Is this real verified science?

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter hagar
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Science
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
5 replies · 2K views
Physics news on Phys.org
Given that it cites to a reputatable peer reviewed journal article, probably yes.

A. B. Henriques et al, Ultrafast Light Switching of Ferromagnetism in EuSe, Physical Review Letters (2018). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.217203
 
Last edited:
hagar said:
I wasn't sure about the source I received it from.

There are 3 things you need to do when you read something like this and want to make a first pass as evaluating it:

1. Check the publication source. This one was citing a publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. (they give you a link).

2. Then, go to our list of acceptable journals and see if Phys. Rev. Lett. is one of the journals. This will tell you whether this is a respectable journal, or some fly-by-night-and-accepts-anything-under-the-sun journal. In physics, Phys. Rev. Lett. is one of the top 3 most-prestigious journals for physics papers (the other 2 being Nature and Science).

3. And this is a separate issue. The question on whether it is "verified science" is completely different than figuring out if it has been properly published. Verification of anything in physics often requires time. For an experimental result, it requires that other people reproduce the same experiment, and even go beyond that (such as increasing the accuracy and sensitivity of the experiment). Publishing it first in a reputable journal is the first step in an often tedious process of verification.

If you do not have access to the PRL paper itself, check out the ArXiv upload:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05038

Zz.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Drakkith, ohwilleke, berkeman and 1 other person
ZapperZ said:
There are 3 things you need to do when you read something like this and want to make a first pass as evaluating it:

1. Check the publication source. This one was citing a publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. (they give you a link).

2. Then, go to our list of acceptable journals and see if Phys. Rev. Lett. is one of the journals. This will tell you whether this is a respectable journal, or some fly-by-night-and-accepts-anything-under-the-sun journal. In physics, Phys. Rev. Lett. is one of the top 3 most-prestigious journals for physics papers (the other 2 being Nature and Science).

3. And this is a separate issue. The question on whether it is "verified science" is completely different than figuring out if it has been properly published. Verification of anything in physics often requires time. For an experimental result, it requires that other people reproduce the same experiment, and even go beyond that (such as increasing the accuracy and sensitivity of the experiment). Publishing it first in a reputable journal is the first step in an often tedious process of verification.

If you do not have access to the PRL paper itself, check out the ArXiv upload:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05038

Zz.
Thank you for the info.