The authoritative review journal Physics Reports recently published the long review paper "Nucleon pair approximation to the nuclear shell model"with Professor Zhao Yumin of SJTU Department of Physics and Astronomy as the first author and corresponding author. This paper gave an overall and systematic discussion and summary of the history of nucleon pair approximation to the nuclear shell model, different versions of theoretical frameworks, reliability of pair approximation, practical application, especially the new development of pair approximation theory in the past 30 years. Physics Reports (the influence factor of 2014 is 22.910) have published 23 review papers with Chinese scientific institutions as the first unit since its foundation in 1971, and this paper is also the second paper that Professor Zhao Yumin published in response to invitation.