Rutger大学的David Vanderbilt教授是材料计算理论领域最活跃的学者之一, 他的突出贡献在于引入了超软赝势(Ultrasoft-pseudopotentials)的概念和方法,以及物质极化的微观理论(the modern theory of polarization). 今年他由于这方面的贡献获得了美国物理学会的Rahman奖, 这是材料模拟领域分量很重的奖励(Rahman被称之为分子模拟之父).
Vanderbilt同学在做受奖报告的时候披露他1990年关于超软赝势的文章是怎样被Phys.Rev.Lett审稿人拒掉的, 审稿人的意见写到:

Grisha Perelman因arXiv的三篇预印文献解决Poincaré 猜想而获得了Fields Medal, arXiv对此事的反应是把Grisha Perelman的三篇文章放在首页. 这事这人都是前所未有~~!

22 Aug 2006: arXiv.org servers are currently under very heavy load due to demand for Grisha Perelman’s papers, published only as arXiv.orge-prints, which are available below. We encourage you to use a mirror such as lanl.arXiv.org or aps.arXiv.org, and we thank you for your patience as we try to accommodate the demand. Perleman was named a Fields Medalist at the opening ceremony of the International Mathematical Union.