Research starts with PhD students

Chapter 194: The experiment has made a discovery, so the base has to be abandoned? !
Germany, Hamburg.

The editorial office of "Advances in Mathematics" is on the fourth floor of a building. After editor-in-chief Michael Winters came to the office, he routinely made himself a cup of black coffee and then slowly turned on his computer.

After opening his work email, he noticed a very special email.

His work emails were all edited by his subordinates, who screened the manuscripts before forwarding them to him. This special email did not have any files attached, just a few sentences like a letter.

"My research group has completed the smoothness proof of the solution set of the NS equation with natural boundaries and conventional values.

If the paper is submitted, when can it be officially published? "

After Michael Winters read the content of the email, his brain seemed to freeze. He was stunned for a long time before he angrily yelled, "What the hell is Libet doing? He even forwarded this kind of spam to me!"

He was about to stand up and reprimand Libet, when he suddenly noticed the name on the email -

Zhang Shuo, Soochow University?
"Zhang Shuo?"

"I seem to have heard this name somewhere before..."

Michael Winters was stunned for a moment, his eyes suddenly widened, he immediately sat back down and his expression became much more serious.

He read the email again to make sure that he understood it correctly, and took a long breath. "NS equation, natural boundary, solution set argument for conventional values?"

"Zhang Shuo..."

"No wonder!"

Research of this level cannot be reviewed by academic journals, not even by one of the four major mathematics journals, Advances in Mathematics. Even if they review it and publish it, it is meaningless compared to the difficulty and importance of the research.

Those top mathematical institutions will still review the manuscript again and analyze every step of the argument.

Generally speaking, research should first be reported at top academic institutions and then published in academic journals.

Zhang Shuo directly asked when the paper could be published. It was obvious that he did not intend to give a report at a top academic institution. At the same time, he did not think they were qualified to review the paper, so he asked whether it could be published directly, and he wanted it to be published quickly.

"New Progress in Mathematics" is one of the top academic journals in mathematics, and it publishes directly without reviewing the manuscript...

of course can!

As long as the paper is submitted by Zhang Shuo, there is absolutely no problem!

Michael Winters made a decision after just a moment's thought and immediately replied to Zhang Shuo, "The next issue will be in the middle of next month, so you can publish it directly after the next issue."

……

The editorial offices of Acta Mathematica Sinica and Annals of Mathematics had the same reaction.

They also received inquiries from Zhang Shuo. The editor-in-chief simply discussed it with other people and decided to publish Zhang Shuo's arguments directly.

One reason is that Zhang Shuo has a great influence. He is a prominent figure in the mathematics world, and in the field of mathematical proof of the NS equation, Zhang Shuo can be said to be the No. 1 mathematician.

Second, the proof of the NS equation is too important.

Although the constraints are natural boundaries and conventional values ​​and have not been fully demonstrated, they cover all areas of application and can be understood to have completed the demonstration of the NS equations to a certain extent.

If someone else submits the paper, regardless of whether the argument is right or wrong, the editorial department of the academic journal will directly throw the paper into the trash can because they are not qualified to review it at all.

Even if it passes the review but is then discovered to have problems by top institutions, it would become a joke to publish it in an academic journal.

If the review fails, it will naturally be a waste of energy.

Zhang Shuo is different. He is the focus of the international mathematics community. When publishing his research paper, and such an important research paper, even if errors are found later, it is his personal problem. The pressure on academic journals is much smaller, and it can also bring more attention. The positive significance is greater than the negative impact of publishing wrong arguments.

This matter has only benefits and no harm.

The editorial office responded that the new issue of the Annals of Mathematics would take more than three months to come out, but later Edward Hoffman found out.

Edward Hoffman is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a renowned scholar in the field of partial differential equations internationally. He is also responsible for part of the review work for the Annals of Mathematics, and many people in the editorial department know him.

After Hoffman learned the news, he went straight to the editorial department and said, "Of course you can't do this."

"Why? For such a large research, do we still need to review the manuscript? Besides, that's Zhang Shuo..."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

Hoffman immediately shook his head. “You saw the message he sent. He asked when the paper could be published. There was no paper attached to the email. Have you ever thought about what this means?”

“This suggests he may have asked other journals as well!”

"He hopes to develop as quickly as possible. In this regard, we have no advantage. For example, even if they have just published a new issue of Advances in Mathematics, their next issue will still be faster than ours."

The editors thought about it and found that it was true. “So what should we do?”

Hoffman said directly, "Just tell him, just send the paper over and we will post the electronic version on the official website!"

"Don't you want to follow the new issue? We are the Annals of Mathematics."

"Mathematical Annals, what about that?"

Hoffman was amused. “Do you think that Annals of Mathematics is the top academic journal and that contributors need to publish papers in the next issue?”

"Normally, this is true, but this is a special case. This is the proof of the NS equation."

"If the argument is correct, everyone will say that the paper on the N-th order equation was published in other academic journals. There are only seven Millennium Conjectures, and the first one was directly posted on the Internet. Of course, we must strive for the second one, no matter what means we use, even if it means breaking the rules!"

"The Annals of Mathematics is nothing special. We must remember that we are just an academic journal and a platform for publishing papers."

"If the top papers are published on other platforms, Annals of Mathematics will become garbage and no one will pay attention to it. Then what is the meaning of our pride? It will become ridiculous..."

Hoffman's words were a wake-up call to the editorial staff.

No matter how important and influential the Annals of Mathematics is, it is just a platform for publishing papers.

The fact that the best papers were not published in the Annals of Mathematics is not an honor for the argument, but an honor for the Annals of Mathematics. They must do their best to strive for excellent papers.

The NS equation argument is such a paper.

They must try their best to strive for it, and not give up because of the restrictions of publication time and rules.

……

Edward Hoffman was right.

Zhang Shuo did intend to choose the fastest publishing platform, and he asked three academic journals, namely "Recent Advances in Mathematics", "Acta Mathematica Sinica" and "Annals of Mathematics".

In fact, he even planned to post it directly on the Internet. Because of his high personal influence, even if he only posted it on the Internet, many scholars would be able to see the paper, and the attention it would bring would be no less than that of publishing it in top journals.

So for Zhang Shuo, there is no difference between posting it on the Internet and publishing it in a magazine.

He was considering Luo Yongjun and Li Weihua.

Luo Yongjun and Li Weihua have not reached the point of ignoring top journals. It is also very important for them to have a paper published in the four major mathematics journals.

That’s why they decided to publish it in one of the four major mathematics journals. After receiving the reply, Zhang Shuo had already planned to submit his paper to Advances in Mathematics, and then he received a message from the editorial department of Annals of Mathematics.

“We can publish the electronic version of the paper on the website as soon as we receive it.”

“If the paper is correct, it will be published in the next issue.”

The editorial department of Annals of Mathematics means that the electronic version will be published as soon as the paper is received.

During the three-month interval, there will certainly be a lot of attention from scholars and institutions, and a conclusion will be drawn as to whether the paper is correct. If there is no problem with the paper, it will be published a second time with the next issue, which is equivalent to an official release.

Zhang Shuo thought about it and felt that the plan was very good because the paper could be published immediately.

Finally, he decided to submit his paper to Annals of Mathematics.

Before submitting your paper, you should still do a final check on it, and be cautious when posting the electronic version directly.

There is no problem with the content of the paper as a whole, but there may be some minor problems between the lines, including some symbols may be written incorrectly, or there may be errors in interpretation.

Zhang Shuo checked it patiently and then submitted it to the Annals of Mathematics.

At the same time, Luo Yongjun and Li Weihua have already gone to Donggang Mathematics Center to attend the seminar.

A total of four people went from Soochow University, the other two were Su Bingkang and Ye Shuyuan.

Sudong and Donggang are very close, and it is still possible to get there by bus in the morning, but they still choose to go there a day in advance because they will be very tired in the morning, and it also shows their importance to the seminar.

The partial differential equations seminar held by the Donggang Mathematical Center was not large in scale, but it had a great influence.

The conference invited four academicians of mathematics, six outstanding young scholars and above, and the others were researchers, doctoral supervisors and professors from various institutions. The total number of participants exceeded 50.

The seminar can be said to have brought together top scholars in the field of partial differential equations in China.

The next morning, the opening ceremony of the seminar was held in the conference room on the first floor of Donggang Mathematics Center.

The seminar did not have any grand opening ceremony. The Donggang Mathematics Center, which hosted the meeting, simply explained the content and process of the meeting.

Jiang Weizhi took the stage on behalf of the Donggang Mathematics Center and explained several themes of the conference.

There are four main themes, namely, the direction of coverage demonstration of NS equation, research on solution set of Monge-Ampere equation, mathematical analysis of major partial differential equations such as Einstein equations and Yang-Mills equations, and theoretical methods of partial differential equations.

When Jiang Weizhi finished speaking and walked off the stage, Luo Yongjun in the front row greeted him and then said, "Academician Jiang, I must explain one thing."

"Our project team has already completed the demonstration of the conventional value of the natural boundary of the N-order equation. If we were to do demonstration in this direction, it might not be meaningful..."

Luo Yongjun spoke very seriously and sincerely.

The professors nearby were stunned and asked immediately, "Is this true? Have you completed the argument?"

"Professor Luo, you're not kidding, right?"

"Why do I feel it's impossible? Of course, I know that Zhang Shuo has completed the singularity proof of the turbulence transition position, and many other positions have also been certified, but coverage proof and point proof are not the same content, right?"

Jiang Weizhi also frowned and asked, "Professor Luo, did you misunderstand? Our discussion is to find a direction for comprehensive argumentation, not to expand the scope of point-by-point argumentation."

"I'm very sure!" Luo Yongjun patted his chest confidently.

Although he appeared very confident, few people around him believed him, and Jiang Weizi was very skeptical when he heard the news.

This in itself is incredible.

Luo Yongjun and others kept explaining, but he personally had no authority.

Adding Li Weihua to the mix still doesn't make the authority enough.

Jiang Weizheng hesitated for a moment, but decided to proceed with the meeting as normal. He asked Li Jianfeng to go up and give a report.

Li Jianfeng's team has been committed to studying the NS equations. They have not yet found a way to conduct a covering proof, but they have thought of several "possibly feasible" directions, and would like to throw them out for discussion.

Li Jianfeng walked onto the stage.

Jiang Weizi also sat back in the first row. He had just sat down when he noticed someone at the door calling him over.

He went to the door with confusion, and soon walked back to the venue with a very strange expression.

Instead of returning to his seat, he walked directly to the podium.

Li Jianfeng looked over in confusion.

Jiang Weizhi ignored him and stood in the middle of the podium. He pursed his lips and remained silent for a long time before he finally mustered up the courage to speak, "We just received news that Professor Zhang Shuo's team has completed the smoothness proof of the conventional valued solution set of the NS equation. The proof was published in the Annals of Mathematics and has already been published electronically."

"One of the topics of our conference is the proof of the coverage of the NS equation. I think we can change the topic appropriately."

"I have asked someone to print out the paper and will give a copy to everyone. So many scholars in the field of partial differential equations can come together to study the research results of Professor Zhang Shuo's team..."

……

West, Jinghai City, three hundred kilometers south.

There is a temporary base here, which is specially used to verify the theoretical experiment of "strong splitting". A small tokamak spiral magnetic field device is located in the center of the temporary base.

Although the Tokamak spiral magnetic field device is only of 'small' grade, it is as high as a three-story building as a whole, and the fences built around it form a large building.

A lot of sophisticated equipment has been delivered around the device, and many of them are already in operation.

Tong Zhiguo was standing on the support wearing a safety helmet, talking to technician Ni Hongyu, "Have the test data from yesterday come out? Is the new equipment running stably?"

Ni Hongyu nodded and said, "The new equipment is running very stably, and it also cooperates with the main device to produce a stable strong magnetic field."

"According to the data, as long as the intensity is increased, the minimum experimental standard can be reached."

Tong Zhiguo nodded in satisfaction and said, "We still need to continue testing and ensure that all equipment operates stably."

"We are doing verification experiments. The most important thing is to find the signal, or to see the phenomenon. As long as the data meets the standards, it's fine."

"The experiment still needs to be completed as soon as possible."

Ni Hongyu said, "According to the current progress, in half a month, when the other line is pulled over, we can almost carry out the first test experiment. The only difficulty is the particle generator. Don't we need to control the particles stably?"

Tong Zhiguo shook his head. "Not for the time being. If the experiment does not find anything, we will consider stabilizing and controlling the particles. We should simplify it as much as possible. If there is a discovery, this base will be abandoned. If there is no discovery, we may continue the research."

Ni Hongyu nodded in confusion.

He didn't know the specific content of the experiment, nor did he know what would happen in the experiment. He just did whatever Tong Zhiguo asked him to do.

The only thing I can't figure out is...

Why would the base be abandoned if there were discoveries in the experiment? Normally speaking, if there were discoveries in the experiment, shouldn't the research be continued?

(End of this chapter)