The beauty of scientific and technological papers lies not in the flowery rhetoric, but in the simplicity, clear logic, and clear organization, which does not even require the author to provide a source program, and can perfectly reproduce the proposed algorithm just by concentrating on reading through the content of the paper itself. This article takes a classic paper of a Nobel laureate as an example to talk about the beauty of scientific and technological papers.
It is said that there is a simple criterion to know when you are about to graduate with a Ph.D. - when you first start doing research, you will feel why you are so ignorant if you can't read the paper, and when you can't read it when you are about to graduate, you will feel that the paper is so obscure and incomprehensible. This shows that when dealing with obscure papers, my mentality has taken a leap, and I have begun to have a feeling of "seeing all the mountains at a glance".
Steve Jobs once said that his ideal product is a blend of technology and art. When we write a scientific paper, is there such a possibility that it is not only easy to understand, but also gives readers a sense of artistic beauty?
You will definitely say, it must be to read more papers published at top conferences, extract some good words and sentences, study more, imitate more, don't you write more and feel better?
The author believes that papers presented at top conferences are not necessarily beautiful and excellent papers, and those papers that give people a sense of artistic beauty will not necessarily be published at top conferences. Learning and imitating what papers are actually very important.
来看六十多年前盖尔(Gale)和沙普利(Shapley)写的一篇经典论文“College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage”。 短短七页的论文，开场就极其直白，颇有一种“环滁皆山也”的气势：
Introduction. The problem with which we shall be concerned relates to the following typical situation: A college is considering a set of n applicants of which it can admit a quota of only q.
Why did such a simple sentence make the author appreciate it so much?
First of all, this sentence gets straight to the point and directly explains what problem this paper intends to solve. The author has read a lot of papers in recent years, often the first page is over, still introducing the background, literature and existing algorithms, and has not really explained what problem this paper is trying to solve. Secondly, this sentence is extremely simple, and the simple and clear language helps the reader to easily understand the idea of the paper, and there is a feeling of sudden enlightenment after reading.
In fact, not only the opening, but also the whole paper is very easy to read and understand. Even if the reader is not initially interested in this research direction, they will be driven by curiosity to read through the full text bit by bit.
Let's look at the end of the paper:
What, then, to raise the question once more, is mathematics? The answer, it appears, is that any argument which is carried out with sufficient precision is mathematical, and the reason that your friends and ours cannot understand mathematics is not because they have no head for figures, but because they are unable to achieve the degree of concentration required to follow a moderately involved sequence of inferences.
You see, doesn't there a sense of grandeur and a sense of the next level? Shapley, one of the authors of the paper, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2012. He told us that a paper is like a game of Go, as long as each step is accurate and clearly expressed, it can be said to be mathematics, and many people cannot understand such mathematics, not because of how difficult the mathematics itself is, but because they do not pay attention.
This paragraph, which seems to have nothing to do with the topic, addresses issues that are common to many papers these days. These papers seem to be all-encompassing, with not only a large number of formulas and proofs throughout, but also various algorithms. However, if you read it carefully, not only do you not appreciate the beauty of art, but you also don't know what to do, and you can't reproduce it because the algorithm description ignores some details. The reason for this is that the author of the paper does not explain the reasoning process and algorithm steps clearly through mathematics and cases, so that readers can read the clouds and mountains and fog, and know the reason for it.
Speaking of which, we should have found that the beauty of scientific and technological papers is not actually because of the use of good words and sentences, but because the logic of the article is clear and organized, and it does not even require the author to provide the source program, and only by concentrating on reading through the content of the paper itself, the algorithm proposed can be perfectly reproduced. It's a bit like a black-and-white photo, it's prosaic, but it's heart-pounding. We can even say that the simpler the language of a paper, even so simple that a scholar in different fields can understand it, the more it has a striking beauty, and the closer it is to the intersection of technology and art.
You may ask, if the paper is too simple and easy to understand, won't the reviewer feel that the paper is too pediatric and has no connotation and novelty?
Of course, there is a possibility. However, if you write a paper because you are afraid that the reviewer will think that the paper has no connotation, not only is it a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but the reviewer will not necessarily give a high evaluation because you can't understand it, right? Moreover, the author has always believed that the real intrinsic value of a paper cannot be changed by the negative evaluation of one or two reviewers. We write papers, not for reviewers, but for readers.
What, then, to raise the question once more, is a beautiful paper?
If a scientific paper is novel in design, ingenious, clear in algorithm steps, can be directly reproduced, and the opening and conclusion are concise and clear, it is a "beautiful" paper. But everything that is beautiful makes people feel like they can't leave, just like a wonderful movie, after watching it once, you want to watch it a second time. It's just that unlike film art, the beauty of the essay lies in its straightforward simplicity, in its step-by-step precision, which is an otherworldly beauty.
Even if such a paper is not accepted by a top conference, so what's the matter?
If the Ph.D. is about to graduate, we can also say that the level of these reviewers who can't concentrate is too low.
就如同盖尔和沙普利大作中的最后一句话：For them the foregoing may serve as a useful illustration.
Li Baochun
Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow. Professor, University of Toronto. His research interests include cloud computing, distributed systems, security and privacy, and networking.
Say@ইসিই. Toronto. Edu
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