Chapter 244

Translator: Dreamscribe

A brief silence followed the vote.

And then-

“Hahahaha!”

“So this is how things turned out in the end.”

The professors gathered in the conference room burst out laughing all at once.

Only twenty-two years old.

They were offering a Tenured Professorship at MIT to a young man returning after completing his military service. By any normal standard, it made no sense.

“Times are changing.”

One professor murmured quietly.

“No.”

Dean Whitman shook his head.

“It isn’t that the times have changed.”

He gazed out at the Charles River beyond the window and said,

“History has always had exceptional individuals. We simply never had the chance to encounter one ourselves before.”

Galois had already laid the foundations of Group Theory while still in his teens, and Abel had proven at twenty-one that there was no general formula by radicals for solving the Quintic Equation. Needless to say, the scholars of their eras must have been just as shocked as they were.

But society at the time had not been flexible enough.

“They were talents who shone too early to ever fully blossom. Galois’s manuscripts were only recognized for their value after his death, and Abel’s achievements likewise received proper attention posthumously. Academia was always one step too late.”

His gaze swept across the room.

He looked around at the professors and said,

“Let’s not make that mistake this time.”

If Seo-ha failed to receive the recognition he rightfully deserved, what would people say about MIT years from now?

The professors gathered there felt the heavy weight of their responsibility to history.

One of them raised his hand and spoke.

“There is one minor issue, but it’s not something we can ignore.”

“What is it?”

Looking over the documents Whitman had brought, he said,

“Seo-ha still hasn’t received his doctorate. Has there ever been a case of someone with only a Master’s Degree being appointed a Full Professor?”

It was a point none of them had considered.

Caught off guard, the professors began murmuring among themselves.

“Wouldn’t we have to go all the way back to the nineteenth century to find something like that? Back then, the modern master’s and doctoral systems didn’t even exist....”

“Hmm. People might accuse us of ignoring the rules and giving him preferential treatment.”

Of course, there were exceptions.

“Didn’t Sir Dyson go his entire life without a doctorate?”

“He was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. That’s a research institute, not a teaching university, so the circumstances are a little different.”

“Then what should we do? Ask him to quickly write a dissertation and send it over....”

Snap!

An idea seemed to strike Whitman, and he lightly snapped his fingers.

“What if we make the Life Matrix paper from the Nature special issue his doctoral dissertation?”

Was that possible?

The professors exchanged doubtful looks. But Carter, a Distinguished Professor, immediately understood what the dean was getting at.

“Ph.D by Publication(a system for awarding a doctorate based on published work).”

“Ah!”

“That’s right. We have that.”

It was a system under which a degree could exceptionally be awarded even to someone who had not completed the standard course of study, provided their published academic achievements were judged to far surpass the usual requirements.

It was something like a secret weapon used by several old and prestigious European universities to hold on to geniuses who couldn’t be bothered with formal degree programs.

“Now that I think about it, there probably isn’t a more appropriate case than this.”

“I agree.”

“There’s nothing in the rules that makes it impossible. We simply haven’t awarded a degree this way before.”

The conference room grew noisy.

“Even so, the Thesis Defense needs to be conducted properly.”

Everyone nodded at Professor Carter’s words.

Since they were already bypassing the conventional route, they had to make sure the procedure itself was beyond reproach.

Whitman folded his arms and asked,

“But who is going to review it?”

The professors quickly averted their eyes. Soon, laughter broke out around the room.

“My God.”

“That’s a problem too. How many people can even properly understand the Life Matrix?”

It was a difficult question.

Normally, doctoral dissertations were reviewed by authorities in the relevant field. But the Life Matrix was a vast continent pioneered by Seo-ha himself.

Mathematics, biology, medicine, Complex Systems Theory, information science, Yu-Riemann Geometry. It was a discipline that bound all of them together beneath an extraordinarily intricate system of logic.

Whitman stroked his chin, lost in thought. Then, as though he had made up his mind, he spoke.

“Let’s form a joint Review Committee.”

His expression turned serious.

“I think we should reach out to professors at other universities too, not just our own.”

“External Committee Members as well?”

Wasn’t this getting a little too big? Several professors’ eyes widened.

“We should go that far. We’re not doing this to hand a degree to someone who doesn’t deserve one.”

He spoke firmly.

“This has to be a decision the world can accept.”

Silence fell.

But everyone understood the dean’s intention. He meant to apply the strictest standards possible so that no needless controversy would surround Seo-ha later.

Carter smiled as though he found the situation amusing.

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

He continued with a playful smile.

“Normally, doctoral students are terrified of their Thesis Defense. But I have a feeling it’ll be the other way around this time.”

“....”

“....”

The creator of the Life Matrix was Yu Seo-ha, and no one understood the theory more deeply than he did.

The corners of Whitman’s lips curled upward slightly.

“Then let’s get ready. We’ll contact only the scholars who won’t turn tail and run.”

Laughter erupted throughout the conference room.

***

A few days later, letters sent from MIT went out to every corner of the world.

Oxford.

Professor Wright, an authority on Complex Systems Theory, casually opened the envelope his assistant handed him, then quickly adjusted his glasses.

“A Committee Member?”

He had reviewed countless papers in the past, but it had been a very long time since he had reviewed a doctoral dissertation. As one of the giants of academia, no one normally asked him to serve as a Committee Member for a mere doctoral thesis.

“Has Whitman finally gone senile?”

The discourtesy irritated him.

But after reading the letter to the end, the faint amusement vanished completely from his face.

[Candidate : Yu Seo-ha]

[Submitted Dissertation : Life Matrix, published in Nature]

He slid open a drawer.

In truth, he had already read the paper several times. As it happened, he had some questions about the concepts from Complex Systems Theory that Seo-ha had presented.

Scribble.

Without hesitation, he signed the letter.

Similar scenes played out across the world. The reactions, however, varied.

“My God. Whitman has sent me a poisoned chalice.”

Richard, a Distinguished Professor at the Clay Mathematics Institute and a giant of Mathematical Logic, let out a dry laugh after reading the letter.

“Should I tell them you’re too busy because of your schedule?”

His assistant cautiously asked. Richard glared sharply at him and snapped,

“Don’t be ridiculous! If I did that, wouldn’t it look like I wasn’t the best in this field?”

“What?”

The assistant stared blankly.

“If you’re a scholar yourself, you should understand.”

Scribble.

He muttered as he signed his acceptance.

“A young genius has appeared with an entirely new system of logic.”

“....”

“And now he says he’ll publicly defend his theory. Even if I make a fool of myself, I have to put my name down for this. How many opportunities like this do you think a scholar gets in one lifetime?”

The professor frowned as though displeased.

But the assistant who had worked with him for ten years could tell.

‘He seems pretty happy.’

Naturally, the letters couldn’t have been sent at random.

In other words, MIT was vouching that he was qualified to review Yu Seo-ha’s paper. That fact set the heart of the old scholar, who had devoted his entire life to academia, pounding.

Of course, others had a different problem.

“Still nothing?”

Stanford.

Professor Rupert, a giant in Network Theory, had already checked his mailbox three times that morning.

An academic society newsletter, a tax bill, an invitation to a publisher’s party.... But the letter he was waiting for was nowhere to be found.

“...The mail must be delayed. Yes! That can happen. MIT is a long way from here, after all.”

He returned to his office, pretending not to care.

Rumors that MIT was inviting Committee Members to review the Life Matrix paper had already spread throughout academia. Only a handful of the world’s foremost authorities were supposedly being selected. Rupert had no doubt whatsoever that his own name would be among them.

Bzzt-

His phone vibrated.

-Rupert! You got it too, right? Ah! Has yours not arrived yet? Sorry, but I’ll have to cancel our golf plans this weekend. I need to study the Life Matrix. I should get back to it.

Click.

A vein bulged on his forehead.

He desperately forced himself to suppress the anger boiling inside him.

Knock, knock!

“Professor, a letter from MIT arrived.”

“What?”

He shot to his feet.

Rupert sprang out of his chair and snatched the letter from his assistant’s hand.

***

The small ball MIT had launched sent shockwaves through academic circles around the world.

A theory capable of changing the paradigms of mathematics and biology. And now its creator was about to stand for a Thesis Defense.

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A strange, feverish excitement swept through the campus overlooking the Charles River.

“Isn’t that Professor Richard from the Clay Institute?”

“Shh! People came from Stanford and Johns Hopkins too. Isn’t that man a Nobel Prize winner?”

In the chilly autumn air, world-renowned scholars began appearing all over MIT’s campus.

The Review Committee consisted of twelve members.

Mathematics, physics, computational science and Network Theory, medicine, biology, and more. Figures revered as gods in their respective fields had gathered in one place solely to scrutinize the single paper submitted by Yu Seo-ha.

The conference room where they assembled resembled the command tent of allied generals gathered to repel an invasion by Genghis Khan.

Amid the tense, resolute atmosphere, Professor Wright, the eldest among them, spoke first.

“I trust all of you analyzed the paper in advance.”

The others nodded.

Although their specialties differed, every one of them had already read the paper closely several times.

Naturally, their assistants had paid dearly for that. Whenever a professor encountered a field they didn’t understand, the assistants had to stay up all night compiling everything from foundational concepts to the latest research trends for them.

Understanding a paper and verifying it were two entirely different tasks.

Understanding meant following another person’s logic and nodding along. Verification meant probing that logic with an awl for even the smallest crack, then scraping all the way down to its foundations.

“It is said that when Principia and the Theory of Relativity first appeared, there were not many scholars capable of reading them. The concepts simply had not existed before.”

Professor Wright looked around at those present.

“Perhaps that was acceptable then. Only a handful of people could read them anyway, and even if there were a few errors in the verification process, they could simply be corrected quietly later.

But things are different now. Nature has already sold hundreds of thousands of copies. That means there are countless eyes watching us.”

The atmosphere in the conference room grew heavy.

“Suppose an error is discovered later. What will people say? What exactly were those twelve scholars supposedly regarded as the best of their era reviewing?

The reverse is true as well. Don’t go picking holes in a perfectly sound theory just for the sake of finding something wrong. Posterity has a habit of remembering names like that for a very long time.”

Richard shrugged.

“I have no intention of ending up with that kind of stain on my name.”

“Neither do I.”

“Of course. I hear the press is paying attention too.”

Voices of agreement came from around the room.

They had two weeks until Seo-ha arrived. Wright wrote the date in one corner of the board.

“Let’s begin.”

A paper certain to go down in history.

Verifying it was an enormous burden, but at the same time, it was an irresistible temptation.

*****

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