How would a normal Chinese father feel when he suddenly sees his illegitimate son who was born more than ten years ago suddenly burst into his field of vision, and he is a highly talented mathematical star who is praised as a young genius by the boss?

First of all, it's probably all about pride...

Feng Yu was the same, but it only lasted for a second...and then panic!

Yes, panic!

Feng Yu really didn't expect that the woman actually gave birth to the child and raised it to such a big age. This made him instinctively feel the danger, and then... panicked! His life is very happy now, and he has a child.

Loves his wife and two adorable children.

The most important thing is that his father-in-law is Mikael Eisen, a well-known American quantum physicist and academician of the Academy of Sciences. His father-in-law’s father is even more powerful, Lucas Eisen, a Fields Medal winner.

Top experts in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.

One of the most influential figures in the world of mathematics who is still alive

He was able to work at Berkeley, enter Dennis's research group, and frequently participate in various high-end academic conferences. In addition to his own strength, what was more important was the recommendation and guarantee of Lucas Eisen.

This is why even after giving birth to two children, his wife Irene's figure has gradually begun to lose shape, but he still loves his wife very much.

He is able to live a prosperous life in this country and achieve his current achievements largely because of the help from his father-in-law's family. Now Qiao Yu's appearance means a change.

Feng Yu doesn't like this kind of change, especially since he is in a critical period of career advancement.

The geometric Langlands conjecture he participated in has been proven. If nothing unexpected happens, as one of the main members of the team, he has a high probability of being nominated for the Fields Medal. Of course, he will definitely be a co-runner this time.

Lucas Eisen has already talked to him. This time, he will run with him first, get familiar with each other, and give a 45-minute report at next year’s World Congress of Mathematicians, and then produce some results in the next four years. This way

It will be a matter of course for me to win the Fields Medal at the next World Congress of Mathematicians.

Yes, as long as Lucas Eisen lives for six years, he will most likely win the award.

Because many of the next jury members will be Lucas Eisen’s friends and students.

It’s not that Feng Yu himself has done nothing. He is active in various mathematics conferences and is particularly friendly to Chinese mathematicians and Chinese students. He hopes that in addition to the help from his husband’s family, he will also receive strong support from the Chinese mathematics community.

.

After all, if successful, he will be the third Chinese-born Fields Medal winner in Chinese history. Chinese people will also be honored, and they are his natural best target. Therefore, his relationship with Yuan Zhengxin is handled well.

good.

At this time, Qiao Yu suddenly popped up and made him panic.

If he, an illegitimate son, is really so talented in mathematics, he must come to the United States to study. After all, this is the paradise of real mathematicians. As for China.

No kidding, has China produced a Fields Medal in so many years?

There are only two of them. Which one has no experience of studying in the United States? Which one did not study in the United States? When this idea popped into his mind, Feng Yu’s first thought was that he would never review this paper. At least until he got the Phil Before receiving this award, you must not have anything to do with Qiao Yu.

After having this idea, Feng Yu was suddenly shocked. Why was it such a coincidence? He happened to be the reviewer? Could someone be testing him?

This is not impossible.

Although he is usually very popular with everyone, and everyone thinks he is a gentle and capable professor, Feng Yu feels that since his name appeared on the list of candidates for the Fields Medal, potential enemies It has already appeared.

He looked carefully at the photos on the website, and they really looked like his face when he was young. So is this a competitor trying to test him? Well, whether it is or not, he must stay away from this paper immediately.

Although he had already made up his mind, Feng Yu did not call Dennis back immediately, but concentrated on reading the paper. It must be said that Feng Yu's level is still good, at least the aesthetics of the review are online.

He still had a very high opinion of this paper and could not even find any mistakes. The only pity was that Qiao Yu appeared a little early.

If he had been successful for six years, even if the scandal of his illegitimate child had been exposed, it would not have been that important. But at this critical moment, it was absolutely not possible! Fortunately, Huang Tian paid off and finally found a citation problem. .

In fact, this is not a problem.

In the process of proving an important lemma, the paper quotes the conclusion of Robert Greene in a 2017 paper.

This is a normal thing, but Feng Zi of UBW remembers that Robert's paper was controversial, and this part of the content happened to be similar to that of the paper first published by Professor Filsman of Harvard University. Similar, and there are some disputes.

Although citations in papers are a very subjective matter for the author, maybe some articles can be made on this topic?

After Feng Yu thought about it carefully, he felt that he still didn't need to be so obvious. What he needed now was to get rid of this possible pot. At most, he could only provide some suggestions. So when his attention shifted from the paper, Feng Yu realized that it was already Four o'clock in the afternoon.

Unknowingly, he had been reading the paper for five hours. He didn't even eat the lunch he brought, and he didn't feel hungry.

But after reading it, he still didn't feel hungry. After thinking about the words in his mind, Feng Yu picked up the phone and called Dennis back.

After a few simple greetings, Feng Yu said directly: "I'm sorry, Dennis, I suddenly thought that I will be very busy recently. Considering that Professor Dugan invited you to review this paper, I think this paper may be Change the reviewer."

"Oh? Frank, is it because you are not interested in this paper?"

"You can't say that. As I said, on the one hand, I am very busy, and on the other hand, I am not very good at problems such as algebraic curves and rational points. Out of a responsible attitude towards the paper, I think there may be a more suitable professor, such as

Professor Fiersman, I think he must be very interested in papers like this that can solve specific problems."

"Okay, I'll think about it." "Sorry, Dennis."

"It's nothing, we all have our own things to do."

Dennis Gates, sitting in front of the computer at Harvard University, shook his head.

He briefly read the paper, especially the final supercomputer verification report. To be honest, this kind of heavyweight paper is actually relatively easy to review. As long as it proves part of the logical derivation process and there are no obvious errors, it can basically pass.

Even if a special curve that does not conform to the formula does appear in the future, it cannot be said that the conclusion of this paper is wrong. Although mathematics requires absolute accuracy, if this happens, what mathematicians have to do next is to study this

The reason why the formula is no longer accurate due to special curves will not easily deny the error of the original formula.

After all, being able to predict the upper bound result of a known curve is completely correct, which is enough to prove the value of this formula. At least in the field of engineering and application, a certain amount of error is allowed.

You must know that the LMFDB database alone has more than three million elliptic curve records.

In addition, the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Mathematics personally invited the reviewers for this paper. His choice of Professor Frank was also a matter of favor - everyone knows that Frank is very friendly to Chinese students.

Who knew that this professor actually refused to review the manuscript.

Well, Dennis Gates turned his attention back to the computer screen. On the screen was a half-edited letter.

This letter happens to be written to another Chinese member of the team and his student - Pan Jingyuan, a young professor at the Yuan Zhengxin Mathematics Research Center of Huaqing University. The letter mainly discusses some discussions in the mathematics community about their newly published papers.

This is a normal and necessary communication in the team.

The proof of the geometric Langlands conjecture is an extremely important achievement in the world of mathematics. This conclusion consists of five papers, totaling more than 800 pages. It is normal that it will trigger various discussions.

Naturally, after the serious chat, at the end of the email, Dennis Gates complained a few words.

"...I still remember that the paper I originally planned to ask you to review for me was the genius boy you called me. You refused to review the paper because you wanted to avoid suspicion. Unexpectedly, Frank also refused. He gave

The reason is that it is not suitable for review. Oh my God, do I have to review this paper?"

The letter was completed and he clicked send. Then Dennis picked up the paper and began to seriously consider it. He might as well work harder and finish reviewing the paper in two days. He was not the kind of professor with a weird temper, and he would not be willing to do this kind of work.

An inexplicable incident offended the editor-in-chief of a top journal

Not to mention that he was an old man with a really weird temper...

The connection of fate is always so clever.

In early March, Yuan Zhengxin presided over the mathematics conference of the research center. After the meeting, he and Pan Jingyuan came together. "How are your results?" Yuan Zhengxin asked with concern.

The geometric Langlands conjecture is an extremely important conjecture in the mathematics world. If the final result is correct, it will definitely be excellent news for the Huaqing Mathematical Science Center. As the organizer of the science center, Yuan Zhengxin is naturally very concerned about it.

Although most of these results were completed by Pan Jingyuan while he was abroad, he has been a member of the Yuan Zhengxin Center for Mathematical Sciences at Huaqing University since the year before last year. "The discussion is still very intense and there are a lot of arguments," Pan Jingyuan answered.

"It's good to have a debate. This just shows that this issue is very important. For geometry, if you are right, it means that a series of new mathematical methods and tools have been developed in many frontier directions of mathematics, which is a good thing." Yuan Zhengxin nodded and said.

"I know that Professor Dennis is also busy holding a report meeting to explain the ideas of some key parts of the paper. But verification may take a long time." Pan Jingyuan responded with a smile.

"This is normal. The geometric Langlands conjecture is one of the most important conjectures. Not to mention that the paper is more than 800 pages long. It will be great to be able to draw a conclusion before the World Congress of Mathematicians next year, so put your mind at ease." Yuan Zhengxin gave words of encouragement.

Pan Jingyuan nodded, thinking of the old man's importance to Qiao Yu, and said casually: "By the way, Professor Dennis originally planned to have Professor Feng from Berkeley be the reviewer for Qiao Yu's paper. I don't know why Professor Feng originally planned to review it. Those who agreed, then rejected it after reading the paper. Professor Dennis may personally review it."

When Dennis asked him to be a reviewer, he specifically asked Yuan Zhengxin what he meant. Pan Jingyuan himself was not very resistant to being a reviewer for Qiao Yu's paper.

But Yuan Zhengxin has thought more carefully. Since Pan Jingyuan works at the Science Center, if his relationship with Qiao Yu is exposed in the future, he is afraid that it will affect Qiao Yu's reputation. Of course, this refers to the reputation among ordinary people. After all, it is the reputation of Qiao Yu. Mathematicians from the Erba Classics are all aware of the gold content of Qiao Yu's paper.

But many times, when people want to smear someone, they don't care about the facts, and they don't even ask real experts for advice. Even if they do, they will find ways to quote things out of context.

This is human nature...

Even if you do a million things that are in the interest of the vast majority of people, if you make a small mistake, as long as it is infinitely magnified, it will turn from a small flaw into a sin that cannot be avoided in life.

Not to mention that Yuan Zhengxin is very confident in Qiao Yu's paper and does not need anyone around him to be a reviewer. He believes that Qiao Yu's paper will definitely pass the review. There are not many papers published in the "Annals of Mathematics" every year, and the editor-in-chief can personally review it. There are even fewer papers for which he serves as editor.

It is enough to show that the quality of Qiao Yu's paper is also recognized by foreign colleagues, so when it is time to avoid suspicion, you must avoid suspicion. Especially when Tian Yanzhen has published Qiao Yu's paper on ArXiv in advance and can only conduct a single-blind review. You need to pay more attention.

The old man is serious about protecting Qiao Yu in every detail, even if Qiao Yu doesn't know about these things. But many times the elders do things for the younger ones, and the younger ones don't need to know about them.

When we talked about Qiao Yu, the old man naturally became interested again. "Oh? Professor Feng from Berkeley?"

"That's Professor Frank in the team. We call him Frank abroad, but in China we still call him by his surname." Pan Jingyuan explained. "Oh." Yuan Zhengxin nodded and said nothing more.

He knew this person, and he had a little disdain for him before. Yuan Zhengxin actually couldn't stand many people who like to run businesses. In the eyes of the elderly, this Berkeley professor was the kind of person who had bad luck.

I may have some ability, but not much. Many of the things I have been able to use were made with the help of big bosses after I went to Berkeley.

However, Professor Frank's reputation among Chinese professors and international students has been pretty good over the years, which has somewhat changed his perception of this unlucky guy.

It just makes Yuan Zhengxin a little confused. Doesn't Professor Feng take good care of Chinese students? Why did he refuse to serve as a reviewer for Qiao Yu's paper?

If you really care about Chinese students, if you read Qiao Yu's paper carefully, shouldn't you just go with the flow and give it a pass? Why did you reject it after reading it?

Could it be that you think there are big holes in the paper and it’s not convenient to talk about it?
To be continued...