Sir

In the entertaining Editorial on journals' faux pas (“Coping with peer rejection”, Nature 425, 645; 2003) the reader is referred to an undoubted success, “perhaps the most celebrated editorial judgements of all” —the publication in Annalen der Physik of five extraordinary papers, all written by Einstein in 1905.

However, when reconciling these events with the current peer-review system, it is worth noting that none of Einstein's papers were sent to reviewers. The decision to publish was made exclusively by either the editor in chief, Max Planck, or the co-editor, Wilhelm Wien — both 'peers' beyond doubt who were later to win the Nobel prize in physics. The importance of these editorial judgements is underlined by the decision of UNESCO to declare 2005 the World Year of Physics to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's 'miraculous' year.

This year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publication of the paper by Watson and Crick describing the structure of DNA (Nature 171, 737–738; 1953). Likewise — according to John Maddox, a former editor of Nature, quoted in the New York Times (25 February 2003) — this manuscript was never sent out to reviewers. The editors accepted the paper upon receipt of a “Publish” covering letter from Nobel laureate Sir Lawrence Bragg.

Thus, to complete the final moral for rejected authors of presumed Nobel-winning work — persist, and get in contact with a noble genius.