科学上有了创新和发现，更需要自信和坚持精神

网络科学中发现无标度网络——具有幂律度分布的发现者之一A. L. Barabasi，1999年在欧洲开会中间,他的博士生雷卡.阿尔伯达 (ALbert)发来长Email告诉他:在几乎所有的系统(IBM的芯片、演员、电网)中,度分布曲线的末端都符合幂律分布， 并突然证明了万维网也不例外。他当时正在欧洲里斯本开一个与网络无关的会议，他在会议室里心不在焉，会议内容全然听不进去。一直在想：如果像万维网和好莱坞演员网这样或然不同的系统都能显示幂律分布，那么其中必然隐含着某种宇宙定律或机制。假如存在这样的定律，则有可能应用到所有的网络。

于是，会议第一次休息他就回宾馆，但是半途回波尔图大学发传真给雷卡请她使用电脑证明一下他的想法，几小时后把结果通过Email发来。Barabasi回忆说：“令我万分惊讶的是，我的想法竟然成立了。简单的富者愈富现象，竟然是大多数网络的潜在特性（机制），这能够解释我们在万维网和好莱坞演员网络中都观察到的幂律现象。”

 开会回来后，随后一个月，他急于发表研究成果。他从里斯本飞往纽约的8小时飞机上利用新买的笔记本电脑运指如飞地写起来，刚刚写完导言，空中小组送可乐倒到他的健盘上，电脑报销了。突然的意外的挫折并没有动摇他的决心，他用手写在飞机上完成了论文。一周后投给“科学”，10天后就被退回，没有经过正常的同行专家评审过程，编辑认为：“论文达不到刊物所要求的新颖、具有广泛吸引力的标准。”注意：这是投稿人得到顶极刊物常用的答复！当时他也很失望，但是他坚信自己的论文非常重要。于是，他给编辑打电话，极力说服他改变初衷，万万没有想到竟然成功了。他们著名论文“Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks”终于在《科学》杂志上发表了（Barabási & Albert, Science 286, 509 (1999)）。

有些人，包括我自己在内，往往就缺乏Barabási 那种“再坚持一下”进行抗争的精神。我2006年曾经给《Nature》一篇稿子情况开始的情况比Barabasi还好，我给编辑的信打动了有关编辑，参看Cover Letter to Nature Editor：

Networks are all around us , including physical, social, information and technological networks, and very important for many fields At present one of key problems is that existing generalized random network models (GRNM) could not completely consistent with real-world networks which have both scale-free (SF) and small world (SW). The reason for this is that the random preferential attachment is only considered in growing networks. However, a fundamental observation is that both deterministic and random factors extensively exist in our unified real-world. Therefore, we cannot ignore one of them since both interactions in real world are neither completely regular nor completely random, and lie in somewhere between the extremes of order and randomness, which should be a harmonized unifying. Therefore,  both of random preferential attachment (RPA) and deterministic preferential attachment (DPA) in various complex networks should be investigated. In order to find such a better model for both unweighted and weighted model, we propose a new harmonized unifying hybrid preferential model (HUHPM) with both RPA and DPA to a certain class of complex networks. All the results in this work show that the HUHPM can answer three challenging questions:(1) Why existing many generalized random network models could not consistent with real-world networks? (2)Are the real networks fundamentally random preferential attachment without any determination preferential attachment for both unweighted and weighted networks? (3) Is there an coherent physical idea and model for unifying study of formation mechanism? If so, it can be more suitable for both un-weighted and weighted networks as well as much more approach to real-world networks. We only introduce a hybrid ratio d/r as a key parameter, which can control topological and dynamic properties. The HUHPM find a series of universal properties, such as the exponent of the power-law is very sensitive to the d/r; there is a threshold of the exponent at d/r= 1/1, beyond which the exponent increases rapidly and will tend to infinity when the d/r tends to infinity, The HHNM have both scale-free and small-world effects, which have smallest average path distance and largest clustering coefficient. These properties are much closer to real-world networks. The UHPM is one best model for describing both of unweighted and weighted networks.

我发去的“自然部分投稿”（Nature Partial Submission）编辑马上同意了，让我赶紧写出全文，于是我化了1-2个月费了九牛二虎之力，写出长达20多页文章，当我把全文发给编辑部时，不料（不幸）竟然被另外的编辑先拿到了，他们认为Nature不能发这么长的文章，就这样流产了。而后来，不知情的原来编辑还在2006年4月11日还来Email信催问我,怕我对杂志不感兴趣，反怕我文章不给他们，来信询问怎么还没有发来稿子，该信全文如下：

Dear Professor Fang

We were wondering whether you are still interested in submitting your paper to Nature.
We have noticed that your submission has now been awaiting completion for 76 days.
We urge you to complete your submission and approve your files in order for us to access and make an editorial decision on it.

If you do not complete your submission or contact me within the next week, I will be forced to delete your submission from the system. If you are experiencing problems with your submission, please do not hesitate to contact me at this address.

Yours sincerely

Sacha Sanders
Staff
Nature
          我只好把情况告诉原来编辑。但是我没有去竭力据理力争，使得我们错失了一次良机。这篇长篇论文后来于2007年发表在“中国科学G”上(Fang J Q, Bi Q, Li Y, et al, A harmonious unifying preferential network model and its universal properties for complex dynamical network, Science in China Series G, 2007,50(3):379-396.),虽然后续一些文章也发表在国外刊物上，但是这是我的一次最深刻的教训。我也听李德毅说过，他那篇“掌声响起来”的文章投在《Nature》那里也有一次类似的经历，不得不发表在“中国科学G”上。这种情况有一定的普遍性。

我认为，这里反映出来的主要问题是，一方面我们不太了解和准确把握刊物的要求，而我们的英文功力又不够，这点对于我们中国学者是最吃亏的；另一方面，也缺乏像Barabási那样“再坚持一下”用英文与其进行顽强抗争精神，可见，这些方面我们远不如那些老外牛人，我们应该向他们学习。像这样的发生在我身上的情况，其他人肯定也有，迄今我曾发生过多次，如在“物理评论（Phys. Rev.)上有过3篇，在 PRL上有过2篇论文，都是可以说擦边而过了。虽然有些遗憾，但是我真的并不很在意，在国内外其他好刊物发表也未赏不可。科学史上，有的文章就是在不大著名的刊物上发表，例如Lorentz和李天岩在混沌领域两篇开创性文章就是这样，但是仍然名扬天下，主要还是看原创性的高度和层次，自己承认还是不足啊。不过，我一直赞同：应该提倡我国科技工作者在国内产生的原创性科研成果，最好在国内顶级刊物发表。否则，长此下去我国科研怎么赶超世界水平呀？我国屠呦呦获得拉斯克奖等无数事实证明，我国科学技术界是大有实力，潜力巨大，在不久的将来一定能够走在世界的前列。

因此，我衷心希望我国年轻人和其他科技工作者能够吸取经验教训，不仅要敢于创新，特别要有大的原创性成果，而且要有一股坚持到底和敢与抗争的大无畏精神。