Many a researcher will surely have thought about testing their loved ones as to whether or not they really did read their work ¨C but one statistician from China appears to have gone a step further by leaving a romantic?message to his partner.

In his??¡°Performance analysis for minimally nonlinear irreversible refrigerators at finite cooling power¡±, published in?Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications?in April this year, Rui Long, a PhD student in engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, left a subtly placed marriage proposal to his partner Panpan Mao.

Alongside an acknowledgement of funding support received for the research, the paper states: ¡°Rui Long wants to thank, in particular, the patience, care and support from Panpan Mao over the passed years. Will you marry me?¡±

Highlighting the proposal on?, Jess Wade, a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial?College London, said: ¡°Romance is not dead, it¡¯s just behind a paywall¡±.

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Romance is not dead, it¡¯s just behind a paywall.?

¡ª Dr Jess Wade? (@jesswade)

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Mr Long is not the first to use academic publishing as a medium for popping the question.??by Caleb Brown and Donald Henderson in 2015 includes a similar line hidden among details of a newly discovered horned dinosaur.

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In ¡°A new horned dinosaur reveals convergent evolution in cranial ornamentation in certopsidae¡±, the acknowledgements read: ¡°CMB would specifically like to highlight the ongoing and unwavering support of Lorna O¡¯Brien. Lorna, will you marry me?¡± (She said yes).

Times Higher Education?has contacted Mr Long for comment, but it remains unclear whether he was successful in his proposal. ¡°Here¡¯s to Mao¡¯s response getting through peer review,¡± noted Dr Wade.

rachael.pells@timeshighereducation.com

Update, 15 January: Mr Long has been in touch to confirm it was a positive result. "Panpan said yes!"