From child prodigy to chief scientist

"In that case, if I want to complete the task of thinking terms as soon as possible, I need to put my brain in a state of extreme thinking as much as possible."

With Xu Xiao's current abilities, conducting academic research is undoubtedly a way to more easily put his brain in a brainstorming state.

Xu Xiao planned to finish writing the English version of her paper before focusing on studying some papers suitable for her reading. Of course, it would be even better if she could work on another research project.

…………

With the end of the break, the second phase of training for the national math competition training team began.

Compared to the first phase of training, the intensity of the new phase of training has increased, and the difficulty of the exams has also become higher.

However, for Xu Xiao at present, this increase in difficulty is basically negligible.

In every team test, he was still able to submit his paper well in advance and get full marks, at most he just spent a little more time answering the questions.

During this period, Xu Xiao finally completed the writing of the English version of the paper.

It was Xu Xiao's first time writing a paper in English, and she wasn't quite used to it, but she was still quite satisfied with what she had finally written.

During the writing process, Xu Xiao basically did not look up various mathematical terms on the spot, nor did she use translation software. Instead, she wrote entirely based on her memory.

Because writing and looking up words on the spot is very inefficient, and using software translation directly can easily lead to inaccurate vocabulary or various grammatical errors.

After carefully proofreading the completed paper twice, Xu Xiao sent it to Yuan Jiyang.

Over here, Yuan Jiyang immediately opened and checked Xu Xiao's email after seeing it.

To be honest, Yuan Jiyang did not have high expectations for this paper.

After all, writing English academic papers is something that cannot be rushed; it requires precise language expression while adhering to academic norms.

Even the graduate students in their lab initially wrote English papers that were poorly written and only after major revisions did they barely meet the standards for submission.

Given Xu Xiao's age, he probably hasn't even systematically studied English in middle school, let alone reached the level of professional academic English.

With this in mind, Yuan Jiyang began reading Xu Xiao's thesis.

"The beginning was quite good; the title, keywords, and abstract were all translated very accurately."

Since the preceding content was relatively easy to translate, Yuan Jiyang wasn't too surprised.

However, as he gradually came to see the key content in the paper, his brows furrowed slightly.

Yuan Jiyang's expression wasn't because he was dissatisfied with Xu Xiao's paper; rather, he was incredulous at Xu Xiao's demonstrated English writing skills.

Throughout the paper, Xu Xiao used very standard academic English, without any colloquialisms.

While ensuring the standardization of language, Xu Xiao did not make the sentences too complicated, and used various tenses very accurately.

This level of English writing is completely unlike that of a student writing a paper in English for the first time, and it is definitely not something that could be achieved simply by relying on translation software.

"Xu Xiao... just how many more talents are you hiding?"

Even though he was very surprised, Yuan Jiyang had no doubts about the matter, knowing that Xu Xiao must have done it himself.

Given the quality of this paper, it wouldn't pose much of a problem to submit it directly to a journal.

However, to be on the safe side, Yuan Jiyang still offered his own suggestions for revision on a few details, so that the whole paper could be further improved.

After annotating Xu Xiao's paper, Yuan Jiyang expressed some other thoughts in an email.

If Xu Xiao doesn't mind, I will act as the corresponding author and help Xu Xiao submit the paper.

This will not affect Xu Xiao's ownership of the paper; he will still retain his status as the first author.

In the field of mathematics, the first author is far more important than the corresponding author, as they represent the core contribution made to the paper's results.

Of course, if Xu Xiao has other ideas, he can also submit the paper himself as both the corresponding author and the first author.

On the other hand, Xu Xiao felt much more at ease after seeing Yuan Jiyang's reply email.

Although Yuan Jiyang also offered some suggestions for revision, the paper as a whole did not have any major problems. It only needed a few simple revisions before it could be finalized.

Xu Xiao naturally had no objection to Yuan Jiyang's offer to help her submit her paper.

As one of the nation's top mathematics experts, having Yuan Jiyang help submit a paper would greatly increase the journal's trust in and acceptance rate of the paper.

Without Yuan Jiyang's connection, Xu Xiao could only submit his application as a student of Yucai Middle School, and the journal might not even read it carefully and would just click the "X" on it.

On the other hand, Yuan Jiyang also put a lot of effort into his paper.

Although Xu Xiao completed the research independently, Yuan Jiyang still provided him with some valuable suggestions and showed great attention to the paper review process.

Both logically and emotionally, Xu Xiao would have Yuan Jiyang listed as the corresponding author on this paper.

In the following period, Xu Xiao revised the paper according to Yuan Jiyang's annotations and returned it to Yuan Jiyang.

After receiving the final draft of the paper, Yuan Jiyang checked it twice more. After confirming that there were no problems, he submitted it to Acta Arithmetica.

The paper successfully passed the initial review by the journal editor, but it still needs to undergo a more rigorous peer review stage before the final review comments can be determined.

This process will take a relatively long time; results can be obtained within a month if things go smoothly, but it's quite normal for it to take several months if things go slowly.

On the other hand, the national training team for math competitions has also completed the second phase of training and conducted its final selection test.

As expected, Xu Xiao successfully made it into the national team's six-man roster.

In addition to Xu Xiao, Pan Hong, Ge Xijie, and others were also selected and will represent China in the IMO in July.

After completing the selection of members for the national math competition team, Fei Ran said to everyone:

"After that, we will organize a unified pre-competition sprint training camp in June. Of course, during this period, everyone must not relax their requirements for themselves and must maintain a sufficient amount of training every day."

"This time, you are not only representing yourselves, but also representing China, showcasing the mathematical prowess of our nation's younger generation..."