He soon saw the email from Li Jian Gao.
After reading it, he was quite surprised.
He had deliberately not emailed Qiao Ze because he felt that young people were too hot-tempered and did not understand the rules, and his words of advice might be misunderstood, leading to complaints instead.
It wasn't necessary.
As a journal editor, he could afford to make jokes about those great mathematicians when he had free time, but to fall out with them would be sheer folly.
What he never expected was that not only was the student radical in thinking, but the mentor was quite a character too!
How could an associate professor be so fiery?
Had all these Huaxia people gone mad?
Fortunately, this wasn't something he needed to worry about.
Jack forwarded the email directly to the chief editor's inbox with practiced ease.
Whether the paper was to be rejected or published was for Carl, the chief editor, to worry about, not something completely irrelevant to him, but the relationship was indeed not that significant.
At most, he had the right to make a suggestion.
Of course, Jack didn't even need that right to make a suggestion.
He didn't want to have an opinion; he just wanted to enjoy the show.
"Haha, you guys could all have won ten US dollars from me, but unfortunately, you didn't grasp the opportunity."
"Jack, I've been really hating riddle people lately."
"Do you remember that article by the Huaxia person? The one titled 'A Mathematical Framework for Self supervised Learning Based on Group Theory.' The first author's advisor has applied for retraction again, and he doesn't even care if we blacklist them—even though I've already hinted very clearly that with just a slight revision and adding a few references, the paper could be easily published."
"Oh?! That's really quite curious. You've got me interested in that paper now. Let's eliminate a wrong option first: It's not that the student doesn't know how to cite... Okay, then it's confidence, weird confidence."
"So, are they planning to submit to Princeton's Mathematics Annual, or maybe Duke's math journal?"
"Who knows? But Carl, the chief editor, will probably be unhappy about this. So I suggest you all get back to work quickly."
...
But the influence of the University of Cologne team is indeed significant. Additionally, relations between countries are already in a sensitive period, which makes things complicated.
This is the reason Carl Basque has been holding on to the paper, neither publishing it nor allowing it to be withdrawn.
Only this time, the professor and student who submitted the paper are somewhat different from the Huaxia scholars they have previously dealt with.
Carl Basque had interacted with many Huaxia professors who came to America for further study and was very aware of how much Huaxia's academic circles recognized such world-class top journals. It's said that publication in these journals is directly linked to academic titles, income, and the selection of various honors within Huaxia Country.
Some well-known Huaxia professors in the international mathematics community would go to great lengths to publish in world-class core journals. They might not be overly deferential to the editors, but they certainly wouldn't choose to resist such almost non-demanding requests.
But evidently, this pair of co-corresponding authors, Li Jian Gao and Qiao Ze, were not quite like the other Huaxia teacher-student combinations he was familiar with.
It would be one thing if it were just the student who was hot-headed, but for a professor to be so willful, were they challenging their authority?
After pondering for a while, Carl Basque asked, "So, did you not tell them that if they insist on withdrawing the paper, we might not accept any of their future submissions?"
Jack Rosman shook his head and said, "On the contrary, I was very clear. Hmm... I think you should take a look at my email reply. If they can't understand my meaning, then they couldn't have written such a fluent paper."
"Ha... it seems we've encountered a tough one... Well, Jack, as the editor responsible for this paper, do you think we should directly publish the paper, or should we outright reject it? I would like to hear your opinion," Carl Basque casually asked.
Jack Rosman thought for a moment and cleverly replied, "If you're asking for my opinion, Carl, I think if the decision is to publish, then it would have been best before I replied to that email as you instructed. As for now..."
His words left room for interpretation.
Of course, everyone could understand; it was a matter of face.
If they were pinched this time, and it spread, it wouldn't just be an embarrassing matter.
What's more, the next time they wanted to strong-arm someone, it wouldn't be so easy.
"Let's not be hasty in replying to the Huaxia people, send an email to that German, invite him to submit a paper. I'll see how he responds before I make a decision. I heard before that his research group was working on a project on Group Theory to construct a self-supervised 3D point cloud prediction. Ask them if their results are ready for publication."
"Okay, Chief Editor. I'll be on it then," Jack Rosman casually replied, and with a wave of Carl Basque's hand, he walked out of the editor-in-chief's office with a relaxed expression.
So at times being a junior editor is quite nice; one doesn't need to think about so many troublesome matters.
However, Jack Rosman still felt he learned something from the chief editor.
For instance, when facing a tug-of-war like this, one couldn't let either side lead by the nose; one always had to hold something in check.
Jiang is indeed more pungent with age.