On the Hill at 85 Hoegi-ro

I encountered an old unsolved mathematical problem. I felt pulled into a world I had never known. It was a path with no return, a narrow road whose end could not be seen.

Lee Woo Young

The author is an HCMC distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

At twenty-one, an age filled with ambition, we formed scrums of students on a campus clouded by shouts from pro-democracy rallies and tear gas. We pushed forward, then fell back. Youth, yearning for freedom, burned with thirst. Before long the university was shut by force and we scattered without direction. In those bleak months, when there seemed nowhere to rest our thoughts, a close friend handed me a small paperback. It was a book titled “Weaknesses of Mathematics,” and it became a quiet refuge. I read it alone until the campus reopened, turning its pages for solace. There, by chance, I encountered an old unsolved mathematical problem. I felt pulled into a world I had never known.

The Korea Institute for Advanced Study building at 85 Hoegi-ro in Dongdaemun District, Seoul [WIKIPEDIA]

It was a path with no return, a narrow road whose end could not be seen. Hardships came as they always do, yet none compared with the struggles of Kepler, who endured adversity while seeking the laws that govern the heavens. The friend who gave me the book died young. His final request was simple: Solve the problem. I nodded, promising I would try, but the years slipped by.

A few years ago, on the hill at 85 Hoegi-ro, several young mathematicians wrestling with their own impossible questions offered me a small office. It was inside the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, the country’s first research center devoted to pure theoretical science, a place known for the motto “Imagination for the Impossible.” In that quiet room, the only sound is chalk scratching across a board. Two years have passed as I sit here with a view of Namsan, absorbed in the same riddle.

Doubt creeps in at times. Can the problem ever be solved? Evening settles and the traveler’s heart grows heavy. Outside, the hill glows red in the dusk, colored by the intensity of young scholars who lose track of time as they face their own puzzles. To steady myself, I reach for the yellowed paperback on the shelf. As I hold it, I hear my friend’s faint humming from long ago. “Off to catch a whale that breathes like a myth.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.