Paper publication
Rodolfo MM
Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
by the scientific society.
Thank you for your help.
Rodolfo.
Uncle Al
All journals published in English require accurate English. Have your
text reviewed by a fluent editor.
0) You have something self-consistent and technically valid to say.
1) You visit the Web page of the appropriate journal.
2) You read the instructions for submission.
3) You construct your document by the local rules.
4) You submit by the local rules.
5) Your submission enters the peer review process.
6) The Referees(s) say "no."
After (6), we see how convincing a scientist you are. If you cannot
meet Referees' objections with sufficient technical counterpoint, you
do not deserve to be published. Manners dictate submitting your paper
for consideration to only one journal at a time.
Excellent MS Word to LaTeX2e converter:
http://www.word2tex.com/
After installation (remarkably fine here, too), "Save As" does the
trick.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
Joseph.D.Warner
First determine which journals are most appropiate to your research.
Then request from the journal editor the format and layout of papers for
that journal. Then write the paper in that format and layout.
Usually, you write the article excluding pictures and tables. The
pictures are tables are given to the journal on separate pieces of
paper. Remember in writing the article the following are usually needed;
though more sections can be included.
Title with authors names, and affliations
Abstract
Introduction/background
Experimental setup/procedure/approach
The experimental data collected/the development of the
theory/comparision of data to other works
Implication of the data or theory
Summary of the findings and sometime the work that still need to be done.
w...@uiuc.edu
Citing Rodolfo MM <mi...@abacho.ch> from his previous post:
# Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
# on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
# by the scientific society.
To add on to what Uncle Al has written, the peer review process also
include some politics. Even if you are correct and consistent with your
proposed theories (and provided they are new), your manuscript may still
be rejected, especially if it is disproving some well known theorems. In
many cases, the reviewers look at who you are, who your co-authors are and
which organization you are from.
On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
researchers working from home?
W.C.
--
Murray Arnow
Uncle Al <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote:
>
>Rodolfo MM wrote:
>>
>> Hi everybody.
>>
>> Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
>> on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
>> by the scientific society.
>> Thank you for your help.
>
>All journals published in English require accurate English. Have your
>text reviewed by a fluent editor.
>
> 0) You have something self-consistent and technically valid to say.
> 1) You visit the Web page of the appropriate journal.
> 2) You read the instructions for submission.
> 3) You construct your document by the local rules.
> 4) You submit by the local rules.
> 5) Your submission enters the peer review process.
> 6) The Referees(s) say "no."
>
>After (6), we see how convincing a scientist you are. If you cannot
>meet Referees' objections with sufficient technical counterpoint, you
>do not deserve to be published. Manners dictate submitting your paper
>for consideration to only one journal at a time.
>
Wait a minute. Since when does a referee's rejection mean the paper
isn't worth publishing? I think we've all had differences with referees
and had to deal with some arbitrariness. It is possible to be rejected
by referees from one journal and then have that paper accepted by
another refereed journal without objection.
[Moderator's note: I don't believe this is actually in conflict with
what Uncle Al was saying. Referees hardly ever, and probably
shouldn't, approve papers without any objections. -- KS]
Rodolfo, Uncle Al is absolutely correct in advising you to submit an MS
to one journal at a time. Multiple submissions will end up with you
becoming banned by the journals; it's not a question so much of manners
but more a legal question of who owns the copyright.
Phil
In article <a40281d6.02101...@posting.google.com>, Rodolfo MM
<mi...@abacho.ch> writes
>Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
>on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
>by the scientific society.
Write up your work in the form of a paper and place it on a website
with your e-mail address.
It will become available to the scientific community via google and if
anyone finds it interesting they will contact you.
Publishing in a refereed journal is more difficult. If you do not have
an affiliation to a university your work will almost certainly be
rejected by any journal. However, if your work is really of
interest people will want to cite it and it is possible that
the editor of a journal will invite you to submit the paper for
publication. It then has a much better chance of acceptance.
Murray Arnow
>
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
>has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
>researchers working from home?
>
After A. Einstein?
This may be OT, but the last major publication without affiliation I saw
was Harris Hancock's "Lectures on the Theory of Elliptic Functions."
Steve Carlip
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose
> author has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are
> independent researchers working from home?
Sure. In general relativity, the two names that come to mind
immediately are Julian Barbour and Frederick Ernst. Then
there's John Dell, who coauthored four published papers
(two of them with over 100 citations) that list his affiliation
``Jefferson High School, Alexandria,'' where he's a teacher,
I believe.
Steve Carlip
Martin Hardcastle
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
>has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
>researchers working from home?
Yes. Fred Hoyle's later papers in ApJ, for example, give his home
address as his only affiliation.
Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle Department of Physics, University of Bristol
Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire
Günther Stößl
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002 21:46:07 +0000 (UTC), w...@uiuc.edu wrote:
>
>Citing Rodolfo MM <mi...@abacho.ch> from his previous post:
># Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
># on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
># by the scientific society.
>
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
>has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
>researchers working from home?
>
>W.C.
Try to get someone from the field involved and get him interested to
sign as coauthor. It should be easier to promote your ideas on a
personal level instead of getting the attention of an anonymous board.
I can hear the reviewers thinking ;-)
Nobody heard from him
Nobody works with him
Must be a crackpot
Thomas Larsson
w...@uiuc.edu wrote in message news:<nJ0s9.4113$US2....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
>
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
> has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
> researchers working from home?
>
\bibitem{Lar97} Larsson, T.A.,
{\it Lowest-energy representations of non-centrally extended
diffeomorphism algebras},
Commun. Math. Phys. {\bf 201}, 461--470 (1999).
\bibitem{Lar98} Larsson, T.A.:
{\it Extended diffeomorphism algebras and trajectories in jet space}.
Commun. Math. Phys. {\bf 214}, 469--491 (2000)
;-)
Ralph E. Frost
<w...@uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:nJ0s9.4113$US2....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu...
>
....
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
> has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
> researchers working from home?
In the post-dawn age of the Internet, WHAT, precisely, do you mean by a
"published" paper?
I sort of understand that you mean the standard notion of a published paper
being one that has gone through the non-Internet peer-review process,
printed on paper made from perfectly good photsynthetic organisms and carted
around the world in great tonnages, etc, etc. However, I happen to think
that that entire process soon will, if it hasn't already happened, be
eclipsed by the ever-onward march of the new way to write.
And, I don't mean that in a negative way but just as a matter of fact.
Maybe not today, but one can see how some smart girl in the coming decades
will cream her peers by writing extraordinary scientific pieces directly
into the new medium. Will that not be "peer-reviewed", too?
As for anyone every doing this sort of thing, Ben Franklin comes to mind.
Perhaps Madame Curie discovering radium. Pasteur.
The fact that home schoolers have not yet made a big splash in this area
yet sort of raises the likelihood that it should happen real soon now.
imo.
If Planck hadn't taken a liking to Einstein, his papers may have bounced
off the wall for a long while. He was pretty independent at the start of
things.
...Yet, all these folks I mention had good educations and connections in the
sciences. Was it Newton that took a year off to work at home because of
the plague? (Or was that Heisenberg?).
As for "no affiliation with any organization", gee, it that even
possible? Even the storngly dissociated folks who write there better papers
on one side to the other of a period of mental or emotional instability,
those folks are affiliated with SOME organization.
A more telling question might be, of the people who induce a big yank in
the flow of science, how many or hardline mainstreamers? Er, or better
yet, a peer-reviewer?
--
Best regards,
Ralph Frost
Frost Low Energy Physics
http://learn.chem.vt.edu/chemistry/general/bonding/carbon.html Chime the
carbon diamond lattice yourself.
"When God is about to do something great, he starts with a difficulty. When
he is about to do something truly magnificent, he starts with an
impossibility." --Armin Gesswein--
"...Love one another..." John 15:12
Robert Low
Phil <philip...@weburbia.com> wrote:
>Publishing in a refereed journal is more difficult. If you do not have
>an affiliation to a university your work will almost certainly be
>rejected by any journal.
Not if it's any good, it won't. Speaking as somebody
who has been known to referee for journals I can state
pretty clearly that one thing I'm not particularly
concerned with is the author's address.
Charles Francis
> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
>has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
>researchers working from home?
Come to that has anyone read a paper without a list of references? Would
Einstein even get a referees report if he submitted today, or would he
simply get a rude letter from the editor?
Regards
--
Charles Francis
David Rutherford
Thomas, how did you get your papers at
http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements? Your
email address Thomas....@hdd.se seems to suggest that you work for
HDD High Density Drives, whose website is at http://www.hdd.se. If so,
does this satisfy LANL's "Institutional Affiliation" requirement?
--
Dave Rutherford
"New Transformation Equations and the Electric Field Four-vector"
http://www.softcom.net/users/der555/newtransform.pdf
Applications:
"4/3 Problem Resolution"
http://www.softcom.net/users/der555/elecmass.pdf
"Action-reaction Paradox Resolution"
http://www.softcom.net/users/der555/actreact.pdf
"Energy Density Correction"
http://www.softcom.net/users/der555/enerdens.pdf
Kevin A. Scaldeferri
The implication being that one or more of Einstein's papers was
submitted without any references?
That seems remarkable, even given the groundbreaking nature of his
work. Was standard practice different in that time, or was he just
that audacious / unaware?
--
======================================================================
Kevin Scaldeferri Calif. Institute of Technology
The INTJ's Prayer:
Lord keep me open to others' ideas, WRONG though they may be.
Gordon D. Pusch
Julian Barbour has published quite a few papers without affiliation.
The address he lists on his papers is simply ``College Farm, South
Newington, Banbury, Oxon,'' and my understanding is that it is indeed
his home address.
-- Gordon D. Pusch
perl -e '$_ = "gdpusch\@NO.xnet.SPAM.com\n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'
Phil
<mtx...@alfgar.coventry.ac.uk> writes
>Not if it's any good, it won't. Speaking as somebody
>who has been known to referee for journals I can state
>pretty clearly that one thing I'm not particularly
>concerned with is the author's address.
It is hard to believe that referees are not influenced by
who the authors are or where they are from, even of their
intentions are good. If articles were passed to
referees anonymously I would have more faith.
Ralph E. Frost
Phil <philip...@weburbia.com> wrote in message
news:ap1fcm$uvp$1...@lfa222122.richmond.edu...
Another possibility is to submit to LANL's preprint archive. I think you
need an account or email address at a university -- not just some dot com
address --- and a well-written paper. .
J. J. Lodder
During much of his life Einstein was his own editor and referee,
since he published in the annals of his own academy of science.
He probably asked his collegues (Planck) to read his galley proofs.
It is on record that the referee system was completely unknown to him,
untill his arrival in the USA. (and submitting something to Phys Rev.)
It is also on record that he strongly disapproved of the system,
and never submitted a paper to a refereed journal again,
after discovering that such an abomination existed.
Best,
Jan
PS Einstein's main objection was that the system is inherently unfair,
since it gives some collegues a preview of (to be) published work
(and hence an opportunity to do follow-up work)
before the others have had an opportunity to see it.
Robert Low
Phil <philip...@weburbia.com> wrote:
>In article <ap1kud$9ou$1...@sunbeam.coventry.ac.uk>, Robert Low
><mtx...@alfgar.coventry.ac.uk> writes
>>Not if it's any good, it won't. Speaking as somebody
>>who has been known to referee for journals I can state
>>pretty clearly that one thing I'm not particularly
>>concerned with is the author's address.
>
>It is hard to believe that referees are not influenced by
>who the authors are or where they are from, even of their
>intentions are good.
Personal relationship is more of a problem than address.
You try not to be influenced, but it is an issue.
> If articles were passed to
>referees anonymously I would have more faith.
Agreed. I've always thought that the referee should
be unaware of the author's identity (to the extent that
that is possible). I don't know why it isn't done that
way as a matter of course, but it isn't.
--
Rob. http://www.mis.coventry.ac.uk/~mtx014/
Neil
> Rodolfo MM wrote:
> >
> > Hi everybody.
> >
> > Could anyone inform how can I do for publicating, if i'd had, papers
> > on physics theories of my own? and if these papers could be considered
> > by the scientific society.
> > Thank you for your help.
>
> All journals published in English require accurate English. Have your
> text reviewed by a fluent editor.
>
> 0) You have something self-consistent and technically valid to say.
> 1) You visit the Web page of the appropriate journal.
> 2) You read the instructions for submission.
> 3) You construct your document by the local rules.
> 4) You submit by the local rules.
> 5) Your submission enters the peer review process.
> 6) The Referees(s) say "no."
>
> After (6), we see how convincing a scientist you are. If you cannot
> meet Referees' objections with sufficient technical counterpoint, you
> do not deserve to be published. Manners dictate submitting your paper
> for consideration to only one journal at a time.
>
is that home address sticking out like a sore thumb. You may
romantically have the faith in human goodness and reasonableness
(would you be so liberal, UA?) that reviewers will simply overlook
that feature and dispassionately read the submission with the same
attitude that they would a submission from UCLA, Oxford, etc., but I
doubt that. Perhaps the trick is to send in the paper with "pending"
at the address space, and then spring it on them later after they've
already accepted it, if they do.
Neil Bates
David Rutherford
If LANL is a publicly funded institution, the opportunity to submit
articles to its archives should be available to the _entire_ public, not
just those with the 'proper' (institutional) email address or 'proper'
credentials. We have laws against many kinds on discrimination and, in
my opinion, this is a form of discrimination. There are self-taught
people, with no formal degrees or institutional affiliation, who are
perfectly capable of making important contributions to science and
writing 'well-written' papers. However, they are denied access to the
LANL archives for no other reason than their lack of 'credentials' or
'affiliations'.
An interesting analogy is in the field of music. Almost every important
new musical work is, and has always been, created by 'uncredentialed'
individuals. Try to imagine a world where only those with Ph.D.'s in
musicology or music theory were allowed to create and/or publish new
music? Pretty sad, huh? Well that's the situation in physics, today.
Thomas Larsson
>
> Thomas, how did you get your papers at
> http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
> institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements? Your
> email address Thomas....@hdd.se seems to suggest that you work for
> HDD High Density Drives, whose website is at http://www.hdd.se. If so,
> does this satisfy LANL's "Institutional Affiliation" requirement?
>
Actually, I wasn't aware of this requirement until earlier this year,
when I needed to include figures for the first time. Before that, I used
the old-fashioned email interface, which I learned back in 1992 (when I
still had an academic affiliation). If it aint broke, why fix it?
Evidently, HDD is my present affiliation, but although my work here is
physics-related, it is not really research level.
Springer and other publishers probably also require a postal address and a
permanent email address (not hotmail etc), but I have never felt that I was
treated unfairly just because I used my home address for correspondence.
Jonathan Thornburg
Phil <philip...@weburbia.com> wrote:
>It is hard to believe that referees are not influenced by
>who the authors are or where they are from, even of their
>intentions are good. If articles were passed to
>referees anonymously I would have more faith.
Physical Review D (a very major journal in gravitation and astrophysics)
offers this option at the author's request. I believe that many other
physics journals also offer it, but have not verified this.
--
-- Jonathan Thornburg <jth...@aei.mpg.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Kevin A. Scaldeferri
David Rutherford <druth...@softcom.net> wrote:
>
>
>Thomas, how did you get your papers at
>http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
>institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements?
There is a process, poorly documented as I recall, whereby an author
without affiliation may be "sponsored" by someone who does have one.
Kevin A. Scaldeferri
This is a commonly floated idea, but it doesn't really work in
practice. The current single blind process doesn't even work half the
time. (How do you know who your referee is? Well, when they respond
that you have neglected to cite the seminal work of ... :-) )
The fact is that there generally aren't that many people qualified to
referee a particular paper and people within a particular niche are
generally somewhat aware of what everyone else is working on. Factor
in writing style, pattern matching in the text of introductions,
papers cited (and phrases like "in a previous paper [4] we showed"),
etc. and it's often not tough to figure out whose paper you are
reading. If, of course, you didn't already know based on reading it
on the preprint archive.
Robert Low
Kevin A. Scaldeferri <ke...@blinky.its.caltech.edu> wrote:
>The implication being that one or more of Einstein's papers was
>submitted without any references?
Published, even.
>That seems remarkable, even given the groundbreaking nature of his
>work. Was standard practice different in that time, or was he just
>that audacious / unaware?
I think that standard practice now is to be more completist,
but Einstein was at the cutting edge of not bothering with
references even for his time :-)
--
Rob. http://www.mis.coventry.ac.uk/~mtx014/
eb...@lfa221051.richmond.edu
>It is hard to believe that referees are not influenced by
>who the authors are or where they are from, even of their
>intentions are good. If articles were passed to
>referees anonymously I would have more faith.
I agree that in principle doubly-anonymous refereeing (i.e.,
concealing the identities of the authors as well as the referee) would
be a fairer system. In practice, for most papers, it'd still be
pretty easy to tell who the authors are: just make a histogram of the
people cited in the references, and look for the peaks! In the case
we're considering right now, of an "outsider" submitting a paper, that
wouldn't be true, of course.
In fact, though, I think that a good paper by an outsider does stand a
very good chance of getting a fair review at a typical physics
journal. If a referee gets sent a paper by an unknown person with no
institutional affiliation, his initial reaction is likely to be
skeptical, but he's still going to have to read the paper pretty
carefully in order to write a report, and if the paper's any good, the
referee should be able to realize that.
I actually think that the unknown outsider faces much more of an
uphill battle in the various informal ways of getting her work noticed
than in the formal refereeing process. I might skip an article I see
on the Los Alamos archive if it's by an unknown person with no
official affiliation, but if I were sent the paper to referee, I'd
give it a fair shake.
In my opinion, the refereeing process does often fail, but the main
failure mode is actually the opposite of what people here are worrying
about: I don't think that good papers by obscure people get rejected
unfairly nearly as often as bad papers by well-known people get
accepted unfairly!
To answer the obvious followup question, no, I won't cite specific
examples. I'm not prepared to go public with anything like that! Ask
me when I'm ready to retire.
-Ted
--
[My posts come from a machine that doesn't accept incoming mail. To
e-mail me, use an address of the form user...@domain.edu, as opposed
to user...@machinename.domain.edu.]
David Rutherford
David Rutherford wrote:
>
> Thomas Larsson wrote:
> >
> > w...@uiuc.edu wrote in message news:<nJ0s9.4113$US2....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
> > >
> > > On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose author
> > > has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are independent
> > > researchers working from home?
> > >
> >
> > \bibitem{Lar97} Larsson, T.A.,
> > {\it Lowest-energy representations of non-centrally extended
> > diffeomorphism algebras},
> > Commun. Math. Phys. {\bf 201}, 461--470 (1999).
> >
> > \bibitem{Lar98} Larsson, T.A.:
> > {\it Extended diffeomorphism algebras and trajectories in jet space}.
> > Commun. Math. Phys. {\bf 214}, 469--491 (2000)
> >
> > ;-)
>
> Thomas, how did you get your papers at
> http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw
Sorry, I copied this address from the location line on my browser after
a LANL search, but it doesn't work. Just do an author search on LANL for
"Larsson, Thomas" and you'll see the papers I referred to.
Robert Low
Gordon D. Pusch <gdp...@NO.xnet.SPAM.com> wrote:
>Julian Barbour has published quite a few papers without affiliation.
>The address he lists on his papers is simply ``College Farm, South
>Newington, Banbury, Oxon,'' and my understanding is that it is indeed
>his home address.
That's right. He decided that the standard academic career
took too much time away from research, so he took the route
of supporting himself by doing technical translations rather
than having a university job.
Godelureau
On Tue, 22 Oct 2002 21:05:51 +0000 (UTC), nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J.
J. Lodder) wrote:
<snip>
>
>PS Einstein's main objection was that the system is inherently unfair,
>since it gives some collegues a preview of (to be) published work
>(and hence an opportunity to do follow-up work)
>before the others have had an opportunity to see it.
Well, that problem disappeared with the LANL arxiv. I wonder if this
was his real objection and if he would now agree to enter the magical
world of refereed publishing.
Uncle Al
Uncle Al believes in content. This is a reactionary and hateful
position to adopt, and it is politically untenable. Consider the
following rejection:
"I assume that the author is suggesting that a material with some
property which might couple to a parity-violating interaction (or
field of opposite parity) should be used to test the weak equivalence
principle. But, the paper does not clearly show the property of
matter which he hopes such an interaction will couple to."
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.pdf
Do YOU have any problem seeing "what property of matter" I hope such
an interaction will couple to? (Of course, it bore the author's
personal address.) My proposal is self-consistent and conflicts with
no known observation. It is intensely novel. It is quantitative.
The rejection is astoundingly limp-wristed.
If any academician wishes to co-propose an extremal handedness test of
the Equivalence Principle, Uncle Al is amenable. We've calculated to
a lattice of 50,000 atoms. If there were access to a little academic
programming and a workstation, we could do some 250,000 atoms within
reasonable CPU time, possibly 10^6 atoms. French mathematician
Petitjean outdid himself with a recent extension of theory allowing
rapid calculation.
Second sentence of the Abstract: "A natural test of spacetime geometry
is test mass geometry." Second and third sentences of the Summary:
"Geometric parity arising from a discrete external symmetry is an
EP-untested property. Parity pair tellurium single crystals are >500
times as divergent versus rest mass as composition test masses." I
obviously cannot understandably state my case.
400+ years of Equivalence Principle testing via test mass composition
have come up a perfect null. Starting with mathematical symmetries
and going through Noether's theorem, all known test mass conserved
properties save three has been tested: Time reversal, matter vs.
antimatter, and geometric parity.
The first two are not easily accessible. The third one, my proposal,
could be done at will in existing apparatus with no excuses. After
400 years of failure, shouldn't somebody look in a last remaining
unexamined place? At worst the experiment nulls. Name a composition
experiment with a better anticipated outcome.
If there is a serious flaw in my reasoning or calculations - it is
assuredly a wowser not a subtlety - point it out and I go home. To
say my argument is obtusely presented is prima facie [indelicate word
deleted] unsupportable. Could it be my return address?
Anybody who wishes to play with test mass parity calculation in large
lattice volumes may contact me at the e-mail address in the paper, URL
above. If the parity Eotvos experiment has non-null output nothing in
physics changes other than all of physics being demoted to a
heuristic. The risk/gain ratio doesn't not seem excessive to me.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)
J. J. Lodder
Kevin A. Scaldeferri <ke...@blinky.its.caltech.edu> wrote:
> In article <3DB45B47...@softcom.net>,
> David Rutherford <druth...@softcom.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Thomas, how did you get your papers at
> >http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
> >institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements?
>
> There is a process, poorly documented as I recall, whereby an author
> without affiliation may be "sponsored" by someone who does have one.
That is a time-honoured practice,
which goes back to long before refereeing was invented.
You'll see papers in annals of academic societies with something like:
Author XXX, submitted by YYY, where YYY is somebody in good standing,
usually a member.
It also happened that somebody (yet) unknown sent his manuscript
to somebody well known, with a request to look at it,
and to forward it for publication if thought worthwhile.
The most famous example of this practice may be Bose,
a (then) completely unknown Indian,
who sent a paper on counting states to a well-known Prof Einstein,
with results we are familiar with.
Scientists were gentlemen in those days,
and the idea that the great man
might steal some nobody's bright idea
was just unthinkable,
Jan
David Rutherford
"Kevin A. Scaldeferri" wrote:
>
> In article <3DB45B47...@softcom.net>,
> David Rutherford <druth...@softcom.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Thomas, how did you get your papers at
> >http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
> >institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements?
>
> There is a process, poorly documented as I recall, whereby an author
> without affiliation may be "sponsored" by someone who does have one.
Those who have an institutional affiliation are very reluctant to
sponsor _anyone_, especially someone outside the mainstream of physics.
They have nothing to gain and everything to lose. LANL should drop all
discriminatory submission requirements so that _everyone_ can have the
same opportunity as physicists to archive their work. I've been forced
to spend over a thousand dollars to register my works with the Copyright
Office because that's the only way I have available to me (other than
publishing a book) to establish a permanent record of it. Physicists
have the opportunity to do it free on the LANL archives. Have you read
some of the papers on the LANL archives written by authors who _do_ have
an 'institutional affiliation' or 'credentials'. Obviously, these
requirements don't keep out the crackpots.
Danny Ross Lunsford
"J. J. Lodder" <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote
> The most famous example of this practice may be Bose,
> a (then) completely unknown Indian,
> who sent a paper on counting states to a well-known Prof Einstein,
> with results we are familiar with.
Also Theodor Kaluza, who IIRC was a privatdozent (TA) at Koenigsberg.
Einstein not only sponsored the famous paper, but helped Kaluza obtain a
full university position.
-drl
Ralph Hartley
> Agreed. I've always thought that the referee should
> be unaware of the author's identity (to the extent that
> that is possible). I don't know why it isn't done that
> way as a matter of course, but it isn't.
I recently had a paper in a conference that did that.
It was noted that it was often easy to guess the author,
but also that such guesses were not always correct.
Author X claimed to have refuted a conclusion of one of
his own earlier papers. The reviewer complained that he
was being "too hard on X".
Ralph Hartley
Arkadiusz Jadczyk
Notice however the interesting remark at the end (something like "Note
added in Proof") of Einstein's 1927 paper "Zur Kaluzas Theorie des
Zusammenhanges von Gravitation und Elektrizitaet":
Sitzungberichte der Pruss. Akad. Wiss VI, (17 Februar 1927)
(I am giving rough translation from German):
"Mr H. Mandel brought to my attention the fact that the above results
are not new. All the content can be found in a paper by O. Klein ....."
Nevertheless Einstein's paper has been accepted and published.
It adds to the actual thread on publishing papers ....
ark
--
Arkadiusz Jadczyk
http://www.cassiopaea.org/quantum_future/homepage.htm
--
Neil Bates
>It is hard to believe that referees are not influenced by
>who the authors are or where they are from, even of their
>intentions are good. If articles were passed to
>referees anonymously I would have more faith.
Isn't it true that if you can get into the American Physical Society,
or the National Academy of Sciences (which itself presents some
problems to the self-taught sub-Ph.D. type), then you have certain
privileges about papers getting looked at and presenting papers and
talks at conferences? Furthermore, it would be helpful to hear of
which journals or respected web sites are typically more hospitable to
lesser-known or non-institutional authors. I have seen some home
addresses in American Journal of Physics, but I have wrangled horribly
with their referees - I can't be sure if that is because of any bias
against my own typical use of home address. My submissions elicit
serious reviews, but they often pick at length at something I think
should be appreciated. I won't insist that I am being put upon for any
particular reason, just making an observation. Why not just leave the
address out, say "pending" - then spring it on them later?
Neil Bates
Murray Arnow
>
>Isn't it true that if you can get into the American Physical Society,
>or the National Academy of Sciences (which itself presents some
>problems to the self-taught sub-Ph.D. type), then you have certain
>privileges about papers getting looked at and presenting papers and
>talks at conferences? Furthermore, it would be helpful to hear of
>which journals or respected web sites are typically more hospitable to
>lesser-known or non-institutional authors. I have seen some home
>addresses in American Journal of Physics, but I have wrangled horribly
>with their referees - I can't be sure if that is because of any bias
>against my own typical use of home address. My submissions elicit
>serious reviews, but they often pick at length at something I think
>should be appreciated. I won't insist that I am being put upon for any
>particular reason, just making an observation. Why not just leave the
>address out, say "pending" - then spring it on them later?
Your "wrangling" with referees is probably ill advised. Many years ago
my thesis advisor gave me very useful advice. Do not argue with a
referee. This sometime means including material and work which one
thinks is totally useless, but it's a small price to pay. The referee
saw some merit in the paper; so it pays to stroke him as long as you
don't eviscerate what you've done. When the referee takes a contrary
view which makes you wonder if he has any idea about which you've
written, and he rejects your submission with extreme prejudice, rather
than get into a "shouting match" with the editor as a go-between, it is
time to submit your paper to another journal.
I once submitted a paper to the Am Journ of Phys. I thought it had the
best audience for the subject. The referee's comments were so outrageous
I thought it was hopeless to pursue publication. I then submitted the
same paper, only slightly modified, to the Journ of Math Physics were it
was accepted without comment. Flexibility is the key to getting
published.
Steve Carlip
> Notice however the interesting remark at the end (something like "Note
> added in Proof") of Einstein's 1927 paper "Zur Kaluzas Theorie des
> Zusammenhanges von Gravitation und Elektrizitaet":
> Sitzungberichte der Pruss. Akad. Wiss VI, (17 Februar 1927)
> (I am giving rough translation from German):
> "Mr H. Mandel brought to my attention the fact that the above results
> are not new. All the content can be found in a paper by O. Klein ....."
> Nevertheless Einstein's paper has been accepted and published.
> It adds to the actual thread on publishing papers ....
The modern version is, ``After this work was completed, we learned
that X has independently found a similar result.'' There are plenty of
published papers with a note like that at the end.
Steve Carlip
Ralph E. Frost
Kevin A. Scaldeferri <ke...@blinky.its.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:ap6fmf$mrn$1...@blinky.its.caltech.edu...
> In article <3DB45B47...@softcom.net>,
> David Rutherford <druth...@softcom.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Thomas, how did you get your papers at
> >http://eprints.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/w3vdkgw posted on LANL with no
> >institutional affiliation, since this is one of their requirements?
>
> There is a process, poorly documented as I recall, whereby an author
> without affiliation may be "sponsored" by someone who does have one.
That seems like that might be like co-signing a bank note -- a bad idea. Or
are you referring to the guy with the right email address being a co-author?
The LANL system, though, does 'work' pretty much as intended for mainstream
work, doesn't it? I mean, it works for accredited mainstream writers and
readers where the public funding has been designated to go, and not to
admit the hordes of lowly pond scum who most likely are way behind in
paying their taxes, anyway. I mean, limits are good. And the LANL
participants DO get to browse through the "unpublished fringe material" at
their leisure and be influenced and/or incorporate or adapt the emerging
stuff as best they are able. So, the entire undulating wavefunction sort
of works: the right ideas bubble to the surface if they are sufficiently
correct and properly (and persistently) written.
No?
After all, there is also a long tradition of people who do run a different
game where the aim is to have major influence and make substantial
contributions in science but who work at remaining out of the limelight,
purposely avoiding "publication", planting seeds while doing the much more
difficult and challenging task (certainly in a quantum mechanical or quantum
gravitational environment) of avoiding detection completely or for several
decades or more.
People who opt for the procedural choice leading to proper accreditation
are barred from the more challenging game, sometimes for life.
Surprisingly enough, people who opt for the other path that diverges in the
wood have the opportunity for a deeper sort of academic freedom than the
established tenure process can deliver.
And, since the world is indeed quantum mechanical and/or quantum
gravitational, what this discussion about "publication" is really more
about is acknowledgement -- detection -- association. IF the idea or
notion one helps develop or express IS the Big Idea, then the idea will
move forward and persist for as long as it must -- naturally, but ONLY
of the writer participates.
That is, the more pressing question than "how to get published", though,
IMO, is "Do you simply LOVE the idea or notion or insight or expression --
the gift and the Giver -- you've been given to express?" ... as is evident
in these parts in, say, jb's abounding love and joy in his on-going ode to
mathematical physics, or, say, in Sweeter's love affair with quaternion....
or all the many others you see here and everywhere daily....
If the answer is a resounding "YES!", then all one really needs to do is
express one's self as best he or she can and discover later where the
efforts lead. A person may never publish a paper. No one may ever
understand the work. One may become a cynical jerk when faced with
continual (and most likely completely deserved) rejection.
Or not. At some point all barriers may be overcome.
The fact is, original thoughts lead the way, even in math and science.
Original thoughts come from independent thinkers.
Publishing is one thing. Having, seeking or sharing a thought worthy of
speech is quite another.
They're complementary paths, yet neither happens without doing the work and
putting forth the effort.
Some people who are starting out might be better off to focus in on and work
at their passion and let publishing, should that ever become appropriate,
take care of itself.
--
Ralph Frost
Looking for a desktop model to help you ponder this topic?
http://flep.refrost.com -- now with secure online ordering
Use more robust symbols
Seek a thought worthy of speech.
David Rutherford
Robert Low wrote:
> Phil <philip...@weburbia.com> wrote:
> >Publishing in a refereed journal is more difficult. If you do not have
> >an affiliation to a university your work will almost certainly be
> >rejected by any journal.
>
> Not if it's any good, it won't. Speaking as somebody
> who has been known to referee for journals I can state
> pretty clearly that one thing I'm not particularly
> concerned with is the author's address.
There are papers (including mine) that are rejected by the editors
before they even reach the referees. Are the editors qualified to judge
whether a paper is "any good"? If it hadn't been for Einstein, de
Broglie's Ph.D. thesis containing his theory of the wave nature of
matter would, probably, have been judged "no good". If it hadn't been
for Planck, Special Relativity would, probably, have been judged "no
good". Unfortunately for physics, there are no more Plancks or
Einsteins.
Robert Low
David Rutherford <druth...@softcom.net> wrote:
>There are papers (including mine) that are rejected by the editors
>before they even reach the referees. Are the editors qualified to judge
>whether a paper is "any good"? If it hadn't been for Einstein, de
They will sometimes refrain even from sending to a referee
a paper which, for example, claims that special relativity
is internally inconsistent because of the clock 'paradox'.
Likewise, papers which purport to have a ruler-and-compasses
procedure for trisecting the angle. Experimental claims
that SR is wrong may well be published (and are generally
immediately followed by rebuttals).
They may also simply return any papers which they do not
feel to contain material relevant to the journal.
More than that, I don't know.
Charles Francis
<ke...@blinky.its.caltech.edu> writes
>In article <uQBmzvFB...@clef.demon.co.uk>,
>Charles Francis <cha...@clef.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>In article <nJ0s9.4113$US2....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, w...@uiuc.edu
>>writes:
>>> On that note, has anyone ever read a published paper whose
>>>author has no affiliation to any organization, i.e. they are
>>>independent researchers working from home?
>>Come to that has anyone read a paper without a list of references? Would
>>Einstein even get a referees report if he submitted today, or would he
>>simply get a rude letter from the editor?
>The implication being that one or more of Einstein's papers was
>submitted without any references?
>
>That seems remarkable, even given the groundbreaking nature of his
>work. Was standard practice different in that time, or was he just
>that audacious / unaware?
He was apparently that audacious/unaware - he had never heard of the
MMX, and his initial work on teleparallelism was done in blissful
ignorance of earlier work by Cartan et al, until such point as Cartan
told him about it after the publication of his first paper on the
subject. For his second paper on teleparallelism he got Cartan to
write a paper summarising the state of the topic, and left all
references to Cartan, breathing a huge sigh of relief as he did so.
Einstein was of that rare school, coming down from the Greeks, and of
which I would like to count myself a member, which believes that if we
think clearly enough about nature and about observation then we can
abstract laws of physics from simple and straightforward principles
and analyse them using only the power of our own reason. When one
writes a paper strictly from this perspective it is not natural to
include references because the assumptions (e.g. Einstein's
assumptions about rulers & clocks) are straightforward empirical
statements which anyone should be able to understand and are not
dependent on documented research, and the rest is pure logic.
Regards
--
Charles Francis