Super God-Level Top Student

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One must admit, incorporating watermarks into papers using mathematical methods is an innovation indeed.

It could even be described as an extremely interesting mathematical brain-teaser.

Many professors even began to try designing their own unique watermarks for their papers, undeterred by the time it might consume.

After all, it was quite fun.

Perhaps for this reason, although Qiao Ze had never submitted to "Mathematics Annual" before, his name was still included in the priority author list of the Princeton submission system.

This was why Roth Dugan received a prompt and took the initiative to open Qiao Ze's paper.

The man, now over sixty with graying hair and a face full of wrinkles, looked somewhat comical with his small, round glasses.

But within this institute, no one dared to offend this little old man.

After all, when one has received the Abel Prize, the Crafoord Prize, and the Wolff Prize, bearing almost all the recognized honors in the field of mathematics, and is also a senior fellow of the American School of Mathematics, the head of the Princeton Mathematics Institute, and such a senior doctoral supervisor that he had already mentored two students who won the Fields Medal...

He received Qiao Ze's paper promptly because he was also the current editor-in-chief of "Mathematics Annual."

The little old man hadn't joined in the Facebook quarrel between Sumant and Ackerman.

But he knew the outcome of the whole affair and was quite interested in Qiao Ze's watermark trick in his paper, even considering inviting Qiao Ze to study at Princeton at one point.

The main reason he didn't actually send an invitation was that the little old man's own research area was not Group Theory.

Although the old man wasn't petty, it would be rather pointless for him to hustle on behalf of the Group Theory professors if they didn't apply themselves.

As for the two papers Qiao Ze published in "Science" a while ago, he really hadn't read them.

In fact, Roth Dugan hadn't paid attention to the publications in "Nature" and "Science" for many years.

At least in this old man's opinion, these two leading journals, with their natural and scientific orientations, were degenerating into rather uninteresting second-rate journals.

These two journals had dared to publish all sorts of messy things in recent years, many of which had strayed from a rigorous scientific attitude and were almost becoming like science fiction magazines.

So when he saw the title of Qiao Ze's paper, he was quite puzzled.

"A Novel Solution for Non-Abelian Exchange Fields" – this title obviously was not about research in Group Theory.

Normally, a graduate student would have already decided on a general research direction upon choosing a supervisor.

You can't just pick a supervisor who studies elementary number theory and then halfway decide to switch to geometric number theory... That's not just disrespectful to the supervisor; it's also irresponsible to oneself.

So, the student had been researching Group Theory and then started working on another direction?

Raising his eyebrows, Roth Dugan still decided to read the paper carefully.

Conveniently, his research field was differential equations.

Although the paper mainly discussed non-Abelian gauge field equations, these too fell under differential equations.

"As non-Abelian gauge field equations are nonlinear, therefore there exist sourceless soliton and instanton solutions..."

Having read the abstract, the little old man took off his glasses, and without a second glance, accurately pulled out a not-so-clean cloth from the clutter of books on his desk, wiped the glasses carefully and put the cloth back, continuing to read the paper earnestly.

Occasionally, he would stop, pull out a sheet of draft paper at random, take up a pen, and begin to calculate according to the proof process in the paper.

Like this, two hours passed in the blink of an eye.

Until a knock came on his office door.

"Professor Dugan, the eleven o'clock meeting is about to start. Mr. Mels is also here."

"Oh, tell them I'm not available right now, let them discuss it themselves," Roth Dugan answered without lifting his head.

"Ah?"

Peter Charles's expression was one of constipation.

Although the old man he served could indeed be capricious at times, after all, today's meeting was about a donation from an alumnus.

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It is well-known that, besides high tuition fees, another extremely important source of funds for the development of private universities in the United States is donations from society.

Donations ranging from tens of thousands to millions or even hundreds of millions are a significant source of funds for the development of schools.

"Professor Dugen, Mr. Mels is here to make a donation to the college," Peter Charles reminded him.

"Oh, then you go and tell him, although I did not attend, my spirit was there. Additionally, I will personally write him a thank-you letter. Leave immediately, if you still want to be a competent and qualified secretary," Lotte Dugen said, raising his head and pushing up his slipping glasses seriously.

"I understand," Peter Charles sighed deeply in his heart.

When this little old man gets stubborn, he truly is invincible.

"By the way, order me a sandwich for lunch. You know my preference, remember to tell them to add two slices of cheese," he added.

"Yes, Professor Dugen."

After closing the door, Peter Charles wore a bitter expression.

God damn it, although I did not attend, my spirit was there...

He could imagine the expressions on the faces of those lovely trustees when he would represent the little old man and say those words in the meeting room.

Annihilation!

...

Thus, after sacrificing an important meeting and lunch break, Lotte Dugen spent roughly six hours reading through Qiao Ze's paper.

He was very satisfied with the paper, and he even wanted to forego finding a reviewer for a second peer review.

This was a privilege reserved for strong editors with very high positions in the academic world.

When the paper was precisely in his field of study, he could bypass reviewers and publish papers he deemed valuable.

Theoretically speaking, this was of course a breach of protocol.

It amounted to editors having the direct power to decide whose papers could be published and whose could not, which obviously was not fair to the submitters.

But from another perspective, there was no issue.

It was as if the editor was using his years of accumulated reputation in academia to vouch for the quality of the paper and the author.

Such credibility could not be squandered frequently. As long as it was used judiciously, there was actually nothing wrong with it.

So, after reading through the paper, Lotte Dugen briefly looked over another article of Qiao Ze's published in "Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Communications" by Duke University.

This left him even more puzzled.

Sitting in his place, twirling his pen and pondering for a moment, he decided to write Qiao Ze an email.

If possible, he wanted to have a direct call with Qiao Ze to ask a few questions.

He needed to confirm if the article submitted to "Mathematics Annual" was indeed written by Qiao Ze.

To publish two very high-quality papers in different research directions within a single month, using the same name, there were only two possibilities.

Either the individual was a genuine genius, or there was a very strong mathematics team behind this name committing fraud.

If it had not been for the watermark that had made countless mathematicians pull their hair out a month earlier, Lotte Dugen would have unhesitatingly believed the second possibility was the fact.

But with that story in place, the little old man was truly unable to assert the truth, filled only with overflowing curiosity.

After thinking for a moment, an email was quickly composed and the send button clicked.

Considering the time difference, it was the wee hours of the morning in Huaxia, so Lotte Dugen did not wait. Instead, he began to review Qiao Ze's "A Novel Solution for Non Abelian Exchange Fields" from another angle, rather interested.

Perhaps it contained another hidden watermark?

He hoped that Qiao Ze would treat it differently, not taking the time to leave any such extraneous stuff, after all, "Mathematics Annual" was not one of those miscellaneous mathematics journals, but more trustworthy!