Reviewer 1: “this paper should be rejected”

40:22case, reviewer one comes back after version zero and he says, "Overall, this paper should be rejected." Classic. >> Classic. >> Usually, it's reviewer two. Right? Because like reviewer one is like cuz imagine you're like opening up your peer review file, right? And usually like reviewer one is like kind of nice about it and then reviewer two is just going at it. Here, like I guess the editor didn't change the You know, cuz the editor could have just like changed It doesn't matter who reviewer one and two is. You I but anyways, they open up the peer review file and imagine the first Overall, this paper should be rejected. Okay? >> Yes. >> So, here's the complaint that reviewer number one is making. He's saying that

41:04basically the X-ray diffraction and this electron diffraction, those two data sets are inconsistent. We don't know what the original version of the figures are, right? So, we can't see. But apparently, they were inconsistent and they didn't analyze different axes. Like, you know, with with a with a crystal, there's like different directions that I can sort of probe. I can just rotate my sample >> Yes. >> on my X-ray diffraction apparatus and then I can probe different directions of the crystal. They didn't do that. >> That's That's I think that's fair. >> That's that's totally fair. They also didn't do this thing called Rietveld refinement, which is a way to computationally clean up diffraction data, which apparently like everyone does. So, they didn't do that. >> Okay. >> And they're using This is This one I

41:45thought was really hilarious. They're using diamond, cubic diamond, the normal diamond, to probe the hardness of this thing and they're claiming that this thing is harder. That doesn't quite make any sense. Right? You're You're You're You've got You've got something that's really hard and then you're scratching it with something that you're claiming is not as hard. >> Right. >> But then how are you scratching it? Right. >> Yeah. >> If the If the original >> thing is >> thingy is not as hard Right? And if are you really sure that the scratch you made is like enough to give you data for the Vickers hardness scale? Right? If it's harder than the thing that you're using to scratch. Like Like we're we're in unknown territory here. Cuz usually when we talk about how hard is

42:25something, we take a normal diamond that we know is at a hardness of 10, and we scratch it, and then we see what the indentation is, and then from that you can calculate, okay, where is it on the hardness scale? Here you're saying this is harder than the thing we're using to probe it. >> Right. >> Doesn't make any sense. >> It No, it it it doesn't. The The radio speaker dial does not go to 11. >> Yeah. Okay. So, that's reviewer one. Reviewer two was very nice about it. >> Okay. >> Um he said, you know, bulk hexagonal diamond is a very important thing. Therefore, the study seems important and could deserve to be published in a journal like nature. He's saying you've got a chance. But, I'm not convinced. He says the data obtained from these many different methods to characterize the sample looks convincing in principle, but

43:06there's some important questions that remain. >> Mhm. >> So, the authors go back. >> Yes. >> And what the key thing is with reviewer two, the concerns that he said the important questions that remain are very similar to author one. >> Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah. >> Except reviewer one was straight-up like, >> Yeah, this is not good. >> This This I don't know what we're what we're What are we What are we doing here? Okay. So, the authors come back, and they did do multiple directions. Okay? >> Okay. >> So, in this one, if you see this is figure two, two A and B >> Mhm. >> show AB stacking. You see that? You see the little orange dots? That's ABAB >> Yeah. >> ABAB. This is um electron microscopy. Very clear. >> Yes. >> Very clear, right? On the bottom row,

43:46you see hexagonal lattice. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Okay? >> Yeah, it is quite it is quite clear. >> it's there, right? The ABAB stacking is in the top row. They've They've done the simulation on the right-hand side of like what it should look like, and on the bottom row, they're they're they're showing the hexagonal stacking. >> Very nice. >> Yep, yep. >> Okay? So, >> And this is exactly what the peer review process is. >> Like this is The point was is that we want to get things accurate as accurately as possible and as correctly as possible. And so it's a it's a natural back and >> It's natural back and forth. And credit to the editor of this thing, he didn't take the reviewer one feedback too seriously and gave the authors another chance right?