"What's the matter, you and Hao Tian have a conflict?" Cui Minhong was a little surprised, but felt that it was normal: "It's not a big deal to make a little awkward when you fall in love, Xia Lu, you just take the initiative and coax Hao Tian with good words." ”

Xia Lu said calmly: "Don't coax, break up." ”

"You two were fine a few days ago, why did you suddenly break up?" Cui Minhong was surprised.

"God closes a door, but at the same time opens a window for you. Feelings are such things, let it be. Xia Lu said without being surprised.

"Oh?" Cui Minhong fell into deep thought, and then suddenly realized: "You have a new girlfriend?"

"Not yet, but I have more important things to do. Mom, don't worry about it, I'm fine. ”

Xia Lu went to his bedroom and wrote his paper on the computer.

The operation of writing a paper is familiar to Xia Lu, who has written a PRL paper as the first author.

It took Xia Lu a week to finish writing his "Proof of the Hail Conjecture", which was then translated into English and saved in pdf format.

The next step is to choose a mathematics journal to submit your manuscript to.

The hail conjecture is a number theory problem, and it seems that it is best to submit it to a pure number theory journal.

However, Xia Lu found that the IF value of number theory journals was too low, and the IF value of the most influential journals in the field of number theory was only 1.1, and they had to charge expensive page fees.

So Xia Lu set his sights on the four major journals of mathematics.

According to statistics, Chinese scholars have published a total of 98 articles (including co-authorships) in the four major mathematics journals in the past 20 years.

Among them, there are 22 articles in the Annals of Mathematics, 5 articles in Acta Mathematica Sinica, 22 articles in the Journal of the American Mathematical Society, and 49 articles in Advances in Mathematics.

It is widely accepted in the industry that the Annals of Mathematics sponsored by Princeton University is the most demanding mathematics journal, and it is difficult to publish articles in this journal. In the past 20 years, Chinese mathematicians have published an average of one article in the Annals of Mathematics every year.

In terms of data, it seems that it is extremely difficult for Chinese scholars to publish articles in Acta Mathematica Sinica, sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and even more difficult than in the Annals of Mathematics. In the past 20 years, Chinese scholars have published only five articles in Acta Mathematica Sinica.

Comparatively speaking, the German-sponsored Advances in Mathematics received the most articles from Chinese scholars, with 49, or an average of 2.5 articles per year.

There are so many mathematicians in China who write so many mathematical papers every year, and the average number of papers published in Advances in Mathematics is only 2.5 per year.

It can be seen that it is very difficult to publish an article in any of the four major mathematics journals.

Xia Lu's final choice was Advances in Mathematics, and he uploaded his paper to the submission system of Advances in Mathematics with an email address. There is only one corresponding author and first author this time, and that is Xia Lu.

Soon after, Xia Lu logged on to the submission system of "Advances in Mathematics" and saw that the status of his "Proof of the Hail Conjecture" was Under-Review, indicating that his manuscript had been received by the journal and was being processed.

At the same time, Xia Lu's mailbox has a new email, the sender is the editorial department of "Advances in Mathematics", and the attached is the manuscript copyright authorization letter.

A paper is an intellectual property right and the owner of the property is the author.

According to industry regulations, when an author submits a manuscript to a journal, he or she must transfer the copyright of the paper, which is part of the intellectual property rights of the paper.

Transferring the copyright of the manuscript is a routine operation, Xia Lu filled in the copyright authorization form of the manuscript "Progress in Mathematics" according to the template, and then uploaded it to the submission system, and then it was a long wait.

Advances in Mathematics is a quarterly journal published four times a year, with about 10 articles in each issue.

The average duration of the peer review process at this journal is more than 3 months. When it comes to very important conjectures, the review cycle will be longer, half a year, a year or even longer.

After submitting the manuscript, Xia Lu began to spend his summer vacation.

There are two important things for him this summer, one is the hail conjecture, and the other is swimming.

The paper of the hail conjecture has been submitted to "Progress in Mathematics", and the rest of the things are not something that Xia Lu can control, all he can do is to wait patiently.

And swimming is Xia Lu's controllable business, he came to the swimming pool and practiced short-distance freestyle frantically.

Most of the members of the Jiangcheng University swimming team returned to their hometowns during the summer vacation, and even the coach took a vacation.

Others can take a vacation, but Xia Lu is strict with himself, and his goal in swimming is to achieve good results in the upcoming Universiade.

With the improvement of his physical function to the elite two-star, Xia Lu's level in the short distance freestyle has improved significantly.

It's summer in the Eastern Hemisphere, and it's also summer in the Western Hemisphere.

In Munich, Germany, this year's summer is hotter than last year.

In the office of the editor-in-chief of the headquarters of Advances in Mathematics, a strange-looking old white man sipped coffee as usual and browsed his e-mail.

"Andrew, I'm not going to England for those boring meetings, I'd love to welcome you to Munich for a beer. The old man replied to an email from his old friend Andrew Wiles.

The old man was Greid Faltings, editor-in-chief of Advances in Mathematics.

Faltings and Wiles worked together in Princeton's mathematics department, and their specialties and accomplishments are similar.

Faltins used algebraic geometry to prove the model conjecture for number theory, and Wyles also used algebraic geometry to prove Fermat's theorem.

With the proof of Model's conjecture and Fermat's theorem, Faltings and Wiles won the Fields Medal successively.

The two successful tycoons returned to their home countries of Germany and England, with Faltings now editor-in-chief of Advances in Mathematics and Wiles a professor at Oxford University.

After replying to Wiles's email, Faltins refilled his coffee, and his work today didn't seem to be heavy.

Knock knock.

There was a knock on the door of Faltins' office.

Faltins: "Please come in." ”

Comes in a burly, dashing red-haired middle-aged white man who is a subordinate of Faltins and the academic editor of Advances in Mathematics.

Faltins said, "Oh, Sebastian, what is it that makes you seem so anxious?"

"Greid, there's a paper you have to look at. Sebastian gestured to Faltins' computer.

Faltins said slowly, "Yes, I read papers every day, what is it that makes you come to my office to remind me to review them?"

Sebastian gave an exaggerated expression, "Hail conjecture, someone has proven the hail conjecture!" ”

An academic editor is not a reviewer, and the main job of an academic editor is to review the manuscript and then find a suitable reviewer based on the content of the manuscript.

The job of the preliminary review is to see if the article is OK in the layout.

If it's the kind of manuscript that even academic editors can quickly judge as "garbage", there will be no follow-up peer review.

Sebastian was able to become the academic editor of Advances in Mathematics, one of the four major journals, and his level of mathematics was not low.

Faltins smiled: "Yes, the hail conjecture, every day there are people who claim to prove the hail conjecture, as well as the Goldbach conjecture, the Riemann conjecture and the Hodge conjecture. But Sebastian, these conjectures are still conjectures, not the hail theorem or Goldbach's theorem. ”

"Greid, this paper on the hail conjecture is different from the grandstanding! Hey, hurry up and take a look, I have a hunch that something big might happen!"