I Have a Research Support System

In the next few days, Xu Qiu and his colleagues in the research group repeatedly revised the first draft of "Nature".

Finally, on Friday, I got the final version. Whether it is the point of view, story line, text expression, and pictures in the article, it has been polished and revised repeatedly, and it has reached perfection.

Speaking of which, Xu Qiu's "Nature" article is a "small paper" in terms of workload, and it is more of a throwing brick to attract jade, pointing out future research directions for colleagues in the field of organic photovoltaics.

Therefore, the writing and revising of this article did not take much time. It took less than a month to complete the calculation, and the initial experiment time was not long, only more than a month. Time, the actual time-consuming should be between one and two years.

Even a time scale of one or two years is not that long in a CNS level job.

For "big papers" at the CNS level, such as papers related to particle colliders that require a large amount of experimental data, it may take months or half a year just to sort out the data and write the article, and the experiment cycle may even It takes three to five years.

Of course, having said that, regardless of whether it is a "big thesis" or a "small thesis", no matter how much time is spent, as long as the work itself can reach the level of CNS, the degree of importance is top-notch.

Moreover, Xu Qiu believes that for scientific research fields such as organic photovoltaics, perovskite, and graphene that have a "low threshold" it is more appropriate to publish "small papers" in high-end journals than "big papers" .

On the one hand, from a utilitarian point of view, it is obviously more cost-effective for scholars to publish "small papers" than to publish "big papers".

If you can post a CNS every year, most people will definitely not want to post a CNS every three to five years.

At the same time, spending three to five years holding back a CNS "big thesis" is "putting all eggs in the same basket", and the risk is too great.

If it is suppressed, it is acceptable, but if it cannot be suppressed, it will be a tragedy, and the tragedy is often not the mentor.

Because generally, mentors who have the opportunity to hit the CNS are usually already successful and famous, and they may already have a CNS in their hands.

Therefore, their fault tolerance rate is often relatively high. Even if the impact on CNS fails, most of the work can be transferred to the major sub-journals of "Nature", and even if it is not good, it can be published on NC and AM.

If you can't post to CNS, it's just that you can't add to the cake for yourself, and the impact is not big.

But the students in charge of this work may be in a miserable situation. It took three to five years, and most of them will have to be delayed. As a result, only one NC or AM article will be produced in the end, which will greatly affect their future scientific research.

After all, if they have the strength to attack CNS, but don't attack CNS, but choose water articles, they can split a large job into several small jobs, and publish three or five AM-level articles in three to five years. did it.

There are three or five AM-level jobs. Going abroad to be a postdoctoral position is "gold-plated", and returning to China to be a specially-appointed associate professor in an ordinary university. No matter how hard you work, it is not too difficult to become a regular.

Of course, these are all considered from a utilitarian point of view.

On the other hand, for scientific research fields with "relatively low threshold", from the perspective of field development, it is true that major experimental breakthroughs at the CNS level should be published earlier in the form of "small papers".

Because the threshold of the field is relatively low, with a major experimental breakthrough, other researchers can quickly imitate and follow up, allowing this field to develop rapidly.

On the contrary, if you choose to hide this major experimental breakthrough and not publish it, and do research on your own, and compile a "big paper", it will slow down the development speed of the entire field.

For example, now that Xu Qiu has reported the 17% stacked system and the 18% binary single-junction system, other research groups can speed up follow-up, develop similar stacked devices, similar ADADA-type acceptor materials, and promote organic The development of the photovoltaic field has reached a new level.

But if Xu Qiu keeps these two tasks in his hands, and after a year of research by himself, he accumulates a large amount of data before publishing, then other researchers may be doing useless work this year, because the direction of their research is likely to be "Dead end".

In a research field with a "low threshold" such as organic photovoltaics, if you choose to publish a "big paper", only Xu Qiu's team is doing research, and if you choose to publish a "small paper", hundreds of teams in the entire research field can work together cooperate.

Obviously, in the case of the former, the development speed of the entire field will most likely lag behind the latter.

Even if Xu Qiu is very talented and has a cheat like the system, it is impossible for one person to be worth the researchers of the entire field.

This phenomenon, when considered in depth, is actually a manifestation of "choice is greater than effort". Xu Qiu pointed out a relatively correct direction for everyone, and it can help other researchers make relatively correct choices.

In the scientific research circle, the phenomenon that choice is greater than effort is actually more obvious than in most industries in reality.

It's not that effort isn't important.

Effort is of course important, even if you have the best idea, if you don't practice it, it will be nothing.

It's just that hard work is actually quite cheap, especially for Chinese people, hard work and hard work are traditional virtues, and the per capita liver emperor.

For example, in the scientific research circle, Zhang San works overtime every day and works 100+ hours a week, while Li Si only works a normal 996, does not work overtime a week, and only works 72 hours. In terms of the workload of the two, the difference is not big. There is only a difference of less than double.

However, the direction chosen by Zhang San is mediocre, with a success rate of only one in ten thousand, while the direction chosen by Li Si is more correct, with a success rate of one in thousand, which will cause a tenfold gap.

The final expectation of scientific research results can be simply regarded as the multiplication of "effort" and "choice".

In other words, unless Zhang San's effort is ten times that of Li Si's, it is possible for him to surpass Li Si.

But this is of course impossible. No matter how hard a person works, there are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week.

In the final analysis, the fundamental reason why the choice is greater than the effort in the scientific research circle is that the differences between different choices are very large.

Just now it was only the difference between one ten thousandth and one thousandth of the success rate, but if it was the difference between one hundred thousandth and one percent of the success rate, it would cause a thousand times difference.

The gap of a thousand times makes people even more desperate. Zhang San has worked hard for three years, and it may not be as good as Li Si's paddling for a month.

Reflected in reality, some doctoral students may not produce any scientific research results after three years of hard work, or even one or two years of delay, while some people can casually publish SCI at the undergraduate or postgraduate stage, or even Publish CNS.

Perhaps it is precisely because of the great differences in scientific research talents among different people, and the fact that scientific research talents are hidden talents, that the school knows that most people are not suitable for scientific research, but still recruits a large number of graduate students in science and engineering.

It is for screening, to screen out seeded candidates with good scientific research talents, and lead them to the road of scientific research.

However, the effect is not very ideal.

At this stage, the most elite group of people in the human community are often not in the scientific research circle, but are busy making money in the financial Internet field.

The reason is that although scientific researchers are the hope of the future of human civilization from a certain point of view and should be given the highest allocation of resources, the current treatment of scientific researchers is too low to be worthy of their status.

And the more elite you are, the more self-interested you are. In the absence of benefits, it is really difficult to continue with a passion and belief, unless they themselves come from the elite class and have achieved material freedom.

It is worth mentioning that the scientific research circle belongs to the field of "choice is greater than effort", and in reality there are some fields where "effort is greater than choice".

The reason is that the choice has little impact on the final income expectation, at least not like scientific research, where there is a difference of ten times or even higher.

In this case, every time you work hard, you can earn an extra piece of money. The more you work, the more you get, and the job is over.

For example, most repetitive physical labor, such as moving bricks, entering the factory, delivering food, etc., rather than spending a lot of time thinking about where to move bricks, it is better to do more work, because the difference is not big...

For another example, the top job in finance, investment banking, is basically standard for working 100+ hours a week.

Some investment banking units even clearly stated when recruiting people that "the 17-hour working system is acceptable, and try to be on duty seven days a week", that is, "from nine to two, all year round."

Of course, the salary is also exaggerated. The annual salary is hundreds of thousands, and millions is not a dream.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Xu Qiu went to Xiancai 513 with the final draft of the "Nature" paper.

At this time, Wei Xingsi had already made tea in advance, and when Xu Qiu came in, he asked eagerly, "Is it all changed?"

Xu Qiu responded with a "huh", handed the USB flash drive in his hand to Wei Xingsi, then poured himself a cup of tea, then pulled a swivel chair from the side and sat behind Teacher Wei.

Wei Xingsi copied the file to the computer, rubbed it with water, operated the mouse, and began to browse the text.

The format of this article, Xu Qiu has already carried out preliminary typesetting according to the requirements of the "Nature" journal.

Because "Nature" and "Science" have layout requirements, if the layout exceeds the limit, it will also affect the manuscript.

The title is "Single-junction organic photovoltaic device with efficiency exceeding 18%", which is very concise.

Speaking of which, when the senior sister taught Xu Qiu to write SCI papers, she once said that the title is very important, and it must be very "wow".

Xu Qiu was convinced at the beginning, but as the number of articles he published gradually increased, he found that when a job is very powerful, there is no need for redundant explanations at all, and it is enough to directly mention the highlights of the job.

For example, now when Xu Qiu came up with the title, he was very casual. It only took him more than ten seconds to think up the title.

As for the title of the article, Wei Xingsi did not express an opinion, so it was acquiesced.

Afterwards, Wei Xingsi looked at the list of authors, glanced at the twelve authors, and paused for a few seconds on the "*" behind Xu Qiu's name representing the corresponding author, and asked casually: "Xu Qiu, is this the first time you How does it feel to be the corresponding author?"

"It seems..." Xu Qiu scratched his head: "I don't feel anything."

Wei Xingsi choked for a moment, and after a while, he said as if recalling: "The first time I became a corresponding author was at the age of 33, and I entered NREL for a year and a half..."

Next, Mr. Wei did not skip and read the literature as usual, but read from the abstract, introduction, text, references, author's contribution, supporting information....

In the middle, he occasionally turned his head to exchange a few words with Xu Qiu, changing a few adjectives, verbs, and clauses.

Wei Xingsi did not make too many changes to the text.

On the one hand, the draft of the "Nature" article that Xu Qiu took out has been revised repeatedly, and there are not many obvious mistakes.

On the other hand, Wei Xingsi also knows that the current Xu Qiu's attainment in the field of organic photovoltaics has actually surpassed him. If he forcefully puts forward an opinion and asks Xu Qiu to modify it, it may become worse and worse.

In fact, it is also a common phenomenon in the scientific research circle that postgraduates understand a certain subdivision field better than teachers.

For example, in Wei Xingsi's research group, "organic solar cells" is a first-level field;

"Non-fullerene acceptors", "fullerene acceptors", "polymer donors", "small molecule donors", etc., are subdivided secondary fields under the primary field of "organic solar cells" ;

"ITIC series receptors", "PDI series receptors", etc., are the third-level fields subdivided under the field of "non-fullerene receptors";

"IT-4F receptors", "IDIC receptors", etc., are the fourth-level subdivisions of the field of "ITIC series receptors";

Further down, it can be divided into five levels, six levels, seven levels... Subdivided fields.

When an instructor establishes a research group, he will usually focus on one or more first-level fields, and most of the students he leads will choose a sub-field within this first-level field for topic selection and research.

Because the tutor has past research experience, he is likely to be stronger than the student in the first-level field.

However, for the specific fifth, sixth, seventh... subdivided fields, the students who are actually responsible for doing experiments will be better than the instructors.

Xu Qiu's current situation is quite special. He has surpassed Wei Xingsi in the first-level field of organic photovoltaics, and has even become one of the top scholars in the world in this field.

Like Han Jiaying, Wu Shengnan, and Mo Wenlin, they specialize in donor materials, acceptor materials, ternary and laminated devices respectively. In the corresponding subdivision fields, they are stronger than Wei Xingsi, but for the organic photovoltaic field as a whole His understanding is still weaker than Teacher Wei's.

After repeatedly checking and revising the Nature article twice, Wei Xingsi copied the text, supporting information, and original data to the large computer, and completed the submission of the Nature article.

"Huh—it's finally finished." Wei Xingsi's face flushed a little, he took a long breath, moved his body, and said:

"You can take them out for a dinner tonight... Besides, we will go to the beautiful country to attend the MRS meeting in April, so remember to prepare your luggage and bring some necessary items, such as sockets for converting voltages and the like..."