In an apartment next to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Southern United States.
It was already ten o'clock at night, and Laurent Lane took advantage of his wife to put the children to bed and turned on the computer in the study.
In the eyes of many Chinese people, Americans clearly separate life from work, so they will never work overtime, and there is absolutely no way they can bring their work home.
But this is somewhat of a stereotype.
In fact, as long as the gap between rich and poor is widening in countries and regions, there will definitely be people involved. It’s just a question of how much overtime is required and whether it’s mandatory.
For example, Laurent Lane never minds coming to the study to do some work if he still can't fall asleep after spending time with his family in the evening.
Many people think that editing academic journals is a respectable profession, but in fact it is difficult to maintain this respectability.
Laurent Lane's annual salary fluctuates around $80,000.
But after paying all kinds of nasty taxes and insurance, there is probably only a little over 70,000 US dollars left.
The year before last, his wife gave birth to another daughter for him, making him a successful man with both children. However, the price was that his wife quit an administrative job in the school to take care of their two children. This is equivalent to a family losing $40,000 in income every day for at least the next six to seven years before their daughter goes to school.
His salary is barely enough for a family of four. If you want to live a better life, you have to perform better.
Then sacrificing thirty minutes to an hour every day to deal with some accumulated things is a good choice.
At least during this time, I can maintain relatively smooth communication with some European colleagues.
Although there are fewer working hours in Europe, there are always professors engaged in academic research who are passionate about academics and always remain diligent.
This is why Laurent Lane is so highly regarded by editor-in-chief Joe Bernard.
After all, there are seven editors in the newsroom now, and Laurent is probably the only one who can be so diligent.
…
As usual, Laurent first opened the submission system and reviewed several piled-up manuscripts.
Then I sent messages urging review to several reviewers who had not responded for a long time, and finally opened the public mailbox of the editorial office.
Laurent soon discovered something interesting.
In the background, there were several letters with obviously excited words and interesting titles. They were complaints to the editorial office that the latest article published on the official website was very likely to be suspected of academic misappropriation.
The reason given did surprise Laurent.
The school revealed that the student named QiaoZe, the author of this article, is just a high-school student who is about to enter college and has not received a day of college education.
The attachment provides many pictures as evidence, and the complainant also thoughtfully translated all the Chinese in those pictures into English.
I hope that the Duke Mathematics Journal can temporarily remove this paper from the shelves, and then restore it after confirming that there is no academic misappropriation.
Well, this doubt is somewhat reasonable.
It is indeed difficult to imagine that a high school student can independently complete a paper of this level under the guidance of a professor.
But obviously, as the editor of the journal, Laurent cannot directly remove the paper without more empirical evidence.
But he found it interesting.
After hesitating for a moment, Laurent opened WhatsApp and sent a message to editor-in-chief Joe Bernard: "Jo, are you asleep?"
I quickly received a reply: "Yes, I haven't slept yet, what can I do?"
"Is it convenient to answer the phone now?"
"certainly."
After receiving the last message, Laurent dialed directly.
"Qiao, the backend mailbox suddenly received several complaints, all saying that the newly published paper may involve academic misappropriation. The reason given was that the first author of the paper, the one named Qiao Tut (transliteration, not a typo), was just a high school graduate. Students have not received formal higher education.”
"Oh? That's really interesting, you know? Laurent, just twenty minutes ago, Sumante was calling me and also said an interesting thing."
"What's going on? Joe."
"This morning, the official website of "Communications of Pure and Applied Mathematics" also released a paper "A Mathematical Architecture for Self-supervised 3D Point Cloud Prediction". Guess who the first author is?"
"Hmm... I remember Ackerman from Cohen University has been doing this topic selection?"
"Haha, yes, but one of the authors of this paper was his student, Corey Durant. Do you remember this young man?"
"Of course... Corey... he should be the youngest doctor to give a personal lecture at Princeton. Although there was only half an hour left for him that day, I have to say that he performed very well that day. He is an amazing person. Impressive young man.”
With these words, Laurent Lane thought of that afternoon two years ago, in the neoclassical building built of red bricks, where Ackermann Cornet, who was very high-spirited because he had just won the Gauss Prize, was there. He introduced his students to all of them in a conference room in a building.
A handsome boy with golden hair, just nineteen years old.
That face that was full of youth and youthfulness at the same time even made Laurent Lane feel a little jealous.
The most important thing is that the nineteen-year-old boy can already talk in front of a group of editors and mathematicians.
The impression was so profound that Laurent Lane even remembered that the child was talking about the problem of maximal generated subsets of a class of Abelian groups that day.
When the final question session was coming to an end, when the staff opened the window of the conference room and a ray of sunset reflected directly on that face, Laurent Lane was thinking that it was fortunate that his daughter had just been born, otherwise You will be completely fascinated by the confident and handsome young man on stage.
"Yes, he is indeed a child with a promising future, and he is so handsome. He is more like a movie star than a mathematician! But do you want to know what Sumant just talked to me about?" Joe ·Bernard's tone was full of ridicule and gossip, and there was a feeling that he couldn't wait to share it...
"Of course, I want to know." Laurent Lane asked immediately.
Not just to flatter the editor-in-chief, but also because it really whetted his appetite.
After all, as the editor-in-chief of a mathematics journal, his threshold for gossip is still very high, so what the two discussed just now should be interesting.
"Simply put, Sumant suspects that Corey Durant's paper plagiarized the paper you just mentioned. Of course, it's not all plagiarism, just a tiny part of it, but you know, Sumant happens to be The reviewer of this paper has reviewed the same manuscript twice, so he is naturally more familiar with it... He even gave some proofs. In conjunction with the fact that this paper was rejected by the "Communications of Pure and Applied Mathematics", Ah Kerman is very likely to be one of the reviewers of this paper... What do you think? Do you find it interesting?"
Laurent Lane nodded subconsciously.
However, he soon realized that he was talking on the phone, and the other party could not see his movements or expressions, so he added: "Of course, this is very interesting. This is equivalent to two papers being suspected of academic misconduct." , one is academic embezzlement, and the other is plagiarism. But I am sure that even Professor Sumant cannot provide tangible evidence, right?"
"Haha, yes! After all, it's just a small lemma proof. Even though the proof process is very clever, and the ideas of the two articles are so consistent, who can say it better? It's a pity, they are all just You old man, if Sumant can produce more solid evidence, the mathematics community will be excited! Believe me, if Sumant launches a fight, in order to protect his students, the Germans will definitely break out! Maybe it can evolve in the end It will be the match of the century between Berkeley and Cohen, it will be exciting and interesting!”
Laurent Lane didn't know how to answer this.
What to say.
As the senior editor-in-chief of a well-known journal, Joe Berner's status in the academic world is not comparable to that of his small editor.
So the editor-in-chief can happily express his expectation for a century-old showdown between top universities and top mathematicians, but he'd better be honest.
Moreover, the young man named Corey Durant left a very good impression on him, and he really didn't want Sumante's analysis to be correct.
Although in the editor's position over the years, Laurent Laing has seen a lot of things that are rarely seen in the academic world. But he still felt that the young and sunny child should not be involved in these dirty things.
Not to mention that the foundational basic mathematical theory has been progressing more and more slowly in recent years, and hope lies in the younger generation of mathematicians.
So Laurent Lane subconsciously decided to bring the topic back.
"So Joe, how do you think these complaints and inquiries should be handled? Should we send an email to the corresponding author to express our concern?"
"Oh, sure, why not? You know? It's interesting. One is a high school student, maybe less than twenty years old, and the other is also very young, only 21 years old this year if I remember correctly, and they are still Working in similar fields. Do you know what I regret? It would be great if Corey's paper was also published in our journal, so that I could send two emails to both people in order to provide the paper itself, which is not academically related. It’s so interesting! The lifeless academic world needs stories like this to inject a bit of vitality. Really, I want to see the fireworks, what about you?”
"You're right, Qiao... I even looked forward to it. But I'd better send an email to the Chinese people first. Alas... I have to think of how to word it, otherwise what if the author who is less than twenty years old He is also a genius... Qiao, you said that we are not even afraid of offending the old guys, but we must not offend the rising stars..."
"Haha, yes! Okay, go and get busy! Maintain your mentality and expect new things to happen every day. This is the only secret to staying young. Do you know? Laurent, your biggest problem is that you are too young. You're old! You should learn from me."
"Of course I will!"
After finally hanging up the phone, Laurent Lane sighed.
How should I put it, Joe is actually a very good person, at least he is nice to him, but he is just too mean-spirited.
And he always seems to be looking forward to seeing with his own eyes how those seemingly beautiful things are destroyed...
Well, I can’t complain about my immediate boss.
Putting all the complicated thoughts behind him, Laurent began to word the question letter carefully.
It must be said that Laurent is the kind of gentle and good-natured person. Even if he is questioning, he does not want to make the other party feel aggressive.
He always believed that milder wording would make the other party more willing to explain the situation.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Soon, the email was edited. The general meaning was that the author could provide some evidence to ensure that the paper was written by himself and would not involve academic misappropriation.
Of course, Laurent also knew that asking the author to prove that he had written the paper was ridiculous. Therefore, I also gave some useful suggestions. You can fax a text similar to a letter of guarantee, and stipulate that if the article is suspected of embezzlement, the editor will also approve it.
It's not a big deal, it's just a process for everyone.
After doing this, Laurent stretched.
It's time to sleep.
…
China, Xilin University.
It’s okay if I haven’t seen him before. I came here specifically to meet him. As a host, I naturally can’t continue to pretend to be deaf and dumb.
The school arranged a grand reception ceremony at noon.
After all, Yu Hongwei still has this face.
Originally, Chen Yuanzhi and Yu Hongwei wanted to invite Qiao Ze to have this meal together. Fortunately, several teachers who were familiar with Qiao Ze were there. After Li Jiangao made a phone call and confirmed that Qiao Ze did not want to come to the banquet, So he directly declined the invitation for Qiao Ze.
No need, really no need.
If Qiao Ze must come to eat this meal, everyone will feel uncomfortable.
That guy always has a way to convey his unhappy emotions to everyone around him silently. Make everyone less happy.
Facts also proved that everyone had much more fun chatting at the dinner without Qiao Ze.
But after saying goodbye, Chen Yuanzhi's face turned cold as ice after taking a few steps.
"Xu Dajiang, Yang Lichun, I don't care what crooked ideas you two are making. Please solve this matter quickly and come up with any backup plans. Especially you, Xu Dajiang, Xu Dajiang, you are really letting me I'm impressed! Did you hear what Su Lixing said just now? I don't want my daughter to be exposed too much! Besides, when you did this, you didn't consider what Li Jiangao thought? What did Qiao Ze think? "
"Principal, in fact, the solutions are obvious. If there are doubts, we can just quell them. On behalf of the School of Mathematics, I will accept any investigation from the school and the higher authorities. Starting from me, if there is a problem, how to deal with it. As for Jiangao and Qiao Ze, I will apologize. But there is one thing. Now our School of Mathematics can be considered a leader, right? It would be too unfair if we still follow the development model of the previous marginal departments? "
"Ahem, Lao Xu, please stop saying a few words. That... principal, our Propaganda Department will take action immediately and we will do our best to minimize the impact!"
