Exchange [Second Update]

Wang Qi understood that, for two scientists, a paper was sometimes an even better means of communication than a face-to-face meeting.

Papers had formats and conventions. Even every sentence within them had its own standards. Put simply, a paper was much the same in nature as the eight-legged essay—rules and restrictions were nailed down dead in the language itself.

But to those who understood them, such things were a pleasure to read and easy to comprehend.

If someone threw in a poetic metaphor while explaining their theory, that was what truly made one unbearable.

There was another advantage to communicating through papers: it could effectively prevent an exchange of intellect from turning into an exchange of fists and feet.

Wang Qi was currently in Lande, while Lu Xiaoqian was at Misty Palace. Even if the paper she wrote ran completely contrary to Wang Qi's ideas, Wang Qi could not possibly slash at her from afar with a single sword strike.

While reading the paper, Wang Qi first casually searched the Immortal Alliance archives. To his surprise, the paper seemed never to have been published at all.

"Unpublished? This world actually has the practice of 'preprints'?"

A preprint referred to research papers, scientific reports, and similar writings voluntarily released by researchers at academic conferences or through the internet before their findings were formally published, for the purpose of communicating with their peers.

As communications advanced, Earth's scientists had long ceased to be satisfied with the speed at which academic journals published work, believing that journals slowed their exchanges. Yet the most authoritative system on Earth, the "peer-review system," largely relied on journals as well. Without going through a journal, a paper's credibility might not be high.

But printed journals were still far too slow to publish.

Thus, Earth's scholars came up