Physics How to close the gap: From Independent Research to Academic Discourse

[Dale]

The better way is getting a DOI on another place, where no wannabe-peer-review-gatekeepers misuse their power

First, that is assuming that rejecting a specific paper is a misuse of their power rather than the intended and proper use of their power. They should reject poor papers. In fact, too high of an acceptance rate is a hallmark of predatory publishers.

Most professional scientific journals send papers to two peer reviewers, and in the event of a disagreement they send it to a third. So, if you had a “misuse” reviewer (meaning that they reject an otherwise excellent paper) then all that would happen is a delay while the paper is sent to the third reviewer. If, on the other hand, a paper is rather mediocre, then tepid support or mild disapproval from the appropriate reviewer, combined with the rejection of the “misuse” reviewer might lead to a rejection, but will lead to useful feedback to improve the paper. Individuals misusing their power will only delay a paper.

Second, please be aware that for the purposes of PF, having a DOI does not mean that a work is considered part of the professional scientific literature.

My paper 10 pages, 6 of em derivations, took 11 minutes to be denied, which shows, that they even not looked at it in detail.

Or it may show that the problems with the paper are so obvious that no more than 10 min was required. Again, you do not know that this specific rejection is a misuse of power.

Because you are basing your work on the foundational literature, chances are exceptionally high that your idea is not novel. If so, then people who are actually aware of the modern literature can point to a paper you have ignored where it has already been investigated. In such a case, a quick rejection is entirely appropriate.

When I was in grad school after about 1000 hours studying the literature I would start to come up with what I thought were new ideas. I would go to my advisor, pitch my new idea, and he would turn around to this huge set of filing cabinets, and pull out a paper from the 60’s or 70’s where my new idea was already investigated. I would go back and study for another 100-200 hours or so and repeat the process with the same result. This continued until about 3000 hours of study when I finally had my first actual novel idea.

The point is that it is exceptionally difficult to have a novel idea. You simply cannot do it without literally thousands of hours of study of the modern literature. It is not a misuse of power to quickly reject papers that are not novel. You are focused on the 10 minutes, but what it actually probably took was closer to 30000 hours of preparation plus the 10 minutes.

 

[Esim Can]

I would agree, if not two professors, who know the work and seen it would not agree on my view. One has even said, that it will be denied probably, because they don't like such ideas, no matter if the math is correct or not. And you forget, that arXiv is not a peer-review but a simple preprint server, who should actually only do their job and leave it up to the community to decide. And what about the other papers they denied? Even deny a paper, after being peer reviewed by a journal? And this is not one case. Yes, you could say, that my paper was nonsense, and who cares, well perhaps it is. But a preprint-server denying the publish after peer-review. This is ridiculous. It is not worth the time to argue about arXiv.

 

[Dale]

And you forget, that arXiv is not a peer-review but a simple preprint server

Yes, that is a good point. I have only experience with peer review publications. I have never put anything on arxiv, and I always check the publication information for papers that I read there.

That said, if a paper came to me for actual peer review with no modern references, I would reject it quickly. And that would not be a misuse of my power. But the journals that I peer review for would probably not send me such a paper in the first place. And that would also not be a misuse of their power.

Arxiv may be different in that regards. I don’t know their posted policies. But in my opinion the rapid rejection of a paper that ignores the modern literature is not a sound basis to claim “wannabe-peer-review-gatekeepers misuse their power”.

 

[Esim Can]

@Dale
I appreciate your constructive suggestions. Perhaps we work a bit on a different field. I remember, that you work at medical physics? If true, there things are different and like you said, you are very right. In that field you need 50 or more references, because you build up on modern work, you go the next step. My denied paper had 9 references i think and the most recent is 1996. And believe me, i searched everything, which could only be near to that what i try to do. Because in many points i had difficulties to formulate it, and needed the work of others, who went a similar way. I wish i found some, but no. There were and are none. Shall i put all the failed attempts in there saying how they tried it, why it did not worked out, or the other ones tried it, did not worked because of the violation of that principle and so on. If some works on a foundational level and if it is really novel than there are no others doing it, otherwise it would not be novel, isn't it? So how on earth could i put references into it, if there are none? I work by the way 40 years on physics, and this is the FIRST novelty (if it is correct). I understand your valid point totally i think.

In peer-review, you get an answer and a reason, why your work is rejected. That is the point.. That i can accept and expect it. At least some transparency why is a sign of respect of the work put into these things. But this gate-keeping mentality of a preprint server, which once was made to make science more open and accessible, now acting like a VIP-Club,.. really now?

No problem then. I have put it on CERN-Server and have a DOI, so who cares. In future, i will try to avoid arXiv for my publications completely although i have an endorsement there.

References of Ted Jacobson 1995 about Gravity and Thermodynamics 11, the Watson and Cricks on DNA 1953, six, Higgs-Paper 1964 two, EPR 1935 had zero. Like Einsteins 1905 paper.

 

[Esim Can]

E.g. a theory or model that is not testable, verifiable or falsifiable is generally non-scientific, and, even if it is, it doesn't become accepted science unless it is eventually tested and verified or generally gets established equivalently in an official accepted way (by the scientific community etc.)

Very important point, yes. In my case it predicts the normal order of the neutrino-masses, which will be soon tested i think. If the neutrino-mass-order are irregular, then my model is wrong. This is a falsifiable prediction. A very important constant is dependent on that in my model. But besides that, the rest depends if the derivations, which lead to results are correct or not. Fortunately my Professors first words in our first talk was, "Be warned, i have no time to be diplomatic, if it is nonsense i will say 'nonsense'!" His help is like a lottery win.

 

[Dale]

My denied paper had 9 references i think and the most recent is 1996

And you believe the rejection was misusing power?

And believe me, i searched everything, which could only be near to that what i try to do. Because in many points i had difficulties to formulate it, and needed the work of others, who went a similar way. I wish i found some, but no. There were and are none.

You are simply mistaken if you think you have foundational work with only 9 relevant references today.

Hopefully your new friends can help you put your work into a modern context.

 

[Esim Can]

@Dale
I understand your point, but this is exactly why I distinguish between peer review and arXiv moderation. You describe how you would handle a journal submission, but arXiv is explicitly not a journal and its moderators do not evaluate scientific correctness or the depth of the literature review. They only perform an administrative filter, and they state that clearly in their policies.

Since you mentioned that you have never submitted to arXiv, our perspectives simply come from different experiences. My criticism is not about peer review at all. It is only about the fact that arXiv rejections should not be interpreted as scientific judgments, because that is not what they are designed to be.

 

[Dale]

and they state that clearly in their policies.

Such as https://info.arxiv.org/help/endorsement.html

Where the arxiv policy says “You should not endorse the author if the author is unfamiliar with the basic facts of the field, or if the work is entirely disconnected with current work in the area.”

Shall i put all the failed attempts in there saying how they tried it, why it did not worked out, or the other ones tried it, did not worked because of the violation of that principle and so on.

Absolutely! Especially with foundational work. How else do you think you can put your work into context? Your references should include all of the relevant advancements and their limitations, particularly where those limitations are discussed in subsequent work up to the present day.

 

[fresh_42]

Here is a prominent example: (quotes from different language versions of Wikipedia)

Problem:

Independently (and unknown to Galois) Niels Henrik Abel had proven that a general polynomial equation of higher degree than 4 cannot generally be solved by radicals.

Result:

The Academy rejected the manuscript but encouraged Galois to submit an improved and expanded version. This process was repeated twice more, this time with the participation of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Joseph Fourier, and Siméon Denis Poisson. Galois reacted bitterly, accusing the Academy of misappropriating manuscripts, and decided to have his work printed at his own expense.

Siméon Denis Poisson asked him to submit his work on the theory of equations, which he did on 17 January 1831. Around 4 July 1831, Poisson declared Galois's work "incomprehensible", declaring that "[Galois's] argument is neither sufficiently clear nor sufficiently developed to allow us to judge its rigor"; however, the rejection report ends on an encouraging note: "We would then suggest that the author should publish the whole of his work in order to form a definitive opinion."

While Poisson's report was made before Galois's 14 July arrest, it took until October to reach Galois in prison. It is unsurprising, in the light of his character and situation at the time, that Galois reacted violently to the rejection letter, and decided to abandon publishing his papers through the academy and instead publish them privately through his friend Auguste Chevalier. Apparently, however, Galois did not ignore Poisson's advice, as he began collecting all his mathematical manuscripts while still in prison, and continued polishing his ideas until his release on 29 April 1832, after which he was somehow talked into a duel.

How are the chances that among those thousands of people who think they are a new Galois these days, there is actually a new Galois? And it is one thing to see the connections between solutions of an algebraic equation with group theory, and a completely different thing to reinvent physics:

The work touches upon concepts from general relativity, quantum foundations, and cosmology, attempting to connect them based on a single relational principle.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (sometimes shortened to ECREE), also known as the (Carl) Sagan standard.

 

[martinbn]

My paper 10 pages, 6 of em derivations, took 11 minutes to be denied, which shows, that they even not looked at it in detail.

What was the reason given for the rejection? It may be simply that your work isn't suitable for that particular journal.

 

[Esim Can]

How are the chances that among those thousands of people who think they are a new Galois these days, there is actually a new Galois? And it is one thing to see the connections between solutions of an algebraic equation with group theory, and a completely different thing to reinvent physics:

This is not a serious argument really. First the chances are not zero. Even if it is 8 billion people to 1, where is the point in supporting to categorically ignore people, because they have no university e-mail? We are not talking about academia here. We are talking about an institution, a preprint-server, ignoring and denying papers, which are even already peer-reviewed, without any transparent reasoning, a transparent reasoning Galois by the way received from others.

What would Carl Sagan say, if someone is not allowed to show the evidence?

This mindset, demonstrated is in its core not scientific. Are we judging people and individuals or mathematical and physical arguments? If first, then we play a Club-game not science. What a waste of valuable time.

 

[Esim Can]

What was the reason given for the rejection? It may be simply that your work isn't suitable for that particular journal.

It was not a journal, it was arXive. Reason? None. Standard email, the same, everyone becomes. (The same mail, which also that astronomer woman received) I had once a desk-reject by a journal in another field, and even a desk-reject was reasoned there, which was totally plausible and fine.

 

[fresh_42]

Are we judging people and individuals or mathematical and physical arguments? If first, then we play a Club-game not science. What a waste of valuable time.

We are judging people by their knowledge. This includes: current state of science, failed attempts in the past, current attempts, the huge amount of existing evidence a new theory has to explain, context, the language they use. If you cannot convince others that all these aspects are present to you, then indeed they might consider your thoughts a waste of time. And that is the center of all: you demand other people's time. We constantly judge by subjective probabilities, experience, and gut feelings. It is the only way for us to prioritize. Complaining that this is not a scientific method may be true, but we simply do not have the lifespan to follow any Turing machine until it comes to a halt, or not.

 

[PeroK]

It was not a journal, it was arXive. Reason? None. Standard email, the same, everyone becomes. (The same mail, which also that astronomer woman received) I had once a desk-reject by a journal in another field, and even a desk-reject was reasoned there, which was totally plausible and fine.

Let's suppose I became an editor and to begin with I took every submission seriously. I would read them fully and give the author a reasonable response. What would happen? I'd get an email back from most, if not all, of the authors explaining why I was wrong and why I was being unreasonable. [This happened to Neil de Grasse Tyson recently, when he seriously reviewed that Hollywood crackpot's work, which included bizarre conclusions such as $1 \times 1 = 2$. He took the time and effort to explain why the work was wrong. But, of course, this review was not accepted by the author.]

In any case, very quickly I would learn not to engage with the crackpots!

If you said you had a new way of calculating galaxy rotation curves, then an editor might be more likely to look at what you've done. But:

I'm working on a self-contained theoretical framework from a foundational starting point. The work touches upon concepts from general relativity, quantum foundations, and cosmology, attempting to connect them based on a single relational principle.

This is what all the crackpots are working on!

 

[Esim Can]

@fresh_42
You are judging not on the base of knowledge as long as you do not have enough data of the knowledge of the person. As i said already, but you don't want to hear. I have shown the work already to established professors and THEY want me to publish it. One is even a theoretic Physicist with nearly 1000 publications. If this would be not the situation, i would not complain about arXiv and their moderation.

@PeroK
Accusing people of being crackpots without any knowledge of their work is the same, what crackpots do about physicists.

 

[PeroK]

@PeroK
Accusing people of being crackpots without any knowledge of their work is the same, what crackpots do about physicists.

When I say all the crackpots are working on unification theories, that's not the same as saying all people working on unification theories are crackpots.

It's a common logical fallacy to confuse a statement and its converse.

That said, the conditional probability that someone is a crackpot is high given that they are a) not a professional physicist; and, b) working on a grand unification theory.

 

[Esim Can]

Look. I do NOT work on an unification theory. I don't even share the huge enthusiasm on unified theories. My model cannot do that. Parts of it try to look at the consequences in Gravitation, and how this could be interpreted, but these parts are speculative and are not part of the work.

 

[Dale]

We are judging people by their knowledge. This includes: current state of science, failed attempts in the past, current attempts, the huge amount of existing evidence a new theory has to explain, context, the language they use.

I want to emphasize this. IMO, this is the big problem with the OP's efforts. They are deliberately disconnecting their work from the current state of science. A claim of misuse of power is not at all credible with such a glaring hole in their work.

 

[Esim Can]

Says the admin, wich does not know or did not looked at the paper.

Lets make a deal, if you all want.
After it is published and peer-reviewed in a journal, if this ever happens, i will post the work in this thread if you want. As far as i understood, peer-reviewed stuff can be shown here. But if you say 'yes' then it will take time, a year or so i guess. Ok?

 

[martinbn]

It was not a journal, it was arXive. Reason? None.

They have clear rules. If you have not uploaded papers there before, you cannot do it if it is not endorsed by someone who can upload papers there.

 

[russ_watters]

I have shown the work already to established professors and THEY want me to publish it.

"Publish" or "submit for publication"?

 

[Dale]

Says the admin, wich does not know or did not looked at the paper.

I am going based on your own description of your work. Have you described it accurately? If your description is accurate then my criticism is valid. According to your own description your work has a glaring deficit.

As far as i understood, peer-reviewed stuff can be shown here

Yes, if it is published in a professional scientific journal, then it is part of the professional scientific literature and can be discussed here. There are many predatory publishers that will publish anything but pretend to do peer review, for a fee. Avoid journals by MDPI, Hindawi, and Frontiers. And of course, arxiv, zeondo, vixra, and ResearchGate are repositories not journals.