text: Monday was a rush. The lecture had been moved to a new hall and because she had gotten lost in a book about Fourier, she found out too late and had to run. But she still only made it for the last few minutes, just as the professor was finishing up. Hastily, she scribbled down the homework problems, two from the left side, one from the right of the blackboard, then checked her schedule and cursed. She would have to run all the way across campus again to catch the next lecture. This semester was killing her. It was already the third one, but instead of slowly getting the hang of college, she felt it got worse every day. The last summer she had spent mostly holed up in her dorm room or in the library, reworking her papers and studying; the last semester had been a blur, she was always trying hard just to keep up. Not that her grades were that bad, but she had probably just gotten lucky. The others, she was sure, had gotten all As, because come on, homological algebra can’t really be that hard, can it? She forgot about Monday’s math homework right up until Wednesday evening, when she cleaned out her backpack and found the paper crumpled up under a book. She smoothed it out on the desk and peered at the three equations. One was different, she saw immediately, although she didn’t know why it had come up. Surely it was preparation for the next lecture, so it should be OK to handle. It took her about two hours to solve the first two problems. She had to look up some concepts, but in the end she felt pretty good about them. To solve the last one, though, she only had a vague idea about how to go about it. She seemed to recall it was connected to something else from a book she had been reading earlier in the semester - or maybe last summer? She scanned her calendar and it seemed OK to postpone the problem until the next day or maybe even the weekend. After all, the lecture wasn’t until Monday and one more hour to solve it should be reasonable. Thursday night, she lay in bed with thoughts from differential geometry swirling through her head, theorems and concepts. She could see them with her eyes closed. The dorm next door was having a party and the thumping music didn’t help her concentration. She could go over and grab a beer, she thought, as she vaguely remembered her roommate inviting her. No, it would be terrible, she felt so sluggish and bored with the idea that she saw no reason to drink, sit alone (as usual) and watch others kiss or play stupid drinking games. To occupy her mind, she grabbed the last equation from the homework and tried to get as far as possible just using her head. What was it about this problem that was so hard? The first steps seemed easy, she connected, reconfigured, rethought, but suddenly there was a ... gap. She tried different approaches, what had she learned so far? At one point, the numbers blurred and she couldn’t keep them straight any longer. Friday she woke up with her math notes in her hand. She asked her roommate as casually as she could if she had finished the homework - and received a confident reply: dealt with and done on Monday night. She sighed. What was she telling herself - that anyone could study math? Clearly, she was not meant for this. Too proud to ask to see the solution, she gritted her teeth and gripped her pencil. Saturday she was the first one in the library, tackling this problem with support from the old masters on the shelves. She let out a triumphant “Yes!!” after she overcame the first barrier that earned her a dismissive look from the librarian. Now she had something quite elegant on her paper. She was determined to finish this homework problem; it had become her nemesis. If she could do this, she told herself, she could do the whole course. She adjusted her glasses and hunkered down. She now had a beautiful next step, but after a couple of minutes of staring at the numbers, she felt all the energy drain from her body. She found herself at a dead end, again. This problem was unsolvable. Had she copied the numbers wrong? No, she thought, not after all those years of diligently learning with her tutor. She didn’t make that kind of mistake, not her, not anymore. On Sunday, she was invited to a football game and pizza, so she had little time to work on the problem, at least not in writing. Several people asked her if she was all right, because she seemed absent and didn’t contribute to the conversation. At night, back in her dorm, the problem seemed as tough as ever, as if all her work had been for nothing. She couldn’t allow herself to fail; she had even found old study notes from the lecture to see if the professor had given any hints, but there was nothing. Everything else made perfect sense and had helped to solve the first two problems. The third, while distantly related, had no explanation anywhere. At 3:00 am, she was awakened by the sound of her roommate climbing noisily into bed. It would be so easy to ask... just ask...for the solution. But the snoring not thirty seconds later told her this chance was gone. Tomorrow, Monday, was again packed with lectures and a study group. All the other courses were taking their toll, and even though focusing on them would be hard, she had to try to flip the switch in her mind. Closing her eyes, she suddenly saw it. Euphoria ran through her body as if someone had showered her with cold water. She dropped her pencil twice as she tried to get the numbers down onto the paper. Of course, she didn’t see all the steps, but she found the crucial one. It came down to not even one page in her neat handwriting. She didn’t bother to double check. She knew it to be 100% correct, smiling to herself, because the key idea had been in a book that she read over the summer, even though she couldn’t remember which one. Monday math class came and this time she was so early she even got a seat, having left the previous lecture before it ended to be double sure. Everything was normal as the professor started to solve the homework problems on the blackboard. He seemed bored today; his voice droned on and on. After he finished the second problem, he put down his notes and started the lecture. She was confused. For a few seconds, she hesitated, looking around at the others. They didn’t seem overly attentive, but no one seemed to be bothered that the third problem was missing. She took a deep breath and raised her hand. The professor caught the movement. He nodded, his face sour. “What about the third homework problem?” she said, her voice small in the large lecture hall. “What third problem?” he said, brows furrowed together. She read the equation out loud. Even more confusion on the professor’s face. He shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand you correctly. The equation you’ve read just now...” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think I said it all last time, but maybe you had better things to do than attend my lecture.” She felt herself turning red at his annoyance. “It’s called the Hodge conjecture, and virtually every higher mathematician on this planet for the last eighty years has racked their brains trying to solve it...” he paused, “...and failed.” Suddenly, the paper under her fingers seemed to be on fire.