rush of pride as I did so.
‘There,’ I told myself, ‘you may have just managed to save the universe.’ But of course, things are never that simple, not even on Earth.
A moment of sheer terror
ξ(1/2+
it
)=[e Ŗ log (
r
(
s
/2))π -1/4 (–
t
2 –1/4)/2]x[e i
Jlog (
r
(
s
/2))π -
it
/2 ζ(1/2+
it
)]
The distribution of prime numbers
I looked at Andrew Martin’s emails, specifically the very last one in his sent folder. It had the subject heading, ‘153 years later . . .’, and it had a
little red exclamation mark beside it. The message itself was a simple one: ‘I have proved the Riemann hypothesis, haven’t I? Need to tell you first. Please, Daniel, cast your eyes over
this. Oh, and needless to say, this is for those eyes only at the moment. Until it goes public. What do you reckon? Humans will never be the same again? Biggest news anywhere since 1905? See
attachment.’
The attachment was the document I had deleted elsewhere, and had just been reading, so I didn’t waste much time on that. Instead, I looked at the recipient:
[email protected].
Daniel Russell, I swiftly discovered, was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He was sixty-three years old. He had written fourteen books, most of which had been
international bestsellers. The Internet told me he had taught at every English-language university with an intimidating enough reputation – Cambridge (where he was now), Oxford, Harvard,
Princeton and Yale among others – and had received numerous awards and titles. He had worked on quite a few academic papers with Andrew Martin, but as far as I could tell from my brief
research they were colleagues more than friends.
I looked at the time. In about twenty minutes my ‘wife’ would be coming home and wondering where I was. The less suspicion there was at this stage the better. There was a sequence of
doing things, after all. I had to follow the sequence.
And the first part of the sequence needed to be done right now, so I trashed the email and the attachment. Then, to be on the safe side, I quickly designed a virus – yes, with the help of
primes – which would ensure that nothing could be accessed intact from this computer again.
Before I left, I checked the papers on the desk. There was nothing there to be worried about. Insignificant letters, timetables, blank pages, but then, on one of them, a telephone number
07865542187. I put it in my pocket and noticed, as I did so, one of the photographs on the desk. Isobel, Andrew and the boy I assumed to be Gulliver. He had dark hair, and was the only one of the
three who wasn’t smiling. He had wide eyes, peeping out from below a dark fringe of hair. He carried the ugliness of his species better than most. At least he wasn’t looking happy about
what he was, and that was something.
Another minute had gone by. It was time to go.
We are pleased with your progress. But now the real work must begin.
Yes.
Deleting documents from computers is not the same as deleting lives. Even human lives.
I understand that.
A prime number is strong. It does not depend on others. It is pure and complete and never weakens. You must be like a prime. You must not weaken, you must distance yourself,
and you must not change after interaction. You must be indivisible.
Yes. I will be.
Good. Now, continue.
Glory
Isobel was still not back, on my return to the house, so I did a little more research. She was not a mathematician. She was a historian.
On Earth, this was an important distinction as here history was not yet viewed as a sub-division of mathematics, which of course it was. I also discovered that Isobel, like her husband, was
considered to be very clever by the standards of her species. I knew this because one of the books on the shelf in the bedroom was
The Dark Ages
, the one I had seen in the bookshop window.
And now I could see it had a quote from a publication called the
New York Times
which read
‘There,’ I told myself, ‘you may have just managed to save the universe.’ But of course, things are never that simple, not even on Earth.
A moment of sheer terror
ξ(1/2+
it
)=[e Ŗ log (
r
(
s
/2))π -1/4 (–
t
2 –1/4)/2]x[e i
Jlog (
r
(
s
/2))π -
it
/2 ζ(1/2+
it
)]
The distribution of prime numbers
I looked at Andrew Martin’s emails, specifically the very last one in his sent folder. It had the subject heading, ‘153 years later . . .’, and it had a
little red exclamation mark beside it. The message itself was a simple one: ‘I have proved the Riemann hypothesis, haven’t I? Need to tell you first. Please, Daniel, cast your eyes over
this. Oh, and needless to say, this is for those eyes only at the moment. Until it goes public. What do you reckon? Humans will never be the same again? Biggest news anywhere since 1905? See
attachment.’
The attachment was the document I had deleted elsewhere, and had just been reading, so I didn’t waste much time on that. Instead, I looked at the recipient:
[email protected].
Daniel Russell, I swiftly discovered, was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He was sixty-three years old. He had written fourteen books, most of which had been
international bestsellers. The Internet told me he had taught at every English-language university with an intimidating enough reputation – Cambridge (where he was now), Oxford, Harvard,
Princeton and Yale among others – and had received numerous awards and titles. He had worked on quite a few academic papers with Andrew Martin, but as far as I could tell from my brief
research they were colleagues more than friends.
I looked at the time. In about twenty minutes my ‘wife’ would be coming home and wondering where I was. The less suspicion there was at this stage the better. There was a sequence of
doing things, after all. I had to follow the sequence.
And the first part of the sequence needed to be done right now, so I trashed the email and the attachment. Then, to be on the safe side, I quickly designed a virus – yes, with the help of
primes – which would ensure that nothing could be accessed intact from this computer again.
Before I left, I checked the papers on the desk. There was nothing there to be worried about. Insignificant letters, timetables, blank pages, but then, on one of them, a telephone number
07865542187. I put it in my pocket and noticed, as I did so, one of the photographs on the desk. Isobel, Andrew and the boy I assumed to be Gulliver. He had dark hair, and was the only one of the
three who wasn’t smiling. He had wide eyes, peeping out from below a dark fringe of hair. He carried the ugliness of his species better than most. At least he wasn’t looking happy about
what he was, and that was something.
Another minute had gone by. It was time to go.
We are pleased with your progress. But now the real work must begin.
Yes.
Deleting documents from computers is not the same as deleting lives. Even human lives.
I understand that.
A prime number is strong. It does not depend on others. It is pure and complete and never weakens. You must be like a prime. You must not weaken, you must distance yourself,
and you must not change after interaction. You must be indivisible.
Yes. I will be.
Good. Now, continue.
Glory
Isobel was still not back, on my return to the house, so I did a little more research. She was not a mathematician. She was a historian.
On Earth, this was an important distinction as here history was not yet viewed as a sub-division of mathematics, which of course it was. I also discovered that Isobel, like her husband, was
considered to be very clever by the standards of her species. I knew this because one of the books on the shelf in the bedroom was
The Dark Ages
, the one I had seen in the bookshop window.
And now I could see it had a quote from a publication called the
New York Times
which read
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