Chapter 612 You Wrote that Paper?

Peer review is a thankless job.

First, the work is unpaid, or that reviewers are usually paid in non-monetary ways, such as journal acknowledgments, editorial positions, free access to journals, discounts on page fees, and so on.

Secondly, in the case of limited understanding of a work, it is not easy to go deep into this field to judge whether a research result is correct.

It's fine if it's not an important proposition, but such a world-class problem as the existence of the solution of the Yang-Mills equation cannot be ignored in terms of difficulty or importance, and even every line of the process in the paper has to be spent. Reviewers spend a lot of precious time deliberating over and over again.

The reason why many people take this job is not only for the "academic qualifications" named by a reviewer in a well-known journal, but also for the sense of social responsibility as a scholar and the sense of mission of being a scientific research gatekeeper .

For an already established scholar, Professor Fefferman's motivation for accepting this review invitation probably belongs to the latter. But when he got the paper, all these irrelevant things were thrown aside by him.

Starting from the first line of calculation, the smooth and flowing calculation process seemed to contain a kind of magical power, which firmly caught his attention.

In particular, the understanding of differential geometry of partial differential equations and the application of L-manifolds in the thesis is so ingenious that he can hardly believe it.

He couldn't believe that a young theory that was only two years old from its birth could develop to such a mature level in just two years.

"...it's incredible."

It took about fifteen minutes to turn over the first page of the text, and Professor Fefferman couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

If it is said that the previous thing was ruined because of the holiday, he still feels a little regretful.

However, at this moment, there was no regret in his heart.

The time in the office passed quietly, and the sky outside the window gradually darkened.

Sitting at another desk, Wei Wen, who had finally completed the final solution, heaved a sigh of relief, and stretched himself comfortably.

Just when he was about to stand up and go to the cafeteria downstairs to have dinner, he noticed that Professor Fefferman, who was sitting at the desk not far away, was still maintaining his movements in the afternoon, staring intently at Starting the thesis in hand, the pen in the hand writes something on the draft paper from time to time.

After hesitating for a while, Wei Wen finally couldn't hold back the curiosity in his heart and asked.

"Professor Lu... has he proved it?"

Hearing this inquiry, the pen in Professor Fefferman's hand finally stopped.

Putting the thesis on the table, he picked up the cold coffee and took a sip. After a while, he opened his mouth thoughtfully.

"Only relying on my own opinion, I cannot make a hasty decision on such an important matter..."

Looking at the papers on the table again, Professor Fefferman paused and continued.

"But if it's just my personal point of view, then he probably did it."

...

After finishing his thesis "On the Proof of the Existence of the Solution of the Yang-Mills Equation", Lu Zhou sorted out the content written on the draft paper into the computer, edited it briefly, and posted it to the editorial department of "Annals of Mathematics" mailbox.

There was hardly any suspense, and the paper quickly passed the review of the technical editor and entered the peer review process.

As for who the reviewers are, Lu Zhou didn't know before the paper was published.

However, such things are not important at all.

He had gone through the proof steps from start to finish before putting them together on the computer. He is more than 90% sure that his proof is correct. No matter what the reviewer thinks, this problem can be regarded as solved for himself.

After confirming that the paper entered the peer review process, Lu Zhou ignored it and started the next stage of research.

In fact, proving the existence of a solution is only the first step towards the holy grail of modern physics, the Yang-Mills equation, and it is far from touching the core of the problem. At the very least, he had to find a general solution to this complicated equation before working on the mass gap problem.

From a mathematical point of view, it is undoubtedly much more difficult to find the general solution than to prove the existence of the general solution. At least it's not necessarily enough to gnaw at the foundation of the NS equation.

In short, before finding a way to solve the problem, Lu Zhou was not in a hurry to start the next round of retreat immediately. These days, he has been searching Arxiv for other people's research in this field to see if he can get some inspiration from other people's research work.

Unfortunately, however, the results were not ideal.

Although the Yang-Mills equation is important enough in modern gauge field theory, few people regard the general solution of this nonlinear partial differential equation as their research direction. Although there are some very interesting results, these results often do not go deep into the core field.

And this also means that for this part of the work, the only one he can rely on is himself...

On the last Wednesday of April, after finishing the course of Computational Materials Science, Lu Zhou walked out of the classroom with the textbook under his arm.

However, just as he was thinking about the Yang-Mills equation and walking towards the stairs, a middle-aged professor called his name and ran after him from behind.

"Please wait, Professor Lu."

Standing still in the corridor outside the lecture hall, Lu Zhou turned around and looked at the person who stopped him, and cast a puzzled look at him.

"You are?"

After taking a few breaths, the middle-aged professor smiled and said, "I'm Zhang Zhongqing, from the Institute of Physics...we met each other in physics class last time."

"Oh," still had an impression of the name, Lu Zhou immediately remembered who he was, so he said kindly, "It's Professor Zhang, what's the matter?"

Seeing that Lu Zhou still remembered himself, Zhang Zhongqing smiled embarrassedly and said, "That's right, didn't you give a class on strong interaction to the students of our Institute of Physics last time? Many students responded, It’s a pity that I couldn’t hear your lecture. It just so happens that quantum mechanics is a difficult point in undergraduate education. If you want to learn it well, you need a certain amount of mathematics skills. After understanding the situation, the leaders of our school let me Let me ask you, do you have time recently? If so, we would like to invite you to give a lecture on quantum mechanics."

"That's it, no problem," Lu Zhou said with a smile, "Then it's Saturday this week?"

Seeing that Lu Zhou agreed, Zhang Zhongqing quickly smiled and said: "No problem! The dean said that the time depends on your availability, and we can do it anytime. Then it's settled like that. , I would like to thank Professor Lu on behalf of the students of the Institute of Physics."

Lu Zhou: "Don't be so polite, I still like to give lectures to students."

Although teaching undergraduates can't help him solve any problems directly, but while thinking about basic problems, it can bring him inspiration that cannot be produced during retreat.

Zhang Zhongqing said with a smile: "You have to be polite. After all, you are so busy with your research work, and you still have to spare time to teach undergraduates. We are sorry to bother you so much—"

"Lu Zhou!"

Just in the middle of the conversation, a loud voice came from the end of the corridor from a long distance away.

Hearing this voice, the two of them stopped talking at the same time, and looked in the direction of the voice, only to see Academician Lu in a gray coat walking briskly towards this side.

Looking in surprise at Academician Lu who was walking towards him, Lu Zhou was about to say hello, but before he could speak, he heard the old man walking up to him say excitedly.

"You wrote that paper?"

Hearing this sentence, Lu Zhou was subconsciously stunned.

"...which paper?"

Without even taking a breath, Academician Lu said excitedly: "The proof of the existence of the solution to the Yang-Mills equation!"

Hearing these words, Zhang Zhongqing almost choked on his own spit.

Yang-Mills equation? !

Hold the grass!