Whitney finishes her morning rounds. At 8:45, she pushes her cart toward the back entrance of Hall G. The screen at the front is already lit. The first slide is up. The Ashford boundary is glowing in white chalk on a black background, 12-ft tall. Whitney stops her cart. She looks at the slide and something on her face changes.
What did she see on that screen? And how long had she been waiting for it? The colloquium opens. Ashford takes the stage to polite applause. He paces the way he always does, hands behind his back like a man who's already decided how this morning is going to go. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, he says. Today, I want to talk about a problem that has, for 9 years, defeated every serious attempt at a closed-form solution.
My problem, the Ashford boundary. He clicks the slide. The inner integral expands across the 12-ft screen. This integral, he says, is what we politely call intractable. I have spent 9 years, two textbooks, and the better part of my soul demonstrating why. Today, I'm going to walk you through the latest version of that demonstration. He smiles. And just for fun, because I'm in a generous mood, I'm going to make a small wager.
The room shifts. People sit up. Ashford pulls out a stopwatch from his pocket and holds it up like a prize. If anyone in this hall, he says, can produce a closed-form solution to this integral within 2 minutes, I will resign my chair. I will hand them my office keys. And because I am, above all, a man of my word, he laughs, I I marry them on the spot.
The room laughs. He's enjoying himself. Now, before any of you graduate students get excited, he says, I don't mean you. The Putnam winners can sit down. I mean anyone. The undergrad auditing in the back, the visiting scholar who flew in last night. His eyes drift to the back of the hall. The maintenance staff. He gestures, smiling, toward Whitney who has just rolled her cart into the side aisle. Yes, Ashford says, even the woman with the mop. And I'm a man of my word. Two minutes. Marriage proposal included.
He clicks the stopwatch theatrically. Don't all rush at once. The laughter sharpens. Three people don't laugh. Audrey Whitfield in row three sets her pen down a second time. Henrik in the front row mutters, "Oh, no." under his breath. Eleanor Vance does not move a muscle on the panel. Whitney does not look up. She wipes the marker on her sleeve.
She finishes the row of tiles she was working on. She straightens up. She walks down the side aisle, slowly. The camera operator on the live stream, on instinct, swings to follow her. She stops next to Eleanor Vance at the panel table. She speaks low, just for Eleanor. Professor Vance, may I borrow the floor for the two minutes he's offering?
Eleanor looks at her. A long look. Their eyes lock for almost 3 seconds. Something passes between them that no one else in the room sees. Then Eleanor nods once. By all means, Ms. Brooks. Ms. Brooks. Phones come up across the audience. Someone in the back stands up to record. Ashford turns around at the sound and sees Whitney walking toward the stage. He laughs out loud.