Amateur Physicist's Breakthrough: How To Make It Known?

[etr]

Let's pretend that an amateur physicist makes a major breakthrough.

How would he "get the word out"?

What difficulties would be faced?

How would you proceed if it were you?

 

[Howers]

I can only offer my limited second year opinion. You'd have to type up a fancy research paper and send it into an expert comittee for review. If they are pleased they would publish it and go on from there. The way to get the word out is through journals, which comittees must approve. You'd have to have strong evidence because you'd be criticized by phd holders.

 

[G01]

I assume the same way a professional physicist would He would try publish a paper, try to get a poster spot at a conference, etc. The problem is that he wouldn't have a degree in physics so he'd probably be looked on a little skeptically. Also, having less connections in the field would make it harder for him to make his work known.

Personally, I'm working on becoming a professional physicist someday, so I don't have this trouble.