Chapter 151 Negligence of Nature Magazine

At the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Xu Chuan looked around but couldn't find his mentor Edward Witten, and he couldn't get through on the phone.

Finally, he found his senior brother Lin Feng and asked him, only to find out that the old professor was not in Princeton now, and flew to the European Atomic Energy Laboratory a few days ago.

Xu Chuan hung up the phone with a smile on his face. This old man was really mean to him.

Except for assigning him a task when they first met, he ignored him and didn't assign him a teaching assistant task. The two didn't communicate much afterwards.

So in the end, he, as a student, didn't know where his mentor went.

Shaking his head, Xu Chuan was about to return to his dormitory, but he changed his mind and walked towards Professor Deligne's office.

Since he was here, there was no reason not to say hello to this mentor.

He knocked on the door, and a voice came from inside. Xu Chuan pushed the door open and walked in.

Compared with Witten, who was flying all over the sky, Deligne's whereabouts were much more fixed, and he was often in the office of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Seeing that the person who pushed the door in was Xu Chuan, Deligne put down the ballpoint pen in his hand and asked, "How is your research going?"

Although he didn't ask what the student in front of him asked for leave to do, he could guess that it was not surprising that he was studying the problem of 'the mystery of the proton radius'.

As a mentor, it is normal to care about the progress of students' research projects.

Xu Chuan: "It's finished."

Hearing this, a trace of surprise flashed in Deligne's dark brown pupils.

If he remembered correctly, it has only been a week since the student asked him for leave?

Can the problem be solved in a week?

It seems impossible no matter how you look at it.

"Let me see your new method."

Deligne said, he knew that Xu Chuan must be carrying manuscripts with him.

"Wait a minute."

Xu Chuan responded, took off the backpack behind him, took out a stack of manuscripts from it, and handed it over.

Professor Deligne took the manuscript and looked down.

He is no longer completely ignorant of the mystery of the proton radius as before. He and Witten had talked about this some time ago.

This is a difficult problem for the entire physics community. Since this problem appeared in 2010, the precise charge radius of the proton has never been able to obtain a relatively stable value.

It jumps back and forth between 0.879± 0.011 fm and 0.833± 0.00067 fm.

The diameters of the same particle measured by two different methods are very different, so different that they exceed the allowable error range and directly shake the foundation of the building of particle physics.

Five or six years have passed, and the physics community has not yet found the reason for this gap.

It is also impossible to determine which of the measured values ​​is more inclined to the correct proton charge radius.

This kind of problem, if put in the mathematics community, is no different from the twin prime conjecture level of the problem.

However, physics is a little special compared to mathematics.

Mathematics can only rely on a pen, a piece of paper, and a brain of researchers.

Physics is different. Many physical problems can be solved through physical experiments.

Just like the mystery of the proton radius, it appears in physical experiments, and the final solution must be completed by physical experiments.

It's just that the time required may be relatively long.

After all, no one can say how long it will take for the physical equipment used for experiments to be developed and updated.

It may be a breakthrough after waking up, or it may still be standing still after ten years.

Mathematics can help physics solve problems in advance when the equipment performance is not enough.

For example, the mystery of the proton radius, the radius of the proton can theoretically be calculated by the first principles of mathematics.

It's just that no one has been able to do it yet.

The difficulty of calculating the proton information inside the nucleus by first principles is so high that it has been directly upgraded from the twin prime conjecture to the Goldbach conjecture.

Deligne doesn't think that his student can calculate the proton radius from the first principles in such a short time. This is impossible. Even his mentor Grothendieck can't do it if he is resurrected.

But even if it is a new method to calculate the proton radius, it is an incredible achievement.

In the office, Professor Deligne flipped through the manuscript in his hand.

Xu Chuan didn't hesitate to find a cup and brew a cup of coffee. He also found a mathematics journal and read it while waiting.

The coffee in Professor Deligne's office is of very good quality. It is the kind of expensive hand-ground handmade coffee.

But to be honest, he can't tell much difference between this handmade coffee and instant coffee.

Maybe the taste is more delicate?

Anyway, he doesn't care about coffee, but there is nothing else to kill time now.

Xu Chuan finished a cup of coffee slowly, and Professor Deligne hadn't finished reading the manuscript in his hand.

After waiting for a while, he sorted out the manuscript and handed it back.

"It's quite a precise mathematical calculation. Your mathematical ability in functional analysis is much deeper than I thought. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, it would be hard to imagine that these things came from a young man who is not yet twenty years old."

Even when facing his own students, Deligne did not hesitate to praise them.

In fact, the mathematical methods used in this calculation method were very sophisticated even for him, especially the Fourier transform of the three-dimensional spatial distribution of proton charge used in the final solution to the problem of charge interference in the atomic elastic scattering interface.

He got a hint of inspiration from it, otherwise he would not have read and thought about it for so long.

Moreover, praise may cause other students to swell and have bad effects such as arrogance, but for this disciple in front of him, he has enough qualifications to swell.

Looking at all mathematicians under the age of 30 in the entire mathematics community, it can be said that no one can compare with him.

Hearing Deligne's exaggeration, Xu Chuan smiled shyly and said, "Compared to you, teacher, I still have a lot to learn."

Deligne: "This new calculation method is very good. Although I can't be sure whether it is correct for the physics community, the mathematical method in it is quite exquisite. Who do you plan to submit it to?"

Xu Chuan shook his head and said, "It's not clear yet. I haven't thought about it yet. Maybe I should let Professor Witten take a look before deciding?"

Deligne looked at the calendar on the table and said, "Today is July 4th. Witten may not be back until the 10th. You can organize the document first, enter it into the computer and send it to him by email, or you can post it on arxiv first."

The arxiv preprint server was originally a place for physicists to communicate.

Although it is now occupied by computers, it is undeniable that many physicists still communicate their ideas on it.

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "I will do it."

Deligne smiled and said, "If this method is correct, the physics world will be shocked by you."

He did not exaggerate. Since the emergence of the mystery of the proton radius, the entire particle physics community and even the basic physics community have been confused and pursued.

Solving this mystery is of great significance to the understanding of physical laws. It is not just that the physics community has a more accurate data.

It also has a huge impact on the development of physics, such as the theory of quantum electrodynamics that describes how light and matter interact.

After returning to his dormitory from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Xu Chuan sorted out the calculation method of the "proton radius mystery" in his hand and entered it into the computer.

This is a very boring job, but it requires twelve points of patience and carefulness. It is necessary to constantly check every character entered into the computer to check whether there are any errors.

For this kind of paper, if a word, a character, or even a punctuation mark is entered incorrectly, it may cause serious consequences.

At the least, the review editor will think you are unprofessional, and at the worst, it may cause the proof process of the entire paper to be scrapped.

Especially in the mathematics community, such things have happened before.

Previously, a mathematician in the United States recorded a mathematical symbol incorrectly when uploading it after completing the push of a real number theory with an exponential function.

As a result, when the journal reviewed it, it was directly rejected and stated that there were serious errors in the core proof process of the paper.

Fortunately, this error was discovered during the subsequent inspection, and it was successfully passed after the modification.

Xu Chuan didn't want to make such a mistake, which would make people laugh and embarrassed to say it out.

It took more than a day for Xu Chuan to input the entire calculation method on the manuscript into the calculation.

After checking and confirming that there was no problem, he first uploaded it to the arxiv preprint server, and then found the email address of his mentor Witten and sent it to him.

After thinking about it, Xu Chuan opened his email again, found his mentor Chen Zhengping at Nanjing University from the contacts, and sent him the calculation method for the "proton radius mystery".

In name, he is still a doctoral student at Nanjing University.

He came to Princeton to study for a doctorate as an exchange student, but he did not use the school's exchange student quota, but his own invitation letter, so there was no limit on the duration of his study abroad.

As for the rest, it was just waiting.

Mainly waiting for Professor Witten's reply.

If he was sure that there was no problem, then there would be basically no problem with this paper, and then he could choose a journal to submit it for publication.

As for which journal to submit the paper to, Xu Chuan fell into deep thought.

This was the first time in his life that he truly demonstrated his ability in physics, so he naturally had to choose the most suitable and well-made journal for the paper.

There are many top journals in the physics world, such as Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, Nature-Physics, Science, Physical Review A/B, Progress in Physics, etc.

But to be honest, it is probably impossible to divide these top physics journals into four major journals like mathematics journals.

Except for a few journals that collect all types of physics, these physics journals basically have their own focus, which feels a bit like a hundred flowers blooming.

In today's physics world, in terms of magazine reputation and popularity, "Nature" and "Science" are at the highest level, and PRL (Physical Review Letters) is relatively lower.

Therefore, ordinary researchers usually have a prejudgment of their general research results. If they think it is suitable to be published in Nature or Science, they generally will not submit to PRL first.

If they are Chinese researchers, they will often submit to Nature first. If they are rejected, they will submit to Science, and finally choose PRL (Physical Review Letters).

But to be honest, Xu Chuan doesn't like the journal Nature very much, even though this top journal has a great reputation and a high impact factor.

Because it has been exposed many times that there have been "academic misconduct" in its papers.

The most serious and well-known incident is the two Nobel Prize-level medical paper frauds.

The first one was the famous island country Haruko Obokata's universal cell paper fraud incident.

The other one was the more than 20 papers published by Sylvain Lesné, a neurologist at the University of Minnesota, which will be exposed later.

Among them is a groundbreaking paper published in Nature on February 2, a groundbreaking paper cited more than 2,300 times.

This groundbreaking paper involves the most cited Alzheimer's disease research in the 21st century.

In this paper, Lesné introduced a substance found in the laboratory - Aβ* 56.

This discovery caused a sensation in the field of AD research at the time - as a specific Aβ oligomer, Aβ* 56 is linked to cognitive decline, which points out a way for drug research in the field of Alzheimer's disease.

Since then, the medical community has devoted a lot of attention to this aspect.

Since then, NIH's support for "amyloid protein, oligomers and Alzheimer's disease" research has risen from zero to 287 million yuan in 2021.

However, few subsequent papers published outside of Ashe and Lesné's laboratories have mentioned Aβ* 56. Similarly, other scientists studying Aβ proteins have also said that they cannot be sure whether Aβ* 56 really exists.

According to Science, many Alzheimer's researchers have tried but failed to replicate these findings on Aβ*56.

One of them is Dennis Selkoe of Brigham and Women's Hospital, a leading advocate of the "amyloid hypothesis." In 2008, Selkoe reported that Aβ*56 could not be found in human cortical extracts and cerebrospinal fluid.

Then, Nature's old rival, Science, spent six months investigating these papers, and used well-known independent image analysts and top Alzheimer's researchers to conduct an in-depth investigation.

In the end, it was found that more than a hundred pictures in these papers had suspicious traces.

Elizabeth Bick, a molecular biologist and well-known academic fraudster, said: "These pictures seem to be synthesized images by the author by piecing together parts of pictures from different experiments."

"Perhaps the experimental results obtained by the author may not be the expected results, and then the data are changed to better fit a hypothetical image."

Both serious fraud incidents have had a huge impact on the medical community, wasting countless financial and material resources, as well as the energy of a large number of scientific researchers.

This made Xu Chuan seriously doubt whether the review of Nature magazine was as good as they said.

Although Nature is indeed one of the oldest scientific magazines in the world and has made great contributions to the development of science.

But it is undeniable that they have repeatedly failed in their review work.