A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 159 Defensive Proof (Happy Holidays)

"Master Chen, something's happened!"

Yin Hao rushed to find Chen Hui in the library and put his phone in front of Chen Hui. "This news has already gone viral on Weibo. I saw it in a study group, and everyone is forwarding it."

"I definitely didn't forward it. I came to find you as soon as I saw it."

A Brief Discussion on…

"Holy crap! A freshman published a Q1 SCI paper, how dare he? Even if he plagiarized a Q2 or Q3 paper, it wouldn't be so easy to get caught."

"I suggest a thorough investigation. I don't believe a freshman could do something like this. Even if it was plagiarism, he couldn't have done it without help."

"Seconded!"

"It's time to clean up the academic world. If China wants to rise, it should first clean up its house."

"Wait a minute, does anyone else think this person's name looks familiar? Isn't that the Olympiad athlete who just won the IMO gold medal a few days ago also named Chen Hui? Could it be the same person?"

"That's impossible. If it's Chen Hui, I remember he published a Q2 SCI paper as the second author before. So it's not impossible for him to publish a Q1 paper now."

"You don't know anything. The quality of papers in Zone 2 is worlds apart from Zone 1. I'm a PhD student now, and I've published several papers in Zone 2, but I haven't even touched the threshold of Zone 1 yet."

Is it possible that it's because you're bad at the game?

After reading the article, I glanced at the already heated comment section. Everyone was discussing it intensely, but this time it wasn't entirely one-sided in criticizing him. Instead, it was more about criticizing the entire academic community. Some extreme opinions even suggested using a Great Cleansing technique, like Thanos snapping his fingers.

As for Chen Hui himself, opinions are mixed. Some people recognized him as an IMO gold medalist, and there were quite a few people who defended him for the Q2 SCI paper published by Fang Wen.

But none of those who commented actually downloaded the two papers mentioned in the article to compare them. Even if they couldn't understand them, at least they never even thought about doing so.

This is what Chen Hui found outrageous.

Perhaps it is not only the chaos in academia that is hindering China's rise.

Of course, it's possible that neither the chaos in academia nor these people in the comments section can stop China's rise, because there are still many people like him who are working diligently.

Chen Hui returned the phone to Yin Hao. He had lost interest in the news. He opened his email and saw the acceptance reply from Duke Mathematics Journal.

He was somewhat disappointed. Sure enough, continuing to publish papers at the same level would not earn him any free attribute points, and he did not receive any notification from the panel.

I wonder if the four major players will be able to obtain free attribute points.

“Great master, we definitely believe you, but the students are all talking about this now, I suggest you go see the counselor.”

Yin Hao asked with concern.

Blue Square City Daily!
Chen Hui looked at the verified blue V that posted the news and didn't know what to say for a moment.

Besides Lanfang Metropolitan Daily, many other influential media outlets also reposted this article, such as Xinjing Daily. Without their help, this commentary wouldn't have gone viral so quickly.

Of course, this matter does have the potential to become a hot topic.

Plagiarism is indeed a stereotype many people have about the Chinese academic circle. In addition, the article's last sentence, "Why can't China produce great scientists like Einstein and Newton?" hits the nail on the head for netizens.

Sometimes he felt that the instructors' views were quite correct. Those who studied humanities, such as journalism or economics, or at least humanities experts, should go to the baseline for training. Otherwise, they wouldn't make so many unrealistic statements, nor would they release news without verifying its authenticity.

Lanfang Metropolitan Daily is not some personal self-media. Can such a platform with huge influence publish news indiscriminately?

In comparison, many engineering students have it much easier, because many engineering students actually go to work on the front lines of factories right after graduation...

"I see."

Chen Hui nodded. He planned to contact his teacher first, but he didn't take the matter too seriously. Having experienced too many online storms, he no longer had any weaknesses and could handle things calmly. Time would tell.

Moreover, this paper unfortunately has both eyewitness testimony and physical evidence, making it irrefutable, leaving little room for further discussion.

The only regret is that the Blue Party Metropolitan Daily and a host of other media outlets that initiated this wave of celebration will most likely choose to play dead. Not only will they not be punished, but they may even gain a huge amount of traffic as a result.

Then, once this matter is over, they'll stir up trouble again, and there's probably nothing in this world that can control them.

After sending a message to his teacher, Chen Hui continued to bury himself in writing his paper. He wanted to see how these people would evaluate him after a while, when they discovered that he had published two more Q1 SCI papers.

We can't say he's writing low-quality papers or is an academic cancer, can we?
Chen Hui didn't care, but Li Zehan wouldn't stand for it and immediately started firing off messages on his phone.

Unfortunately, in the vast ocean of the internet, one person's power is insignificant.

But this time, Chen Hui wasn't alone, nor was Li Zehan. Besides him, many students from Rongcheng No. 2 Middle School also joined the discussion. Although they didn't download the paper to study it either, they chose to unconditionally believe in Chen Hui.

In Room 307 of the School of Mathematics at Rongcheng University, Fang Wen and his fellow students were once again frantically typing away on their keyboards.

Yanbei University,

Tian Yang has been in a bad mood lately. Being betrayed by his students is undoubtedly a huge blow to an old man.

But he is not an ordinary old man, and this has not affected his normal work and life.

When I arrive at the office in the morning, I make myself a strong cup of tea and start reading the latest journal I've subscribed to on my desk.

Although he is over sixty years old, he is still trying to keep up with the perspectives of the forefront of academia.

dong dong dong...

Before I had been looking around for long, there was a knock on the office door.

Xing Jiguang walked in from outside the door. "Old Tian, ​​there's something I need to tell you."

Tian Yang found it strange. He didn't have much interaction with Xing Jiguang, and he didn't know why Xing Jiguang came to see him.

Xing Jiguang didn't waste any words, took out his phone, and handed it to Tian Yang.

He also knew about Tian Yang's current relationship with Yuan Xinyi, but this was not just Yuan Xinyi's business. He didn't want that intelligent little guy to be affected by the outside world. He was also unaware of Chen Hui's recent situation. He believed that if Tian Yang, this veteran academician, could stand up and call for action at this time, it would have a very good effect.

"That's unreasonable!"

Tian Yang slammed his hand on his desk and said angrily.

However, he quickly calmed down, turned on his computer, downloaded two papers, and began to study them carefully.

"These American scholars are really losing all sense of decency."

Half an hour later, Tian Yang snorted coldly. The news report was correct; it was indeed plagiarism. But they had gotten it wrong about who plagiarized whom. He had been there at that seminar, which had happened several months ago. Chen Hui couldn't have plagiarized; it could only be the other party who had done so.

"Old Xing, go contact Lanfang Metropolitan Daily. Forget it, I don't trust them anymore. Contact a few more media outlets, give them the conference recording, have Yenching University's official website issue a statement, then contact Mathematical Physics Communications and ask them to remove that paper and issue us an apology statement. Also, contact Duke Mathematics Journal and ask them to assist us in communicating with the editorial department of Mathematical Physics Communications."

"And Professor Adrien, let's see what he has to say."

Tian Yang made arrangements methodically, and before Xing Jiguang could take any action, he went on his Weibo account, directly tagged Lanfang Metropolitan Daily, gave a stern criticism, and firmly stood on Chen Hui's side.

Of course, he has a huge influence in academia, but he only has tens of thousands of Weibo followers, which is only because he is occasionally mentioned in news interviews.

Although these tens of thousands of followers are real people, they are not active followers, and the influence of his Weibo account is really limited.

Xing Jiguang then realized that his considerations were unnecessary. Old Tian had stepped forward without a second's hesitation, so he had no more worries. With Old Tian taking the lead, the following actions could be said to be a matter of course and there would be no obstacles.

Tsinghua University

Qiu Chengwu stared at the webpage on his computer with a cold smile. He had known this for over twenty years: these news media outlets were like hungry wolves, completely unconcerned about the truth. They would do anything for a bite of hot shit.

After thinking for a moment, he dialed Yun Wei's number.

"I sent you two papers, take a look."

Without saying much, he believed that Yunwei would understand his meaning. After all, he had not attended the seminar, and the specific judgment still had to be made by Yunwei. He trusted Yunwei.

Sure enough, just over ten minutes later, Yun Wei appeared in his office with two printed papers.

"Professor Qiu, I won't comment too much. Yanbei University has already released the meeting recording."

Yunwei replied to Qiu Chengwu with a link.

"Ouch!"

"It's quite unusual that the little fellow would actually stand up for his grand-disciple."

Upon seeing the statement released by the official Yenching University account, Qiu Chengwu chuckled and said sarcastically.

Yunwei remained noncommittal, pretending not to hear.

Qiu Chengwu, however, was already watching the meeting recording intently. He really liked the little guy who was talking eloquently in front of the whiteboard more and more.

I wish these were my own students!

The video was quite long, lasting over two hours.

Qiu Chengwu even got up to stretch his body halfway through before going back to watch the video. As one gets older, it's not so easy to sit for several hours at a time, let alone maintain focus for several hours.

But he looked at it very carefully.

The conclusion is naturally beyond doubt: "Plagiarism is definitely established, but it was that guy who copied us, and now he's turning around and coming after us. How interesting!"

"It may not necessarily be plagiarism; it's just that the research topics are similar."

Yun Wei had only glanced at the papers. The two papers were indeed very similar, even identical, but he could still see some differences. These subtle differences represented two ways of thinking, which could only be formed after a long period of exploration. Therefore, compared to the two extreme judgments of plagiarism and being plagiarized, he had a different opinion.

Qiu Chengwu chuckled lightly, "Take another good look!"

Yunwei didn't ask any more questions. He sat down on the sofa in the office and began to carefully read the two papers.

Soon, he found out what Old Qiu wanted him to see.

For any two-dimensional fractional Chern insulator with Cn rotational symmetry, the denominator n of its fractional Chern number must be a prime factor of the corresponding modular series N, that is, there exists a prime number p such that p∣N and p=n.

Both papers used this lemma to derive subsequent conclusions. This lemma is crucial; if it were invalid, all subsequent conclusions would be incorrect.

However, this is not a well-known lemma, and it has never appeared before, so it is highly likely that Chen Hui created it himself when writing the paper.

This kind of thing is very common in the papers of many mathematicians. They will directly use certain lemmas, and a simple "obvious" or "easy to know" statement can leave other colleagues scratching their heads in confusion.

This is clearly a lemma where the modular series N is often related to the symmetry of the system. Intuitively, n should be related to the factors of N, but in reality, this conclusion is not so obvious. It is necessary to establish a strict correspondence between crystal symmetry and modular parameters, and to prove the primeness constraint of the denominator.

After thinking for a few minutes, he still had no ideas.

Although he was not proficient in the Langlands program, a mathematician of his caliber was at least a first-rate mathematician in most fields. If he couldn't figure out a problem for the time being, how could it really be obvious?

How dare they just use it directly?
That's incredibly audacious!
There's nothing more to say now; he's certain it's plagiarism!

Qiu Chengwu nodded, picked up his phone, and dialed a number.

"Professor Qiu?"

After a long wait, the call was finally answered, and an elderly woman's voice came through the receiver, her tone filled with both doubt and excitement.

Chinese people have a very strange habit: they take familiar people for granted, but view people who are further away with a strange kind of filter.

For example, people admire Stephen Hawking but criticize Yang Zhenning without realizing that, in terms of academic achievements, Yang Zhenning is far superior to Hawking.

People enthusiastically discuss Witten, Grottendick, and so on, but they always overlook the fact that China also has great mathematicians.

Although Qiu Chengwu was slightly inferior to those people, he was still able to win both the Fields Medal and the Wolf Prize, and there were only a handful of people in the world who were better than him.

Dobessi, also a Wolf Prize winner, was very happy to receive this call.

"I sent you a paper via email; you might be interested."

Qiu Chengwu's attitude was not exactly good. Usually, scholars communicate more through email than by phone, because email is a passive reminder and will not disturb a mathematician's train of thought.

Moreover, Duke University is located in North Carolina in the eastern United States, which is thirteen hours ahead of Beijing, so it was already late at night.

But Qiu Chengwu wasn't there to communicate with Dobesi; he was there to demand an explanation. Chen Hui's paper was published in the Duke Mathematics Journal, and the author of the plagiarized paper was also from Duke University. Dobesi had to give him an explanation.

Dobess excitedly opened her email, thinking Qiu had made some major discovery.

Then she saw Oliver's paper.

She only glanced at it briefly, but she already knew what had happened, because she had read Chen Hui's thesis.

“Bullshit!”

(End of this chapter)