Publishing as a citizen scientist

[russ_watters]

Many thanks Russ. I haven't put the whole 30 years into it, just thought of the basic concept 30 years ago which I could not resolve completely then and quite honestly had forgotten all about it until more recently where I decided to attempt to resolve it again and think I have hit an actual bulls eye in doing so. If this does pan out you will 100% find it jaw dropping and the consequences for QM are enormous.

Fair enough. I sincerely wish you good luck however it goes.

 

[bugs007]

This is assuming that your idea is falsifiable.

Zz.

True had not really considered that.

 

[bugs007]

Fair enough. I sincerely wish you good luck however it goes.

Thanks Russ seems I shall need it. I look forward to the day I can reveal details, but I believe I cannot do that on this forum due to its rules.

 

[phinds]

Thanks Russ seems I shall need it. I look forward to the day I can reveal details, but I believe I cannot do that on this forum due to its rules.

Well, you could just put it out and maybe someone would tell you why it's wrong (assuming it is) before the thread is closed due to personal speculation. And if, by chance, your idea has merit, it's possible the thread could stay open. In any case, given the length of this thread, you are not going to get banned for putting it here when several people in the thread have basically asked you to do so.

 

[russ_watters]

Thanks Russ seems I shall need it. I look forward to the day I can reveal details, but I believe I cannot do that on this forum due to its rules.

Well if you're right and your idea gets published, it will no longer be against the rules to post it here. Heck, if your idea is correct but you weren't aware that someone had already thought of it, it would still be an impressive accomplishment worth sharing!

 

[nuuskur]

I haven't read the the other posts, but surely there is a more immediate concern. Background research. How can you claim this idea to be yours? Perhaps, something similar was suggested and disproved? The prioritising seems strange to me, though I'm a to-be-semigroup-theorist and not a physicist. At any rate, I would first check the background on whatever major topic your hypothesis concerns and find out what is known.

 

[mfb]

Because wave/particle duality is not explained by QM

The double-slit experiment is so 1900s. We have moved on to interferometers.

Zz.

OK handy to know which are the preferred methods in use today.

I don't know what you studied these 30 years, but you have shown a few times in this thread (not limited to these quotes) that you are unaware of even very basic results and developments in quantum mechanics. In the chess analogy: You haven't heard of the concept of Zugzwang yet.
How can you possibly expect to find something completely new in a topic you know that little about? And even if it would be right: How do you know no one else found it decades ago? If you missed that particle-wave duality is not a thing any more, how much more is there you missed? You don't even know how much you don't know. You are fully in the first peak of the Dunning-Kruger picture.

Go ahead and hire a physicist, but I can tell you what the result will be. There are two possible ways to go from there:

• You accept it, learn from it, and maybe learn more about the topic properly if you want
• You become a full-blown crackpot, reject the advice of that physicist and claim the whole world is against you and your revolutionary idea

 

[Dale]

how does one proceed cautiously to publication and retain credit for their discovery without their idea being stolen ?

If you want to ensure that it isn’t stolen then you can simply publish a cryptographically secure hash of it in some public place like a newspaper classified ad. Then you can share it in the usual peer review process and if it is stolen you can prove that you had it first.

It is a complete non-issue anyway, but that would be one safe way.

the consequences for QM are enormous.

Hard to see how explaining an already explained experiment would have any consequences. The results of the double slit experiment and all of the many modifications of it are completely in accordance with standard QM already. Scientifically, that means QM already explains it.

 

[Dale]

if someone local made me that offer to review their perpetual motion machine idea, I'd do it

Me too, but I would definitely get payment in advance since I am going to deliver bad news.

Will you take my word for it that I can perform surgery, even though I'm not certified as a surgeon? After all, I've looked at various text on surgery, and I even teach Pre-Med students! So will you let me perform a surgery on you the next time you are in need of one?.

He is actually claiming even more than this. He is claiming not only that he can do surgery but that he invented a new surgical technique which is both obvious and undiscovered and which will cure congestive heart failure.

 

[Klystron]

The double-slit experiment is so 1900s. We have moved on to interferometers.
Zz.

Teacher's humor? Young performed his experiments before "wave-particle duality" was a popular concept and without a coherent source like a laser. By definition experiments that measure light (electro-magnetic radiation) interference patterns can be considered to be using some form of interferometer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

Either way, interferometers were invented and in use in the 19th. See the famous Michelson-Moreley interference experiments cerca 1897 that among other results obviated requirements for an ineluctable aether.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson_interferometer

Nearly 100 years after Michelson-Moreley my physics class repeated this experiment using mirror interferometers in lab. So can you. (For instance, join or ask to audit a physics course with labs at a local college. Age is not a disqualification though one should meet prerequisites in order to understand the material.)

 

[mitchell porter]

@bugs007, have you heard of vixra.org? It is like arxiv.org, the preprint server that academic physicists use, except that anyone can post there. If you write something, and don't want to host it on a personal website, you can place it there. Your name, and the time you uploaded the essay, will be preserved there, and meanwhile you can go about submitting to journals.

I agree with the skeptical response you are getting, and I would add that there is already a vast literature of people proposing alternative explanations of quantum mechanics; if your idea is so simple, it has probably been anticipated decades ago e.g. in a "Foundations of Physics" paper, or possibly even a philosophy paper if it doesn't involve calculation. However, if you are still determined to just get it out there, then vixra is the simple answer.

 

[Evo]

@bugs007, have you heard of vixra.org? It is like arxiv.org, the preprint server that academic physicists use, except that anyone can post there. If you write something, and don't want to host it on a personal website, you can place it there. Your name, and the time you uploaded the essay, will be preserved there, and meanwhile you can go about submitting to journals.

I agree with the skeptical response you are getting, and I would add that there is already a vast literature of people proposing alternative explanations of quantum mechanics; if your idea is so simple, it has probably been anticipated decades ago e.g. in a "Foundations of Physics" paper, or possibly even a philosophy paper if it doesn't involve calculation. However, if you are still determined to just get it out there, then vixra is the simple answer.

@bugs007 Just be aware that vixra is considered a depository for crackpottery, that's what happens when "anyone" can post there. But it would definitely be a place for your work.

 

[jrmichler]

There is more to publishing a paper than just writing down the idea. You need to review current thinking, which requires references. You need to show the shortcomings of current thinking. Then you need to explain your idea, and how it explains all experimental results. Then you need to put it all into the appropriate format. It is far better to team up with somebody that knows how to do all that, and has the background to understand your idea and how to get it published.

I am doing exactly this. I retired two years ago. Last summer, I met a research scientist working in the area of water budgets in inland lakes. I had zero experience in that area, but I did have a solid background in instrumentation and design. We (he, me, and two other authors) are right now finalizing the draft of a paper to be submitted to a peer reviewed journal within the next 2 or 3 weeks. It appears that I will be the second author. And it sure beats sitting around in a rocking chair watching TV, playing golf, playing sheepshead, or other retirement time wasters.

 

[Evo]

This thread has run it's course, there is really no more information to give, so thread closed.