Tech Hammer

While Ning Wei was outsmarting a kitten controlled by floating-point operations, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Mathematical Society was in the office, talking face-to-face with the deputy editor-in-chief in charge of Ning Wei's paper. The topic was exactly Rather for that paper.

"So, you fed back the opinions of all other reviewers to Mr. Flood, but he still sticks to his argument?" Editor-in-Chief Connerson rubbed his forehead and said irritably.

"Yes, Mr. Friend insists on his own idea. He believes that Ning Wei's paper is extremely lax in its argumentation in the process of several space transformations and has too many deficiencies, which will affect the research results of the entire academic community in this field. Judgment, so he is still rejecting it with all his strength. And he said that his team is close to solving these problems." The deputy editor in charge of Ning Wei's paper truthfully stated the feedback of a reviewer.

"Then have you asked Mr. Friend, when will his team make a breakthrough in this direction? This is not the first time! Why did Smith bypass us, and even bypass the "Annals of Mathematics", and finally Didn’t our Vice President have some thoughts on choosing to publish the paper in Nature?" Connerson asked in a sarcastic tone.

"Well, Mr. Friend said that his team has made substantial breakthroughs in the study of the transfer of macroscopic kinetic energy to small scales, and is only one step away from accurately capturing instantaneous changes in fluids mathematically. And the use they used The concept of indirectly defining Vlad space in the bottom space to approximate the overall smooth solution of the equation will definitely become the most advanced mathematical method for solving NS equations." The deputy editor repeated the words of this top industry leader like a machine.

Connerson looked at the deputy editor and remained silent.

"By the way, Mr. Friend also said that if you are in trouble, he can personally call several other reviewers to discuss the errors and omissions in this paper with them. Maybe they can change their views." Deputy Editor Said again.

Connerson remained silent for a long time and then said: "Okay, but Mr. Angus, please help me tell Mr. Flanders that maybe he should not just focus on research, but occasionally look up from his obsession with mathematics. , and look at the outside world. Go on Facebook, see what those young kids are doing, and listen to what they think! We can reject the paper, but some things just can’t be rejected. Maybe we won’t publish it , the "Annals of Mathematics" will not publish it, but no one in this era can control everyone's mouths and ears!"

"Yes, Connerson, so Mr. Friend also hopes that you can reply to the author of the paper later to help our team buy more time. It doesn't take too long, maybe a few months, or In half a year, perhaps Mr. Friend's research results will impress mathematicians around the world," the deputy editor explained.

Connerson was stunned for a moment, then smiled, and said in a self-deprecating tone: "So this is the so-called academic tolerance that we often talk about? It turns out that being a coffin-liver in a field is really so important! Okay? , please tell Mr. Flender for me, he will definitely be able to make his dream come true! So why not come here today? The weather is nice today, so hurry up and finish what you are doing so that you can enjoy the afternoon sunshine at noon. .”

…

Watching his deputy editor walk out of the office, Connerson sat at his desk and closed his eyes.

After sitting for a moment, he woke up the computer, first entered the journal system, and found Ning Wei's paper. All reviewer responses were already in the system. After hesitating for a second, Connerson finally placed the mouse on on the reject button.

After doing this, he opened his private mailbox.

"Mr. Ning Wei: I regret to inform you that your manuscript has been rejected. Thank you for your trust in the American Mathematical Society. However, according to the rules, the final opinion of a highly respected reviewer in the field is rejection, and We have to give more respect to the opinions he gives.”

"Of course, since this gentleman is highly respected, his influence is naturally extremely widespread. So we are not the only ones who need to respect his opinions. For example, he is a lifelong honorary professor at Princeton University and also works with the famous Springer Verlag The company has always maintained a good relationship; many academicians of the world-renowned Mathematics Branch of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences were his students, so I believe that the opinions he gave can give you a lot of guidance on the road to mathematics in the future. Take fewer detours.”

"Mathematics was once a light that illuminated the right direction for mankind. On behalf of the entire editorial department, I sincerely hope that young people like you can pass on this light forever until it helps all mankind illuminate the hidden end of science. The only one in the dark finds the answer that can explain the world."

"Your friends: Connerson Ford, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Mathematical Society, and the entire editorial staff."

After editing the email, Connerson clicked the send button and started working every day as if nothing had happened.

…

Ning Wei has been able to confirm that there is no problem with the identity of the true originator of artificial intelligence in March.

Although the semantic recognition is not very accurate, the noise filtering ability is almost full. But March is very smart. For example, it only took more than ten minutes to count from 1 to 100 smoothly.

It is actually possible to continue counting, but it is not necessary.

It's just that the child can't call him daddy, but it still gives him a headache and joy as a developer.

He had a headache because he lost a lot of fun, but he was happy because it at least showed that learning numbers is not a simple repetition. Of course, it would make him even more happy if there were some personal elements involved.

As we all know, computer hardware and software have no personality. AlphaGo can abuse professional players in Go, but it cannot be asked to say to other players: "Really good at it."

Countless science fiction works give the ultimate definition of artificial intelligence, which is to be able to have limited but independent thoughts and emotions similar to human beings. However, it is obviously difficult to achieve this in the face of a thinking mode that is restricted by binary.

Fortunately, Ning Wei is not in a hurry and can train slowly in March.

Just like humans train alpha dogs to become the overlord of the Go world, Ning Wei is also confident in training March into a sensible little milk cat.

This also makes Ning Wei happy.

Until there was a knock on the single door.

"Please come in."

Yu Xingwei walked in carrying a box lunch.

"They all said that you must have rested. You didn't go out at all. I knew you must not have slept yet! I brought you food specially." Yu Xingwei said as soon as he entered the door.

"Thank you, Brother Yu." Ning Wei felt that he was indeed hungry.

Putting the lunch box on the table, Yu Xingwei glanced at March on the table and said hello: "Hey, March, you're out again."

On the screen, Sanyue narrowed her eyes, then looked away proudly, lowered her head and started licking her fur attentively...

"Brother Yu, why don't you go rest?" Ning Wei opened the lunch box and asked casually.

"Forget it, a bunch of people refused to let me go, saying that I am an iron man and don't have to sleep, so I have to treat them to dinner today." Yu Xingwei said with a gloomy look: "Okay, I'll go first, they are all a bunch of people who can't see me A good guy for others!”

"Huh?" Before Ning Wei had time to ask which group of people were so hateful that they forced him to treat him to a meal without even taking time to get over his jet lag, Yu Xingwei had already left.

Yu Xingwei actually didn't want to ask Ning Wei this question. After all, some debts had to be repaid.

While eating, his phone vibrated. Ning Wei opened it and saw a new email.

He opened it, glanced at it, and then froze.

Um? The paper was rejected?

The moment he saw the manuscript rejected, Lu Dongyi's words flashed through Ning Wei's mind. It is very difficult to get into the top four mathematics journals...

It is indeed difficult.

Instead of asking him to make minor revisions or even major revisions, the manuscript was rejected directly?

Well, I have to say that this is also a very novel experience. After all, this is the first time in my life that my manuscript has been rejected.

Fortunately, there is a reply from the reviewer in the rejection email.

Ning Wei began to carefully study the reasons for rejection. After reading it, he was actually a little confused.

Because this is not like the opinion given by a senior reviewer. Where is the problem? Are you giving your own opinion? Is there a serious argumentative problem that the existence interval can continue to expand? Is it so broad that one sentence can be included in the reasons for rejection by a top journal?

Before Ning Wei could come to his senses, his mailbox started to prompt again with a new email.

Ning Wei subconsciously clicked on it, and then saw a separate email sent to him by the editor-in-chief of the "Journal of the American Mathematical Society".

Read the email carefully and feel enlightened.

Then I opened WeChat, found Lu Dongyi, and sent a message: "Brother, our paper has been rejected."

About half a minute later, Lu Dongyi replied with a message: "?"

Ning Wei thought about it and did not choose to send the reason for rejection. Instead, he sent the editor's email with the last signature hidden.

This time, Lu Dongyi did not let him wait long. He replied: "Annals of Mathematics is jointly published by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study; "New Advances in Mathematics" is published by SpringerVerlag; "Acta Mathematica" is published by Mittag, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. - Founded by the Leffler Institute. After reading this passage, I probably understand why Smith’s paper was not chosen from the four top journals but from Nature.”

Ning Wei looked at this reply and before he could think of how to reply, the phone rang and his senior brother called him directly.

"Hello, senior brother."

"Well, you have returned to China?"

"Yeah, I just returned to school in the afternoon, and then I received the reply email."

At this point, the other person was silent for a moment and said, "Actually, you are not the first to encounter this kind of thing. I have a friend who spent about a year and a half studying in the United States for his Ph.D., working more than ten hours a day. , wrote hundreds of thousands of lines of Coq. Under normal circumstances, such a large workload may require ten people to write it for a year. His supervisor was very positive about his research results and believed that it had the potential to achieve breakthrough results. So he invested in PLDI is also the top conference in its field.”

"The result was also rejected. The situation at that time was that all other reviewers passed it, but one reviewer persuaded all reviewers to reject the paper on the grounds that it was unfair to evaluate a related work in the paper. Later, he switched to OSDI. , was also rejected. The reasons were similar. What was worse for him than you was that a reviewer made his source code public at the time. This was very detrimental to him."

"It wasn't until he submitted to POPL that he finally passed. But by that time, the team that had been rejecting his manuscript had already published a paper on the same research topic and received widespread praise. This incident hit my friend hard at the time, but he finally accepted it. Walked out."

Ning Wei thought for a while and then said: "Senior Brother Lu, isn't it? Is that what your friend is going to do?"

Lu Dongyi did not answer the question directly, but continued: "Do you still remember during the Chinese New Year, you asked me what are the unspoken rules in the academic circle? I didn't want you to doubt the path you persisted on, so the answer was There are no hidden rules in the academic circle. But in fact, sometimes it is not like this. This kind of thing may not happen often, but as long as there is competition in the field, it is inevitable. Even in the top academic circle."

"My friend was actually quite unlucky, but he was also lucky. Although his thesis in this direction was blocked, his advisor probably felt guilty about the setbacks he had suffered, so he allowed him to graduate early and helped him find a good job. project, and then he resolutely left academia and switched to the industrial field, and he is doing well now. Of course, I am not telling you to give up, but I am telling you that when encountering this kind of thing, you must first argue with reason, no matter what you do To any extent, I can have a clear conscience.”

"Similarly, don't lose your confidence in academics because of something destined to be shady. As said at the end of the email, the fact that you can receive this email is enough to show that someone is supporting you unconditionally. , more people know the value of your paper. After all, at this stage, our analysis of supercritical problems is still at a relatively wild stage."

…

Quite a heavy topic.

But after talking to Lu Dongyi, Ning Wei felt much more relaxed.

Sure enough, where there are people, there are rivers and lakes...

"Senior Brother Lu, do you know who this highly respected gentleman in the field is?" Ning Wei finally asked.

"From the description above, I can probably guess it. You can search for the name Lucassen Flanders and you will know. But how should I put it? If I remember correctly, the old gentleman should be almost 60 years old. .”

"Oh, senior brother, are you saying that half of the old gentleman's legs are already buried in the ground, and he won't be able to jump around for a few days before he should receive a wreath?"

Lu Dongyi: "..."

"It doesn't matter if you don't submit to the four top journals in mathematics. In fact, you can submit directly to Nature like Smith."

"I think so too."

"Okay, junior brother, I'm sorry."

"Um?"

"It seems that I shouldn't have given you Popular Science, one of the top four mathematics journals."

"No, senior brother! I am full of fighting spirit now. Tagore once said that the most correct way to cure evil is to fight against it! Don't worry, senior brother! Leave it to me!"