Cutting Edge discussions and research

[jal]

"Cutting Edge" discussions and research

Which forum should "Cutting Edge" discussions and research be in?

What if the subject has not been presented in a "peer reviewed" journal?
Even nobel winner have arxiv.org articles with their speculations that are not "peer reviewed."

I've received warnings, had threads deleted, ignored, etc. so where do I make my posts?

Should all of "cutting edge" discussion be in Beyond the Standard Model?
(ie. hadron mass spectrum)

 

[humanino]

Even nobel winner have arxiv.org articles with their speculations that are not "peer reviewed."

Which such subject has been discussed here ?

Should all of "cutting edge" discussion be in Beyond the Standard Model?
(ie. hadron mass spectrum)

"hadron mass spectrum" from which point of view ? I can list for you many approaches to the "hadron mass spectrum" which are well inside the SM. Of course you have a lot going on BTSM. It all depends in the model you consider. If you want people to discuss AdS/QCD, BTSM might be more appropriate. If you want to discuss t'Hooft dual-superconducting model, and stringy-flux tubes or linear rising potential, there is nothing beyond the standard model. If you want to discuss Gribov's picture of confinement, for which the gluon field does not grow big because of the vacuum unstability against condensation of chiral-breaking quark-antiquark pairs, again this has nothing to do BTSM.

 

[shoehorn]

Which such subject has been discussed here ?

I have no idea which specific papers jal is talking about, nor do I know what jal's motivation for raising the point is, but presumably lots of 't hooft's recent papers would qualify as speculative work that hasn't been peer reviewed. Weinberg had a paper out during the week which has not been submitted to a journal as far as I know, and Hawking has several papers on the ArXiv which were never formally reviewed.

 

[Fra]

I found that the rules (https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5374) says

"There are many open questions in physics, and we welcome discussion on those subjects provided the discussion remains intellectually sound."

but

"It is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion."

An understandable problem is howto distinguish arbitrary speculations, from intellectually sound ones. I don't know how to interpret the rules but it seems the forums choice of measure of what is intellectual sounds is that it's either peer-reviewed or mainstream?

Wether something that is by another choice of measure: "intellectually sound", but not peer-reviewed or non-mainstream is to be allowed I don't know. One interpretation which I've personally suspected, is that this forums isn't supposed to be a place for that kind of cutting edge discussions, wether sound as per other measures or not?

Maybe some Mentor can clarify? I've been uncertain about this too.

/Fredrik

 

[Gokul43201]

I found that the rules (https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5374) says

"There are many open questions in physics, and we welcome discussion on those subjects provided the discussion remains intellectually sound."

but

"It is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion."

It is certainly possible to discuss open questions without proposing theories that purport to answer them. For instance, one can address specific problems in existing models, the usefulness of certain measurements in eliminating a subset of these models and possibly even things like the necessary properties of a "correct" model.

But note the specification that the requirements of peer review or mainstreamness are enforced in "most of the PF forums". That language was specifically used in recognition that such requirements may have to be loosened a little for the BtSM forum. But that certainly is not a license for either overspeculation or shoddy citation.

 

[jtbell]

"It is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion."

What we mean by "mainstream" here is basically, "is being discussed seriously by a significant number of professional physicists who are active in the field in question." We're aware that in cutting-edge fields such as string theory or quantum gravity, a lot of professional activity takes place outside of peer-reviewed journals (e.g. the arXiv, at conferences, etc.), and much of it is exploratory in nature. We just don't want to give space to crackpot theories and wild speculations by people who don't know the field.

 

[Coin]

"It is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion."

It seems to me this bolded part offers quite a lot of wiggle room. For example, I'd say ANYTHING which appears on the Arxiv is more or less by definition "part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion". Arguably material posted on some blogs-- at least those maintained by physics professionals-- could also qualify under this rubric.

I've always assumed "Beyond the Standard Model" is the place to put "cutting edge" material, as long as said material goes beyond the standard model? (The hadron spectrum thread, for example, doesn't seem to me to really ask about anything besides analyzing the current state of the existing standard model.) BTSM does seem sometimes to have somehow become in practice almost exclusively a QG forum; I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not.

 

[jal]

We just don't want to give space to crackpot theories and wild speculations by people who don't know the field.

Since this was moved from Beyond the Standard Model forum, let's see how many keep following the discussion.

I’M not trying to start a “Pissing Contest” with the moderators. They got the “power”. I would lose.
I’m not going into the specifics of how I’ve been frustrated in getting discussions of the “cutting edge” approaches and experiments.
Everyone knows my status … I’m an amateur looking for answers.
I’m an analyst. I’m not stupid, I’m just a little bit ignorant.
I’ve receive a lot of help from a lot of people on the forum.

My quest will go on even if I don’t use this forum as a base.

One of the first places that I found when I started my quest was 't hooft's web page and Baez stuff. I also found out that there were intelligent and educated “black sheeps”, (Tom Smith, Eric Lerner etc.) in the science community.

I’m going to assume that the moderators are mostly grey haired and been through the traditional education system that existed prior the web.

There are Millions of web kids who have tremendous minds and are presently engaged in “virtual existences” (second life, youtube, facebook, gamming etc.) who will one day get grey hair and start asking “real questions” about our universe.
They will want to know and will find the “cutting edge” faster than me.
We have already encountered some. They have mastered a language that requires a dictionary. Some of you might remember,… I couldn’t translate for them.

The web is full of sites that will be misleading (para., mystics, quacks, etc.) these amateurs into thinking that they have found the answer.
It would be a tragedy because nobody has found the answers yet.
I hope that some kind of physics forums (and my blog) will be still around to guide the “web kids”, like 't hooft's page and Baez stuff did for me.

I, therefore, encourage you to find a place for "cutting edge".
jal

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I, therefore, encourage you to find a place for "cutting edge".
jal

I suppose most of it, is how you go about approaching a "cutting edge" topic. If you have developed something with substance and it's rather unknown, then post in the Independant Research forum. If you are looking to brainstorm wild ideas with no backing then this is not the place. Rules here are in place for a reason. We tried hosting such banter for years and it didn't work. So people should not act as if we did not try.

I’m going to assume that the moderators are mostly grey haired and been through the traditional education system that existed prior the web.

Many of the mentors are still in school one way or another.

 

[jal]

Thanks Greg Bernhardt!
I'm referring to the "speculations" in the arxiv.org papers for discussion as "cutting edge".
As previously mentioned, is being done in conferences and presentations, and could be included for "us" with the authors as guest.
jal

 

[jal]

edit: for example since I'm now interested in holography and confinement, how about someone from http://www2.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~nfqcd08/symposium/agenda.html
jal

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Thanks Greg Bernhardt!
I'm referring to the "speculations" in the arxiv.org papers for discussion as "cutting edge".
As previously mentioned, is being done in conferences and presentations, and could be included for "us" with the authors as guest.
jal

Part of the problem here is manpower. Our objective is to ensure that only academically sound infomation is referenced. Clearly good information can be found in the arxiv papers, but the problem is the time required to deteremine what is and is not acceptable. We are put in a position of either providing peer review for potentially every crackpot theory that anyone cares to submit, which we don't have the manpower for anyway, or we just allow the forum to run amok, which I don't think anyone wants to see. Internet publishing may be great for people who are already experts in a field, but this is an educational forum, so we have to allow for a wider audience.

 

[jal]

I Like the "Sticky: Announcements" for the forum BTSM.
Could you do the same for other forum so that those interested could see where the "cutting edge" is happening and what is being discussed?
For example ...
High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Sticky: Announcements
http://pos.sissa.it/cgi-bin/reader/conf.cgi?confid=47
Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement - 4th International Workshop
July 9 - 13, 2007
Darmstadt, Germany
=====
http://www.bnl.gov/cpod/default.asp
Welcome to the 5th International Workshop on
Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement (CPOD)
June 15-19, 2009
jal