Peer review was a thankless job.
First of all, this job was unpaid. Or rather, the reviewer's remuneration was usually not related to money. For example, journal acknowledgements, positions in the editorial department, free access to the journal, discounts on page fees, etc.
Secondly, with a limited understanding of the work, it was not easy to go deep into the field to judge whether a research result was correct or not.
If it wasn't an important proposition, it wouldn't be a big deal. However, a world-class problem like the existence of a solution to the Yang-Mills equations couldn't be sloppy in terms of difficulty or importance. Every line of the thesis required a lot of the reviewer's precious time to refine and refine.
Many people accepted this job not only for the "academic credentials" of being a reviewer in a well-known journal, but also because of their sense of social responsibility as a scholar and their sense of mission as a scientific research gatekeeper.
For a successful scholar, Professor Fefferman's motivation for accepting this review was probably the latter. However, after he received this thesis, all of these insignificant things were thrown aside.
Starting from the first line of calculations, the flow of calculations seemed to contain some kind of magical power, and it firmly captured his attention.
Especially the understanding of differential geometry of partial differential equations, as well as the application of the L Manifold. It was so ingenious that he almost couldn't believe it.
He couldn't believe that a young theory that had only been around for two years could develop to such a mature point in just two years.
"This is incredible."
Professor Fefferman spent around 15 minutes flipping through the first page of the thesis. He couldn't help but feel emotional.
He still felt a little regretful that his vacation had been ruined.
However, at this moment, he didn't feel any regret at all.
Time quietly passed by in the office, and the sky outside the window gradually darkened.
Wei Wen, who was sitting at another desk, finally completed the final solution. He let out a sigh of relief and stretched his back in a comfortable mood.
He was about to stand up and go to the cafeteria downstairs to eat dinner. However, he noticed that Professor Fefferman was still sitting at his desk. He was still staring at the thesis in his hand, and he was writing something on the draft paper with his pen.
After hesitating for a moment, Wei Wen finally gave in to his curiosity and asked.
"Did Professor Lu … prove it?"
When Professor Fefferman heard this question, he finally stopped writing his pen.
He placed the thesis on the table and took a sip of his cold coffee. After a while, he spoke thoughtfully.
"I can't make a hasty decision on such an important matter with just my opinion alone …"
Professor Fefferman looked at the thesis on the table and paused for a second.
"But if it's just my personal opinion, then he probably did it."
…
After completing the "Proof of the Existence of a Solution to the Yang-Mills Equations" thesis, Lu Zhou organized the contents on the draft paper into his computer. He edited it and sent it to the Annual Mathematics editorial department's email.
Without any suspense, the thesis quickly passed the technical editor's review and entered the peer review stage.
As for who the reviewer was, Lu Zhou didn't know before the thesis was published.
However, that wasn't important at all.
Before he organized the thesis into his computer, he had already checked the proof process from beginning to end. He was 90% sure that his proof was correct. Regardless of what the reviewer thought, this problem was already solved.
After confirming that the thesis had entered the peer review stage, Lu Zhou didn't bother with it anymore. Instead, he began the next stage of his research.
In fact, proving the existence of a solution was only the first step to the Yang-Mills equations, which was the holy grail of modern physics. It was far from reaching the core of the problem. At the very least, before researching the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap, he had to find a general solution to this complex equation.
From a mathematical point of view, it was undoubtedly much more difficult to find a general solution than to prove the existence of a general solution. At least, it wasn't enough to solve the Navier – Stokes equations.
In short, before finding a solution to the problem, Lu Zhou wasn't in a rush to start his next round of retreat. Over the past few days, he had been searching for other people's research in this field on arXiv. He wanted to see if he could get some inspiration from other people's research work.
Unfortunately, the results weren't ideal.
Even though the Yang-Mills equations were important in modern gauge theory, very few people focused their research on the general solution of this nonlinear partial differential equation. Even though there were some interesting results, these results often didn't go deep into the core field.
And this also meant that he could only rely on himself for this part of the work …
On the last Wednesday of April, after his computational materials science class, Lu Zhou walked out of the classroom with his textbook under his arm.
However, while he was thinking about the Yang-Mills equations, he was walking toward the stairs. A middle-aged professor shouted his name and chased after him.
"Wait a second, Professor Lu."
Lu Zhou stood in the hallway outside the lecture hall. He turned around and looked at the person who stopped him. He looked at him with a confused expression.
He looked at him and asked, "You are?"
The middle-aged professor smiled and said, "I'm Zhang Zhongqing, from the physics department … We met last time in physics class."
"Oh," Lu Zhou had an impression of this name. He immediately remembered who this person was, so he said in a pleasant tone, "Professor Zhang, what's up?"
Seeing that Lu Zhou still remembered him, Zhang Zhongqing smiled awkwardly and said, "Here's the thing, didn't you give our physics department students a lecture on the strong interaction last time? A lot of students said it was a shame that they didn't get to listen to your lecture. It just so happens that quantum mechanics is a difficult subject in undergraduate education. If you want to learn it well, you need to have a good foundation in mathematics. After the leaders of our department learned about the situation, they asked me to see if you have time. If you do, we would like to invite you to give a lecture on quantum mechanics. "
"Oh, that's it? No problem." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "How about this Saturday?"
Seeing that Lu Zhou agreed, Zhang Zhongqing quickly smiled and said, "No problem! The dean said that it depends on when you are free. We can do it anytime. Then it's settled. On behalf of the physics department students, I thank Professor Lu. "
Lu Zhou: "Don't be so polite, I like to give lectures to students."
Even though giving lectures to undergraduate students couldn't directly help him solve any problems, it could give him inspiration that he couldn't get when he was on a retreat.
Zhang Zhongqing smiled and said, "You should be polite. After all, you're so busy with your research, and you still have to take time out to give lectures to undergraduate students. We're sorry to bother you — "
"Lu Zhou!"
Halfway through his sentence, a loud and clear voice came from the other end of the corridor from afar.
The two of them stopped talking and looked in the direction of the voice. They saw Professor Lu Zhou, who was wearing a gray coat, walking toward them.
Lu Zhou was surprised to see Professor Lu walking toward him. He was about to say hello, but before he could speak, he heard the old man in front of him speak excitedly.
"You wrote that thesis?"
Lu Zhou paused for a second.
"Which thesis?"
Professor Lu Zhou said excitedly, "The proof of the existence of a solution to the Yang-Mills equations!"
Hearing this, Zhang Zhongqing almost choked on his own saliva.
Yang-Mills equations?!
F * ck sake!
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