Reviewing Papers
Before the Spring Festival Shen Qi attended a high-level annual meeting of the scientific community and had a long talk with other academicians.
The academicians of the Department of Mathematical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are very concerned about the development of the Shen Qi Mathematical and Physical Research Center, and Shen Qi also talked about the current situation of the center.
After the discussion, Shen Qi summarized it himself as follows: My center is currently in the guerrilla stage and cannot yet be considered a regular army.
"Shen Qi, you can apply for National Key Laboratory now," said Academician Pan, who had entrusted Shen Qi with solving the quantum key problem.
"I have had this idea, and I've mentioned it before, but there hasn't been a response from above yet." There are many academicians, divided into different levels such as Ben, Yan, and Niu. In other people's minds, Shen Qi is considered a Ben-level academician.
Other top-tier academicians are in charge of National Key Laboratory in various fields.
When Shen Qi returned to China, he had no money, no people, and no scientific research achievements, so he was naturally embarrassed to mention any National Key Laboratory.
After several years of development and gradual expansion, Shen Qi put the plan for the center's National Key Laboratory on the agenda.
The center's current working model is that research projects drive everything.
Shen Qi, along with Witten, Zhou Yu'an, and Xiao Junlong, worked for a year to complete the NS equation project.
The project to Mathematical Grand Unification, initiated by Shen Qi, has involved Li Zhenqiang and his wife. It has been a year since then, but there has been little concrete progress.
For the M-theory project, Shen Qi once again brought in Witten, and Sha Dongdong and Qu Yang are currently following up on the approval progress of the project proposal.
The FASTER Project Team specializes in Condensed Matter Physics, and it's the only project team that seems to be a legitimate, professional team.
Therefore, Shen Qi jokingly said that his center was a guerrilla force.
Now, Shen Qi is preparing to complete the transition from a guerrilla force to a regular army by establishing National Key Laboratory.
National Key Laboratory headed by a top-level academician is essentially equivalent to an independent research institute in terms of funding, equipment, and the number and quality of research personnel.
The typical structure of National Key Laboratory is that the top leader is an academician, and under him are several professors who are Yangtze River Scholars, who are the junior leaders.
Each Yangtze River Scholar mentor leads a research team, whose core members are energetic Associate Professor and Professor Nian.
The Associate Professor and young and middle-aged Associate Professor in the team form different research groups based on their individual professional areas.
The researchers working in the research group are postdoctoral fellows, doctoral students, and graduate students; you could think of them as employees.
There is a world of difference between scientists and research workers. In Shen Qi's center, there are only two people who can be called scientists: him and Witten.
Of all the Shen Qi Mathematical and Physical Research Center, the FASTER Project Team currently has the rudiments of National Key Laboratory.
The ultimate goal of the FASTER Project Team is to establish the "National Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics at the Shen Qi Mathematical and Physical Research Center," which is Shen Qi's vision.
The FASTER Project Team has been established and has focused on Condensed Matter Physics research for the past few years, producing several research results and patents.
The upgrade of the FASTER Project Team is essentially an upgrade of scientific research talent.
Shen Qi has a backup candidate, Tang Yuan.
Tang Yuan has been promoted to Associate Professor. He is at a critical stage in his career and is currently undergoing a transformation from a senior scientific research worker to a small-scale scientific research contractor.
Shen Qi summoned Tang Yuan to the Director's Office alone and asked, "How far has that NMG paper progressed?"
"The final draft is almost here. We've really pulled off this time; we don't even need to submit it. The journal has already invited us to write it." Tang Yuan was designated by Shen Qi as the corresponding author of this paper, with Yang Ding Tian as the first author and Shen Qi's name listed last.
Foreign journals and research institutions are not very clear about the system of each academic institution in China. When they look at a paper, they value the corresponding author the most, and then the first author.
The corresponding author is responsible for the overall control of a research project, while the first author is usually the one who implements the project.
Shen Qi no longer needs to rely on being listed as the corresponding author or first author to enhance his reputation in the Mathematics Community and Physics Community. The reason he is listed last is twofold: firstly, to earn academic credits, and secondly, to make it easier for articles to be published in prestigious journals, which is beneficial to other members of the FASTER Project Team.
"Tang Yuan, you have good character, and your academic level is steadily improving. Are you confident in leading the FASTER Project Team well?" Shen Qi asked.
Tang Yuan nodded and said, "With Professor Shen's guidance, I certainly have confidence."
"What I mean is, if I'm away from the country for an extended period, is it okay if you lead the team alone?"
"Where are you going?"
"That's not the point. The point is the last sentence I just said."
"It shouldn't be a big problem, right?" Tang Yuan suddenly realized, was Boss Shen going to promote me to team leader?
Including Shen Qi, who also serves as the team leader, the FASTER Project Team has a total of 12 people.
Apart from Yang Ding Tian, the other 10 group members are all from the Yanjing University Physics Department.
In fact, Yang Ding Tian also graduated from the Yanjing University Physics Department. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies in the Physics Department, and then studied under Shen Qi for his doctorate.
Tang Yuan was quite familiar with this group of people. Two researchers had been chatting in the smoking room earlier and had some opinions about Yang Ding Tian, but they had no objections to Tang Yuan.
Tang Yuan's good interpersonal skills are one of his strengths.
Whether Tang Yuan's academic level can reach a new level remains to be seen and requires continued observation.
Regardless, Tang Yuan was diligent and conscientious in his academic work, and Shen Qi decided to give him a chance, or rather, a chance with both opportunities and challenges. "I plan to establish National Key Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics at the center. The FASTER Project Team is one of the core teams, and we may form new Condensed Matter Physics teams later. Condensed Matter Physics has many research directions, and you will be in charge of the FASTER Project Team, mainly focusing on Amorphous Materials."
Having been in this industry for so many years, Tang Yuan knew the rules of the game. Director Shen was trying to promote him to be the team leader of National Key Laboratory.
The team leaders are mostly Yangtze River Scholars or top talents brought back from abroad. These people are academicians in the making, always ready to rise to higher levels and become true big shots.
"Thank you, Director Shen, I will do my best!" Tang Yuan felt both pressure and motivation.
Shen Qi made it very clear that a competition mechanism will be introduced into the center in the future, with more than one Condensed Matter Physics team simultaneously advancing research in related fields.
In order to build the National Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics at the Shen Qi Mathematical and Physical Research Center and Physical Sciences, Shen Qi will definitely need to recruit some more elites from outside to upgrade his talent pool.
Once this National Key Laboratory is approved, funding and other aspects will be implemented according to the new standards, allowing Shen Qi and his team to do some more significant things.
Besides letters from fans, Shen Qi occasionally receives academic paper manuscripts from journals, inviting Shen Qi to be a reviewer.
Ordinary journals are hesitant to ask Shen Qi to be a reviewer; they only ask internationally renowned academic journals, including mathematics and physics journals.
Reviewing is an unpaid job; reviewers do it entirely out of a sincere academic passion.
Of course, most top-tier scholars share this enthusiasm and will review other people's manuscripts when time permits.
Shen Qi had two manuscripts in front of him, one from the Annals of Mathematics published by Princeton, and the other from PRL published by the American Physical Society.
Shen Qi first reviewed the mathematical manuscript, which was a paper in the field of number theory.
In recent decades, Fermat's Last Theorem has been solved, the Riemann Hypothesis has been solved, and Goldbach Conjecture has been solved.
Only one unsolved problem remains in number theory: the BSD Conjecture.
Many number theorists have tried to transition to other fields or cross boundaries, but those who still persist in the extremely demanding field of Analytic Number Theory are as precious as treasures.
The corresponding author of this number theory paper is Salim-Ohayon, and his mailing address is at MIT.
This is a single-blind peer review process. Shen Qi knows the basic information of the authors, but the authors do not know who the reviewers are.
Judging from the name, Shen Qi thought that the corresponding author from MIT should be an Arabia, or of Arabia descent.
This paper is on Analytic Number Theory; it's very technical and will really test the reviewers' analytical skills.
It's not uncommon for reviewers to not understand manuscripts, but fortunately, this number theory paper ended up in Shen Qi's hands, and he began reviewing it with great interest.