Chapter 130: The Shock of the Editorial Board
As the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Mathematics, Holt has paid special attention to this young mathematical genius ever since he took Xu Yuan's paper to Professor Deligne's home last time and received high praise from Deligne, who even called him the Prince of Mathematics.

He believed that the other party's achievements in mathematics were far more than that, and that there would definitely be new academic results.

And the corresponding paper...

Naturally, we hope that it will still be published in their mathematical annual journal.

There are four top academic journals in the field of mathematics. In the past two years, Xu Yuan has made their Mathematical Annals have a slight advantage in impact factors.

Having experienced the feeling of sitting on the top throne, how could I bear to drop down in the rankings?

In particular, he had heard a lot of news that the other three journals seemed to want to contact Xu Yuan.

Build a good relationship with this math genius in advance.

Under such circumstances, he must maintain a better relationship with Xu Yuan.

Prevent Xu Yuan from giving up their yearbook.

For this purpose, he not only exchanged private email addresses with Xu Yuan, but also sent emails from time to time to inquire about the progress.

Commonly known as urging for submission of manuscripts.

"Are these people all idiots? They push all kinds of messed-up papers into my mailbox."

"Fake Squid!"

"It's all a waste of my time."

Nearing lunchtime in the morning, Holt sat in his office reviewing manuscripts as usual.

But after reading several useless articles in a row, my mood suddenly became very bad.

I couldn't help but curse at people in the office without caring about my image.

According to the normal process of the annual journal, the preliminary reviewers will first screen the papers submitted by email, and then push the valuable ones to the editor-in-chief's email.

After the editor-in-chief has reviewed and approved it, a special reviewer will be invited to verify it.

Ensure the rigor and accuracy of the paper.

But now, as the editor-in-chief, he thinks that the papers in his mailbox are all worthless and useless publications.

It is not good enough to be published in the Annals of Mathematics.

He even couldn't understand where these authors got the confidence to think that their papers would be accepted by them.

Although the deeds of Xu Yuan, the mathematical genius, have given many people the illusion that they can do it too.

But this is obviously not a reason to submit your paper to them, except to increase the workload of the editorial board.

The key point is that after such a long time, I haven't come across a paper that can match Xu Yuan's proof of the smoothness of the solution to the Monge-Ampere equation.

This made Holt miss Xu Yuan's thesis. It gave him some motivation to work, unlike now when he had to curse him every day.

"It's just another nerve-wracking day."

Holt looked away from the computer, rubbed his neck and lamented that he had no interest in anything.

Then he stood up and walked to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee.

If he didn't drink some coffee to refresh himself, he was afraid that he might not be able to finish reading the paper in his mailbox today.

I stood at the window for almost ten minutes, and only returned to my seat after I had almost finished a cup of coffee. I took a deep breath and prepared to continue reviewing the manuscript in my mailbox.

Just then, a new email notification sounded.

At first Holt didn't care, after all, his mailbox would always receive new emails.

But when he glanced at the lower right corner of the computer screen and saw the signature on the prompt message, his eyes widened.

"This is... an email from Xu Yuan..."

When Holt noticed that the sender of the new email was Xu Yuan, he seemed to be resurrected instantly.

It was as if he had been given a shot of chicken blood, and all the decadence just now disappeared.

He finally waited for it.

A few months later, Xu Yuan sent another new email.

The thought stayed here, and he no longer hesitated, and opened the email with excitement.

The main reason is that the content of the email cannot be confirmed at the moment. It would be embarrassing if it is not a paper submission.

After a short buffering, the file was opened and its title immediately appeared in the field of vision.

"Proof of the existence of infinitely many pairs of twin primes whose difference is less than 246."

It is no exaggeration to say that the title alone is exciting enough before I even read the content of the paper.

Holt expressed his surprise again and again.

“God must have heard my prayers and sent this paper to my mailbox on purpose.”

“It’s a lucky day today.”

After all, he had read two of Xu Yuan's papers and knew that the contents would not disappoint him.

What's more, this time it is the field of number theory, which Xu Yuan is good at.

The most important point is that he is very familiar with twin prime numbers and has even studied them before.

It's a pity that there has been no progress.

But twin primes were proposed by Hilbert after all, and are the eighth of Hilbert's twenty-three problems. They have a certain influence and popularity in the mathematical community.

Coupled with the low learning threshold of number theory, it can be said that it is not only mathematicians who study the twin prime conjecture, but even many amateur scientists are trying to prove it.

But after so many years, what is the final result? Twin prime numbers are still an unsolved problem.

And even the progress does not collapse.

If Xu Yuan really made a breakthrough in the study of twin primes, it would definitely be a sensation in the entire field of number theory. After all, as the ultimate problem in the field of number theory, any progress would be a major event in the number theory community.

However, the most important thing at the moment is to verify the paper first and determine whether the results are logically self-consistent and truly valid.

A lot of thoughts flashed through his mind quickly. Holt shook his head violently several times to force himself to calm down, and then he reviewed this academic paper in the best condition.

As time passes by.

Holt's expression was also constantly changing.

From the initial anticipation to frowning, and then to surprise and excitement, the value of this paper is vividly interpreted.

Although he did not expect that this paper had two first authors, and he had never heard of Zhang Yitang, the quality of the paper was indeed very high.

It was totally not something that those cheap publications could rival, and he couldn't take his eyes off it.

The paper gives two methods for the twin prime conjecture. One of them only proves that the number of twin primes is less than 4200 million pairs, while the other method, which improves on the original one, proves that the number of twin primes is less than 246 pairs.

It can be said that the distance to complete proof is very close.

Although this paper did not actually prove twin primes, it successfully created a path for proof in the mathematical community.

This means that in the future, scholars will be able to optimize based on this method and continuously reduce the positive value of the proof.

Until the twin prime conjecture is completely solved.

Therefore, one can imagine the value of this paper and the role it can play in the field of number theory.

Another half hour passed.

Holt's face was filled with excitement. He couldn't wait to grab the draft paper and pen from the side and try to verify the process in the paper by hand.

However, before the pen tip could write any mathematical symbols on the paper, his entire movement suddenly stopped.

"No."

“This paper is not something I can verify.”

He had already seen that the number of pages of this paper was about to reach three digits, and it would be almost impossible for him to verify the entire process by himself.

Even according to the original review model, cross-validation by three reviewers is not appropriate.

After all, this paper is extremely important. If the results are true, the entire mathematics community should be informed as quickly as possible.

By then, the influence of the Annals of Mathematics will further increase.

Make the other three unshakable.

After thinking these things through quickly, he put down his pen, picked up the phone on the desk and made a call.

Soon a lady with long golden hair came in.

"Mr. Holt, how can I help you?"

The blonde lady, the assistant, walked to the desk and immediately started asking questions.

Naturally, Holt was in no mood to keep the secret at this time, so he directly told the other party what he had been ordered to do.

"You should immediately contact Professor Deligne and Professor Witten from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In addition, all the reviewers in the field of number theory for our journal have also invited us to come over, saying that there is a very important paper that needs to be collectively verified."

"Okay, Mr. Holt, I'll do it right away." The blonde lady nodded in response and then turned and left.

He does things very efficiently and without any procrastination.

Of course, she had doubts about Holt's instructions. Having been an assistant at the Annals of Mathematics for so long, she had never seen Holt take a paper to such an extent.

So many people were invited to review the manuscript together.

In particular, we need to find Professor Deligne and Professor Witten.

The key is that it’s time to eat now.

But precisely because of this, she didn't dare to be negligent.

I was afraid of delaying Holt's business.

After watching his assistant leave, Holt began to print the paper so that everyone could verify it in the afternoon.

“This paper will definitely give everyone a surprise!”

Finally, he uttered these words to himself and didn't waste any more time.

……

……

"What is this Holt doing? He actually called all of us together."

"I must give everyone an explanation later."

On the way to the office of Annals of Mathematics in the afternoon, Witten, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, kept expressing his dissatisfaction with Holt through words.

Professor Deligne, who was traveling with him, couldn't help but frown: "We'll know what's going on when we get there. Holt won't deceive us."

After all, both of them are Fields Medal winners, so it was inevitable that they felt a little dissatisfied when they were suddenly called over.

Besides the two of them, many other mathematics professors from the Institute for Advanced Study were invited.

I heard that it was just to review a paper, but it ended up involving so many people, which seems like a waste of manpower.

If Deligne hadn't had a good impression of Holt because he had shown him some good papers, he would probably have shouted something like Witten.

But this also made him curious, and he suddenly wanted to know what kind of paper it was.

It was something that Holt, who seemed relatively steady, took so seriously.

The two talked as they walked, and soon they arrived at the conference room that Holt had arranged in advance. Looking around, there were several familiar figures and many writing boards.

(End of this chapter)