fact, the content of the novel "The Big Short" is not very exciting. The amazing thing about this book is that it reveals the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis and the greed of Wall Street.
If there had been no subprime mortgage crisis, "The Big Short" might have been liked by many specific groups, but it would never have dominated all book sales lists.
So this book is actually based on the popularity of the subprime mortgage crisis. When the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, the U.S. financial system almost collapsed, and the global economy was also dragged down. At this time, a book introduced the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis. The novel will naturally attract widespread attention. Once it is released, it will attract a large number of readers. With word-of-mouth spread, it will become popular.
Zhang Wei took out "The Big Short" in advance and did not expect the book to become popular immediately.
The first domino to fall in the subprime mortgage crisis was in February 2007, when the financial crisis of the new century broke out in the United States. After several months of oscillation, in the second half of 2007, Bear Stearns' problems also The situation surfaced. At this time, the Federal Reserve also started some small-scale rescue measures, but they did not have any effect.
In March 2008, the Bear Stearns moment came, officially kicking off the subprime mortgage crisis, followed by a large number of bad debts at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and the U.S. real estate began to collapse, and finally in September Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the entire U.S. financial market was on the verge of collapse, pushing the subprime mortgage crisis to its peak.
By that time, all the situations predicted in "The Big Short" will come true, and this book will definitely be a big seller.
......
After settling the matter of publishing "The Big Short", Zhang Wei went to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to visit President Barlow.
Zhang Wei had met President Barlow at a previous gathering at the Santa Fe Institute. President Barlow also knew that this young man was not only the mathematician who discovered five Mersenne primes, but also a very powerful physicist in the industry. scientists and biologists.
So when Zhang Wei came to visit, President Barlow did not dare to neglect and warmly received Zhang Wei in person.
President Barlow took out a photo album, which contained past photos of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Using these photos, President Barlow introduced the development history of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to Zhang Wei.
After all the superficial effort, Zhang Wei revealed his purpose.
"President Barlow, I came here this time to talk to you about the Mason prime numbers." Zhang Wei said.
President Barlow was shocked when he heard the word "Messenne prime number". He subconsciously calculated how much money was left in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's account.
“It’s almost the end of the year. This year’s budget has already been spent. Next year’s funds have not yet arrived. What if Zhang Wei takes out a Mersenne prime number and asks me for a bonus now? , then all our operating funds for this month will have to go into it."
Thinking of this, President Barlow asked with a guilty look: "Mr. Zhang, have you discovered a new Mason? Prime numbers?"
"Yes!" Zhang Wei nodded, and then said: "And there are more than one!"
President Barlow looked even more nervous. If the Mersenne prime number bonus is given out, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will soon be in ruins. If two bonuses are given, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will definitely become a deadbeat.
Zhang Wei quietly observed President Barlow's expression, and then said, "Actually, I didn't know much about the Electronic Frontier Foundation before coming here. I only knew that you were a legal organization related to intellectual property rights.
But just after your introduction, I learned that you are a non-profit organization. Over the years, you have been committed to protecting intellectual property rights around the world, and have provided services to many individuals and new technologies. Legal Aid and Defense.
I think what you are doing is a very meaningful thing, and I admire your actions. In order to express my admiration and admiration for you, I decided to share the information I found with Mason. Prime number, donate to you for free.”
“Donate for free?” President Barlow took a deep breath. Does this mean that he doesn’t want the bonus?
This is a good thing! The Electronic Frontier Foundation no longer needs to be fooled!
More importantly, every new Mersenne prime number will bring newer and more complex encryption modes to the computer encryption system. If the new Mersenne prime number can be obtained in advance, it means that more sophisticated encryption methods can be used in the new encryption system. Complex algorithms are also more difficult for hackers to break.
What does the Electronic Frontier Foundation do? Formerly a hacker organization. It was a group of hackers who wanted to protect their own rights and interests, so they united to form such an organization and started a legal battle with the FBI. Later it gradually evolved into an intellectual property organization.
Providing network security services to large companies is the main source of income for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
With the new Mersenne prime number, the Electronic Frontier Foundation can provide better network security services, so for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Mersenne prime number is crucial, so they are willing to pay to induce A worldwide search for new Mersenne primes.
Zhang Wei is willing to give the new Mersenne prime numbers to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is a great gift.
But there is no pie in the sky, and the free ones are often the most expensive ones.
So President Barlow immediately asked: "Mr. Zhang, what can our Electronic Frontier Foundation do for you?"
"To be honest, I do have something. I need help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The selection for the Fields Medal will be next year, and I hope the Electronic Frontier Foundation can nominate me as a candidate for the Fields Medal." Zhang Wei said.
The Fields Medal is the highest international award in the field of mathematics, also known as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
This award is awarded every four years to a maximum of four people each time, and the winner must be under forty years old.
The organizer of the Fields Medal is the International Mathematical Union. This award was initiated by Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, so it is called the Fields Medal.
In 1924, the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Toronto. After the conference, there was a large fund surplus, so Fields proposed to use the fund surplus as a fund to establish a mathematics prize. After the award was established, Fields made a will and donated his property to the prize fund.
Since the Fields Medal Fund uses Canadian currency and the fund is operated and managed in Canada, the prize money is also paid in Canadian dollars.
The prize money for the Fields Medal is not much, only fifteen thousand Canadian dollars, which is about twelve thousand U.S. dollars according to the exchange rate at the time. There is also a gold medal. This reward is more than The Nobel Prize is too far behind.
Mathematicians are not short of money, and mathematicians don’t care about this money. When awarding awards, most of the winning mathematicians will directly donate their prize money.
But this honor is priceless. Winning the Nobel Prize in Mathematics is the dream of countless mathematicians.
It’s just that the condition of being under forty years old has caused many mathematicians to miss the Fields Medal, which also greatly increases the gold content of the Fields Medal.
This requirement also shows from the side that mathematics actually depends on talent.
To be a top mathematician, you don’t have to work hard or accumulate slowly. As long as you top up your talent points, you can achieve world-class results before the age of forty.
And if you don’t have enough talent, then sorry, the upper limit of what you can achieve in your lifetime is just a topic that others can solve with a little time as a graduate student.
There are often news reports about private mathematicians in the media, saying that they have been studying mathematics for decades and have developed such awesome theories. Some even claim to be able to prove Goldbach's conjecture.
People who don’t understand mathematics will think that masters are among the people and talents are buried. But people who really understand mathematics will only regard this kind of thing as a joke.
Mathematics is the scientific field least likely to bury talents, because the so-called mathematical research does not rely on research, but on talent. Mathematics talent is like a villa supercar. If you are born with it, you will have it in this life. If you are not born with it, you will most likely not have it in this life.
The Electronic Frontier Fund itself is a North American organization, and Canada is also their home. They have a certain influence on the fund managers of the Fields Medal. I would like to recommend it. It is not difficult to withdraw a candidate for the Fields Medal.
Nominating a Fields Medal is indeed a piece of cake for President Barlow, and the five Mersenne primes discovered by Zhang Wei qualify him for the nomination.
Exchanging the nomination for the Fields Medal for a Mersenne prime number, President Barlow feels it is not a loss.
But as an American, President Barlow's eyes were full of exchange of interests, so he asked: "Mr. Zhang, in addition to being nominated, don't you want to win the award?"
“Of course I want to!” Zhang Wei nodded: “It’s just that every four years there are so many geniuses competing for the Fields Medal, I’m afraid it won’t be my turn to win!”
“ Mr. Zhang, if you can find an advanced method for calculating Mersenne prime numbers, I think you will definitely win the Fields Medal!" President Barlow said.
Zhang Wei smiled slightly, and he instantly understood President Barlow's intention.
Before this, it would take several years for a Mersenne prime to appear. Even in the computer age, after the launch of the GIMPS project, interested people from all over the world came to look for Mersenne primes, but it still took a year. Only one person can discover a Mersenne prime number.
But Zhang Wei was able to come up with five Mersenne prime numbers in a short period of time. This completely unreasonable behavior is tantamount to telling the world that he has a method for calculating Mersenne prime numbers. New methods.
It’s just that Zhang Wei never admitted it and only said that he was lucky.
Now President Barlow’s subtext is to ask Zhang Wei to announce this method.
"As the saying goes, it's better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish. You are staring at my fishing boat! But my fishing boat is a devil, you can't take it away even if you want to!"
Thinking After a while, Zhang Wei smiled and said: "I also really want to find a new way to calculate Mersenne prime numbers, but I can't find it!"
"That's such a pity. It seems that Mr. Zhang I'm going to miss out on this Fields Medal!" President Barlow smiled coldly.
“I think that’s not necessarily the case. After all, discovering new Mersenne primes is very valuable. Last year I discovered five Mersenne primes. If I discover a few more Mersenne primes this year, I don’t know if there will be any more. What a chance to win!" Zhang Wei said.
President Barlow made a calculation in his mind. Last year there were five, and this time there were two. There are seven in total. This is a real chance to win a Fields Medal.
However, President Barlow said with a cold face: "Mr. Zhang, you don't know something. The competition for the Fields Medal next year will be much more intense than in previous years!
As far as I know, there are several Russian Scientists have made outstanding contributions in geometry in the past four years. They are all favorites to win awards.
In addition, there is a young Chinese scientist in Australia who seems to have just turned thirty years old. He is very interested in harmonic analysis and stacking. He also has very unique insights in base number theory, and he is likely to become one of the winners.
For example, research on the Langlands program, research on the plane Ising model, and research on the Boltzmann equation. There have been breakthroughs in the research on Riemann curves in the past two years
Simply discovering five, oh, no, seven Mersenne primes is not fully competitive in the face of these research results. Ah!”
"Seven is not enough. How about I find a few more Mersenne primes?" Zhang Wei chuckled, and then said: "It doesn't matter if I find a few more. Anyway, I'm lucky, so it shouldn't take me much time."
“Can you find more Mersenne primes?” President Barlow was surprised, and then asked: “How many more can you find?”
“How many do you want?” Zhang Wei asked without hesitation.
“How many do I want?” President Barlow grinned slightly. These are Mersenne primes, not McDonald’s burgers. Can I get as many as I want?
But in the next second, President Barlow suddenly realized the meaning of Zhang Wei's words.
How many do you want? Why don't you say, if you want a few, I can find a few!
Zhang Wei continued: "Last year, I found five Mersenne primes. How about I find five more this year? If ten Mersenne primes are not enough to win a Fields Medal, what a big deal. I will try to find five in a year.
Anyway, I am only twenty years old this year, and there are still twenty years before I turn forty. If I find more Mersenne primes, I should be awarded the Fields Medal. !
By the way, I remember that the prize for Mersenne prime numbers with over 100 million digits seems to be 150,000 US dollars, or 200,000 US dollars?”
The last sentence is already. A clear threat.
If Zhang Weizhen really produces five Mersenne prime numbers in a year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will go bankrupt just by paying bonuses.
After feeling the threat, President Barlow’s eyes instantly became sharp, and murderous intent filled his body.
However, Zhang Wei said slowly: "President Barlow, if I can find five more Mersenne primes, I will definitely donate them to your Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Of course. , if you also have a chance to win the Fields Medal while donating, that would be even better!”
Zhang Wei’s subtext is, I will donate five Mersenne primes to you, and you will help me get Fields! Prize thing.
President Barlow weighed it in his mind.
If Zhang Wei really discovered ten Mersenne primes, he would indeed be very qualified to win the Fields Medal.
With qualifications and the operation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the probability of winning is very high.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has priority in obtaining five Mersenne primes. The time difference between these five Mersenne primes can bring a lot of profits.
In total, this transaction is not a loss, everyone gets what they need.
Considering that Zhang Wei is not only a mathematician, but also a well-known physicist and biologist, his future is limitless. Being able to make friends with such a scientist is a kind of human resource for me.
From this aspect, the Electronic Frontier Foundation still made money.
After thinking about this, President Barlow suddenly had a smile on his face.
"Mr. Zhang, don't worry, our Electronic Frontier Foundation will definitely work hard to help you operate."
Zhang Wei immediately extended his right hand to indicate that the deal was concluded, and at the same time said: "President Barlow, I look forward to your good news!"
(End of this chapter)