I submitted an article to Elsevier which even after one week its status is still "submitted to journal" and they didn't give me even the manuscript number. I have several past experiences with this publisher, where they gave me the manuscript number promptly, but this time after one week without even manuscript number seems a little bit odd.   Should I withdraw my article and submit it somewhere else, which probably their process may be faster? The reason why I'm asking this question is that I don't want to waste my time but on the other hand I don't want to make a bad reputation for potential future submissions by withdrawing my article because their journal is pretty famous in my field (computational physics).
What steps does a manuscript typically go through from submission to publication (or rejection) in a typical journal? How are these steps referred to, in particular by editorial systems, and how long do they each typically take?  Note that this question is about the typical situation and hence not about:   Journals with an atypical workflow, e.g. those that allow for an instantaneous reviewer–author interaction. Exceptional steps or rare occurrences such as withdrawal or .   This is a canonical question on this topic as per . Due to its nature, it is rather broad and not exemplary for a regular question on this site. Please feel free to improve this question.
ng-options with simple array init Can one do the maths of physics without using $\sqrt{-1}$? The use of imaginary and complex values comes up in many physics and engineering derivations. I have a question about that: Is the use of complex numbers simply to make the process of derivation easier, or is it an essential ingredient, without which it would be impossible to derive some results?   I can identify two different settings where the answer may be different:   It doesn't look like it is mandatory for results in Newtonian mechanics, General Relativity and classical electrodynamics. Can we say the same thing about quantum mechanics either way for sure?   Could this be a difference in quantum mechanics over the classical picture? I am using Windows 10. I am trying to install 1 open source software.  In the readme.txt of that software, it says it requires Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable. I found that my Windows already has Visual Studio 2012 Redistributable installed.  After I install the open source software, it seems that it is working, even though I haven't installed Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable.  Do I need to install Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable if my Windows already has Visual Studio 2012 Redistributable? Cooking lore places a lot of importance on air humidity for doughs. When a dough fails, people quickly point that out as a possible factor, .     Is it really true? I don't doubt that the actual flour moisture content changes, but is it noticeable in the dough preparation, or is the difference too small to matter?  If it makes a difference, what can I do about it? "ERROR: Extra }, or forgotten \right." in align* enviroment Why do I get a "ERROR: Extra }, or forgotten \right." in the following align* environment?  \begin{align*}     \int\left[\left(\der{E_z}{y}-\der{E_y}{z}-\mu\der{\alpha}{t}\right)\alpha&amp;+\left(\der{E_x}{z}-\der{E_x}{x}-\mu\der{\beta}{t}\right)\beta\\     &amp;+\left(\der{E_y}{x}-\der{E_x}{y}-\mu\der{\gamma}{t}\right)\gamma\left.\vphantom{\left(\der{E_y}{x}}\right]d\omega=0.     \end{align*}   thanks Maximum area of isosceles triangle with perimeter 6 cm Does $\exp(2ir\pi)$ equal $1$? What's wrong? Since $e^{ix}=\cos x+i\sin x$, thus  $e^{2\pi i}=\cos2\pi+i\sin2\pi=1$     Now I take arbitrary real number $r$ then $e^{i2\pi r}=(e^{i2\pi})^r=1^r=1?$    But this cannot be true since $\cos2\pi r+i\sin2\pi r$  isn't necessarily $1$ for arbitrary $r$. Where did it go wrong? How to open a terminal from within Atom? I'm currently working with Atom, and sometimes I want to open a terminal on the directory my working file is. To do this, I usually have to open the folder in nautilus (right clicking the file in atom) and then I open a terminal on that directory from nautilus (right click).  I wonder if there is a way to open the terminal in the file directory without having to open nautilus first. Is $f(a)\!=\!0\!=\!f(b)\Rightarrow (x\!-\!a)(x\!-\!b)\mid f(x)\,$ true if $\,a=b?\ $ [Double Factor Theorem] Tips to extend battery life for laptops and notebooks To estimate the time for brute-force attack we need to compute keyspace size divided by hash rate, where the hash rate (hash/second) varies depending on the computer's capabilities.  The website  shows the hash rate for different computers.  Can you explain the following two confusing phenomena?   The hash rate decreases as the message size increases. Core i3 has a higher hash rate than Core i7 for SHAKE128. How to create a procedural chevron like texture/material? I'm playing around with nodes within cycles and I'd love to create a chevron like texture like the image below. Anyone an idea how to accomplish this? Does "staff" take a plural verb? Which one of these two statements is correct?     Our staff do ...      Our staff does ...   And is staffs ever correct? How to prove that $d \sin(x)/dx = \cos(x)$ without circular logic such as L'Hôpital's rule? Why was the universe in an extraordinarily low-entropy state right after the big bang? Let me start by saying that I have no scientific background whatsoever. I am very interested in science though and I'm currently enjoying Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. I'm at chapter 7 and so far I understand most of general ideas he has talked about. Or at least, I think I understand them :-)  There is however one part, at the end of chapter 6 that I can't grasp.  It is about entropy and the state of the universe a few minutes after the big bang.  On page 171 he says:     Our most refined theories of the origin of the universe -our most refined cosmological theories- tell us that by the time the universe was a couple of minutes old, it was filled with a nearly uniform hot gas composed of roughly 75 percent hydrogen, 23 percent helium, and small amounts of deuterium and lithium. The essential point is that this gas filling the universe had extraordinarily low entropy.   And on page 173-174:     We have now come to the place where the buck finally stops. The ultimate source of order, of low entropy, must be the big bang itself. In its earliest moments, rather than being filled with gargantuan containers of entropy such as black holes, as we would expect from probabilistic considerations, for some reason the nascent universe was filled with a hot,   uniform, gaseous mixture of hydrogen and helium. Although this configuration has high entropy when densities are so low that we can ignore gravity, the situation is otherwise when gravity can't be ignored; then, such a uniform gas has extremely low entropy. In comparison with black holes, the diffuse, nearly uniform gas was in an extraordinarily low-entropy state.   In the first part of the chapter Brian Greene explains the concept of entropy with tossing the 693 pages of War and Peace in the air.  At first, the pages are ordered. The specific order they are in make sense and are required to recognize the pages as a readable book called War and Peace. This is low entropy. It is very highly ordered and there is no chaos.  Now, when you throw the pages in the air, let them fall and then pick them up one by one and put them on top of each other, the chances you get the exact same order as the initial state are extremely small. The chance you get another order (no matter what order, just not the one from the beginning) is extremely big. When the pages are in the wrong order, there is high entropy and a high amount of chaos. The pages are not ordered and when they are not ordered you would not notice the difference between one unordered state and another one.  However, should you swap two pages in the ordered, low entropy version, you would notice the difference.  So I understand low entropy as a highly ordered state with low chaos in which a reordering of the elements would be noticeable.  I hope I'm still correct here :-)  Now, what I don't understand is how a uniform mixture of hydrogen and helium can by highly ordered? I'd say you wouldn't notice it if some particles traded places. I'd say that a uniform mixture is actually in a state of high entropy because you wouldn't notice it if you swapped some hydrogen atoms.  Brian Greene explains this would indeed be the case when gravity plays no important role, but that things change when gravity does play a role; and in the universe right after the big bang, gravity plays a big role.  Is that because a reordering of the particles would change the effects of gravity? Or is there something else that I'm missing here? Ubuntu installer can't find any disk on Dell XPS 13 9350 I am trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 / 15.10 on my Dell XPS 13 9350 (November 2015).  I created a bootable USB disk which boots fine but the installer and the file manager do not detect the hard drive.  What is the problem? How can I solve it? For integers $a$ and $b$, $ab=\text{lcm}(a,b)\cdot\text{hcf}(a,b)$ I was reading a text book and came across the following:  Important Results (This comes immediately after LCM:) If 2 [integers] $a$ and $b$ are given, and their $LCM$ and $HCF$ are $L$ and $H$ respectively, then $L \times H = a \times b$  Can some please help me understand why the above result is true? Thanks in advance. What is the official name for the "special" ASP.NET tags like this:  &lt;%# %&gt; &lt;%= %&gt; &lt;%@ %&gt; &lt;%$ %&gt;   I can't seem to figure out the conceptual or well known name for these, so I'm having trouble searching for more info.  As a bonus, can anyone give me a quick rundown of all of the possible "special tags" and what each one of them does (or point me to a resource)? In history we are taught that the Catholic Church was wrong, because the Sun does not move around the Earth, instead the Earth moves around the Sun.  But then in physics we learn that movement is relative, and it depends on the reference point that we choose.  Wouldn't the Sun (and the whole universe) move around the Earth if I place my reference point on Earth?  Was movement considered absolute in physics back then? Why has my database connection failed?