For most journals, editors do not necessarily have strong academic ability, but are mainly responsible for checking the format and word count of the paper, and then contacting professional reviewers for the approved manuscripts, and deciding whether the paper can pass the review according to the reviewers' opinions.

However, this is only for most journals.

For example, the Annals of Mathematics, a journal founded by Princeton, a top university in the field of mathematics, is generally edited by the top academic leaders in the editorial department.

For example, the former editor-in-chief, Peter Sanak, is a great scholar in the field of number theory, and he is the winner of the 14-year Wolf Prize in Mathematics, a lifetime achievement award.

As the third editor-in-chief after Professor Peter Sanak, Professor Frakes, although a little less well-known and a scholar who has only emerged in recent years, is undoubtedly capable. If it weren't for the fact that he was already over the age of 40, with his research results in the field of differential manifolds, there was still a little hope of winning the Fields Medal.

Of course, the reason why Annals of Mathematics chose him as editor-in-chief was not entirely because of his academic ability, but also because of another factor.

Because of the global popularity of controlled nuclear fusion research, the research on plasma physics is also on the rise. Due to the miraculous effect of "L manifold" in solving the NS equation and plasma turbulence problem a few years ago, over the years, the scientific research investment in the field of mathematics has increased the resources of partial differential equations and differential manifolds, and encouraged domestic scholars to enter the research in these fields.

Although the Annals of Mathematics rarely keeps up with hot topics, since Professor Lu's century report on the NS equation, there have indeed been no outstanding achievements in the entire field of partial differential equations and differential manifolds, as if the aura of the entire research direction has been sucked dry by Professor Lu alone.

Therefore, the selection of Professor Frakes as the editor-in-chief and the board of directors of the Annals of Mathematics was made out of the consideration of supporting the research directions of partial differential equations and differential manifolds.

Generally speaking, when the editor-in-chief arranges the manuscript of the paper, he has a certain tendency to approve the manuscript in his or her own research field......

Princeton.

Editorial office of Annals of Mathematics.

Professor Frakes, who had taken over from the previous editor-in-chief, had moved his office to the newsroom with his students, scrambling to deal with the mountain of work.

Although the editor-in-chief of the general mathematical annuals does not take this job very seriously, Frakes is different, and now he can only be regarded as a calf at best, especially in a place like Princeton, where the dragon and the tiger are hidden, it can be said that there is no sense of existence at all.

Others can not care about the academic qualification of being the editor-in-chief of the "Annals of Mathematics", but he can't care less, so he attaches great importance to this job, and even to a certain extent, even puts aside the subject he is working on temporarily.

Sitting in front of a computer piled high with papers, a curly-haired Ph.D. student took a sip of coffee, stared at the screen and coughed as if choking.

“…… Professor, ahem! You have received a cover letter in your mailbox! ”

As he was busy with the matter at hand, Professor Frakes didn't have time to look up, so he casually replied, "Help me print it out, I'll take a look at it when I'm free." ”

"But...... The contributor is Lu Zhou. ”

The hand tapping on the keyboard suddenly stopped, and Professor Frakes slammed up from his chair and walked briskly towards the PhD student's desk.

"Give me the computer!"

"Good, good ......"

Approaching the computer, Frakes checked every letter of the email address to confirm that the manuscript was indeed delivered by Professor Lu, and then downloaded the PDF file attached to the email with great interest.

"Let me see what interesting results Professor Lu has made......

One of the most direct benefits of being an editor of a well-known journal is that you can know first-hand what amazing research results those big guys have made.

With anticipation, Professor Frakes opened the paper he had just downloaded.

However, when he saw the content of the abstract, his eyes gradually changed from the previous excitement to a trace of disappointment.

Noticing the change in the instructor's expression, the curly-haired doctor who had given up his seat asked in a low voice, "What's wrong?" ”

"It's not a novel study, it's just a supplement to the theory of ultra-elliptic curve analysis," Professor Frakes, who had finished reading the abstract, shook his head and continued in a somewhat disappointed tone. ”

The doctor continued, "What about ...... Are we going to reject the manuscript? ”

"No," said Professor Frakes, shaking his head, "if it's not long, and it's really important enough, it's okay...... In short, leave this troublesome matter to the reviewers, because it is too offensive to kill the manuscript outside of peer review...... Well, you help me print out the paper, and I'll think about it again. ”

"Okay professor."

The printer whines.

Soon the paper was printed on paper.

Returning to his seat with the paper still smelling from oil, Professor Frakes sipped his coffee and looked at the text of the paper with his legs crossed.

To be honest, after reading the abstract part, he actually didn't have great expectations for the research results in this paper.

However, just as he saw the third page, there was a sudden soft sigh from his mouth.

“…… When n is greater than 2, two n-dimensional complex complete intersections X^n(d), X^n(d') differential homomorphism, if and only if their Euler numbers, full order, and Pontrjagin classes are equal......"

“…… Why does this inference look so familiar to me? ”

It's not that it's familiar in the intuitive sense, but it's familiar in the sense of understanding.

It was as if this corollary, he had seen another representation of it in that place......

Without seeing the marker of the quotation beside him, Professor Frakes began to have a trace of doubt in his mind, and then he sat up from his chair, picked up a ballpoint pen and counted a few strokes on the scratch paper next to him.

However, his brushstrokes had barely walked two lines on the paper when he paused there.

“……”

This, this line of expression!

Could it be......

Pupils contracted slightly, then dilated rapidly, and Professor Frakes jerked himself up from his seat.

"Sullivan's conjecture!?"

This conjecture was made by Professor Sullivan in his work on "classifying single-connected manifolds under finite uncertainty" and "rational homotopy", and belongs to a class of classification problems of smooth manifolds.

At the same time, it is also one of the core problems in differential topology!

If you don't know about differential topology, it's normal not to have heard of this conjecture, after all, as a branch of mathematics research, this conjecture is far from well-known, even if it is important for those who are engaged in research in this field.

And because of the great difficulty, not many people study this subject, and even he, a maverick in the field of differential topology, has not been able to see at a glance that this thing is actually just another form of expression.

However, it is a bit scary to be completely ignorant of this conjecture, or even the branch of mathematics of differential topology, to be able to make such research results......

Judging from the fact that this inference is not marked with a citation, it is clear that Professor Lu did not know that the line of inference he wrote in his paper was actually another form of expression of Sullivan's conjecture......

Thinking of this, Professor Frakes's face was full of shock, and even his fingers holding the paper were shaking slightly.

Looking at the tutor who suddenly stood up and stunned there, Dr. Curly, who was sitting at the desk not far away, thought something had happened, and hurriedly asked, "What's wrong, Professor?" ”

I don't know if I heard it, or if I didn't hear my students' questions at all.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the paper, Professor Frakes muttered to himself in an excited tone.

"God ......"

"We've found a treasure!"