Should I Copyright or Publish My New Theory of Quantum Gravity?

[cbd1]

I have completed and preliminary draft of a theory of quantum gravity (well, it's actually two theories, one regarding GR and one regarding QM). It is 90 pages long in Word (double spaced). I have not published before. My original thought has been to send this version to copyright--to have my name on the idea--before I begin to present it to published theoretical physicists who would have much better and faster access to publishing journals than I do. What do you make of this? Thanks.

 

[bcrowell]

You can't copyright an idea, only the presentation of an idea, so this would be pointless. If you want to establish priority, post it on arxiv.org, where they will put a date-stamp on it.

If you have been doing research in quantum gravity, then you have thoroughly familiarized yourself with the current literature. Therefore you must know that journals do not publish 90-page papers.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also the standard practice for professionals when the come up with a new idea is to share it with friends so that people can sink it. People only publish after they've had their friends take the idea and the try to crush it into smithereens. It turns out that most new ideas are bad ideas that won't work, so one thing that professionals try to do is to quickly eliminate ideas that don't work, before they waste their time trying to create a formal paper.

One way of thinking about physics is that of a boxing match. If you get into a boxing ring with your best friend, and he smiles at you and doesn't trying to punch you into the ground, you'll get offended.

If you want people to crush your ideas, it's not hard to find people. The problem is that most amateurs get extremely offended and defensive they get into the boxing ring, and unless you are different from 99% of the people that have ideas on quantum gravity, it's usually not worth the trouble for a professional to get into the boxing match with you.

You enter the boxing ring with Muhammed Ali. Two seconds later, he takes a swing at you and knocks you out cold, and amateurs get angry at this.

Also any decent physicist isn't terribly worried about their ideas getting "stolen." If I come up with a new idea I *want* people to take that idea and do something with it, because

1) if you want to sell a milk cow, it helps to give away samples. If people take my ideas and they are any good, they'll be coming back to me for more...

2) I come up with too many ideas. Put me in a room with a blank sheet of paper, and I can easily come up with 20 new ideas. However, I just have time to work on may be one or two of them. If someone else wants to put in the sweat to turn the other 18 ideas into something useful, they are welcome to it.

 

[eri]

As twofish said, it's a good idea to run this past a few people in the field first. But don't randomly email people you haven't met. See if there's anyone at a local school you can talk to; chances are good they won't be an expert in the field themselves, there aren't a lot of them out there, but if they think your idea might have merit they might know someone you can talk to.

Most journals won't accept word documents; you'll need to reformat it in LaTeX, most likely. I have a friend who regularly publishes 50+ page papers in top journals, so some will consider a longer one (but 90 pages in Word is probably closer to 20 typeset correctly) not that the length really matters. What matters is that you have supported your idea using math and/or experiments/observations, where it conflicts with the literature you have explained it, and you have correctly cited previous work in the field. That's a big one.

 

[twofish-quant]

See if there's anyone at a local school you can talk to; chances are good they won't be an expert in the field themselves, there aren't a lot of them out there, but if they think your idea might have merit they might know someone you can talk to.

And it's likely that your idea *doesn't* have merit. One difference between a productive scientist and a crackpot is that a productive scientist realized that most of their own ideas are junk, and so when it becomes obvious that the have an idea that is junk they give up and work on something completely different.

Something that worries me is that you've written 90 pages. If it's a good idea then you should be able so summarize it in a paragraph at the most.

My guess is that most of the people that you talk to won't have anything to do with you. Most amateurs that come up with weird new theories don't want people telling them that their ideas are junk, and professionals have better things to do that to demolish ideas from people that get annoyed when their ideas end up being demolished.

What matters is that you have supported your idea using math and/or experiments/observations, where it conflicts with the literature you have explained it, and you have correctly cited previous work in the field. That's a big one.

The other thing that people get wrong is that they are more interested in being *correct* than being *interesting*. If a publish a paper as a theorist with a new idea on supernova collapse, I have no idea whether I'm right or not. It could turn out that that idea ends up being totally wrong.

But what makes it publishable is not whether or not it is *right* but whether it is *interesting*. I talk about all of the other ideas and how mine is just a little different or very different from other ideas that have been proposed. I talk about the consequences, and then talk about what the observers should or shouldn't see. If I can write a paper that says, "after three months of computer runs, I can show that with these assumptions, you ought see this when you start up LIGO" and it turns out that when they turn on LIGO and you don't see that, then that is progress.

 

[eri]

All very true. But if he wants to do anything with it, submitting it as it is will very likely have it rejected out of hand. Trying to find someone to discuss it with is the first step. cbd1, have you considered taking a physics class at a local university? At least that way you can learn a bit of background (unless you already have one, of course) and talk to some people in the dept.

 

[AlephZero]

You can't copyright an idea, only the presentation of an idea, so this would be pointless. If you want to establish priority, post it on arxiv.org, where they will put a date-stamp on it.

I thnk that statement is a bit misleading.

If you have written a document, in many countries you already have copyright of it without doing anything at all. But usually the only way to enforce copyright (if somebody decides to "copy" your work) is to take them to court, and therefore you need some legally admissible evidence about when you wrote the document.

Note also that you can copyright any written material which is "original", including works of fiction. (It's impossible to say whether your theories are works of fiction without reading them, of course).

 

[cbd1]

You can't copyright an idea, only the presentation of an idea, so this would be pointless. If you want to establish priority, post it on arxiv.org, where they will put a date-stamp on it.

Thanks for the advice. I have signed up at the Cornell University Library, as per your advice. However, I am unable to submit without an endorsement from an established submitter. Unless someone would like to endorse me? Also, is there a difference between submitting for publishing and just posting for getting a 'date-stamp'?

Does anyone else have a comment on if submitting to U.S Copyright Office for this original theory of quantum gravity would be pointless? I have done significant background research and found that at my State University, there is only a small "hard" physics department, and I am apparently more knowledgeable in gravity theory than the professors.

I should also add that the manuscript is currently in the form of a book, rather than the format of a journal article. Again, I just want to have my name officially on the theory before making the details known to more formal theoretical physicists..

 

[Pengwuino]

Thanks for the advice. I have signed up at the Cornell University Library, as per your advice. However, I am unable to submit without an endorsement from an established submitter. Unless someone would like to endorse me? Also, is there a difference between submitting for publishing and just posting for getting a 'date-stamp'?

Yes there is a difference. The arxiv is a pre-print server - articles on the arxiv are not published but it is implied that they are in the process of trying to get the articles published. It allows people to see your work quicker than traditional methods.

Does anyone else have a comment on if submitting to U.S Copyright Office for this original theory of quantum gravity would be pointless? I have done significant background research and found that at my State University, there is only a small "hard" physics department, and I am apparently more knowledgeable in gravity theory than the professors.

Yes it is pointless. You're not going to be selling your theory to anyone. Also, why do you think you are more knowledgeable in theoretical gravitation than the professors at the university? How many degrees do you have? How many journal articles have you published that have been vetted by referees?

I should also add that the manuscript is currently in the form of a book, rather than the format of a journal article. Again, I just want to have my name officially on the theory before making the details known to more formal theoretical physicists..

No one is going to even try to steal your theory. This isn't business school or Industrial Revolution era industrial espionage at work. You can't make money off your theory. In fact, if your theory is so revolutionary, only you should be able to clearly explain it meaning that no one is going to steal it for the very reason they shouldn't be able to understand it.

Then again, I feel like most people won't understand it for very different reasons...

 

[bcrowell]

You can't copyright an idea, only the presentation of an idea, so this would be pointless. If you want to establish priority, post it on arxiv.org, where they will put a date-stamp on it.

I thnk that statement is a bit misleading.

If you have written a document, in many countries you already have copyright of it without doing anything at all. But usually the only way to enforce copyright (if somebody decides to "copy" your work) is to take them to court, and therefore you need some legally admissible evidence about when you wrote the document.

Note also that you can copyright any written material which is "original", including works of fiction. (It's impossible to say whether your theories are works of fiction without reading them, of course).

I don't see any contradiction between what you said and what I said.

 

[bcrowell]

Thanks for the advice. I have signed up at the Cornell University Library, as per your advice. However, I am unable to submit without an endorsement from an established submitter.

That policy is meant to discourage kooks. Let's assume that you're not a kook. One of the hallmarks of a non-kook paper is that it shows intimate familiarity with the current state of research in its area, and it therefore has many references to recent papers. Find two or three people whose work you've referenced the most in your paper. Ask them to be your endorsers. They'll be happy to do it (again assuming it is competent work), because people love to see their work referenced in other people's papers. There is zero probability that (a) all of these people are dishonest, and (b) they will form a conspiracy to steal your work.

 

[cbd1]

In fact, if your theory is so revolutionary, only you should be able to clearly explain it meaning that no one is going to steal it for the very reason they shouldn't be able to understand it.

Then again, I feel like most people won't understand it for very different reasons...

This is precisely the point of why I feel I want to have my name put to it before leaving the starting blocks. Currently, I am the only person who understands it, due to it's unconventional take on general relativity and quantum mechanics.

I have gone to great pains to explain it in a way that is understandable in the manuscript--to the point that if someone reads it and studies it thoroughly, they will be able to explain its basis and the two new ideas that come together to illuminate how gravitation works through the interaction of the nature of spacetime and individual particles. The ideas are relatively simple concepts on their own, only requiring an open view. Thus, I want to have some kind of protection before going around revealing the basic concepts to others..

At this point, I have been somewhat convinced from this post that it isn't worth copyrighting. But I also see that it will not be published in a journal, in this form, at least. (BCrowel: It sites only Einstein, Heisenberg, Shapiro and other experiments supporting general relativity, and one author who's work I found to very closely match mine--Frank Wilczek. Further, could you tell me how many papers were cited in the special and general theories of relativity, and the number of degrees the author had, and the number of previously published papers?) I understand that it will be met with difficulty from the community, as it changes the traditional view and challenges the standard model. I have studied all of the relevant theory to a great extent, and I realize that the paradigm will be shifted by it, if it is correct.

Ideally, I'd like to present it in person to Wilczek or Lee Smolin, as it has been influenced by both of their works. However, this will require some arranging.. More thoughts?

 

[JaredJames]

due to it's unconventional take on general relativity and quantum mechanics.

only requiring an open view. Thus, I want to have some kind of protection before going around revealing the basic concepts to others

I have been somewhat convinced from this post that it isn't worth copyrighting.

It sites only Einstein, Heisenberg, Shapiro and other experiments supporting general relativity, and one author who's work I found to very closely match mine--Frank Wilczek.

Further, could you tell me how many papers were cited in the special and general theories of relativity, and the number of degrees the author had, and the number of previously published papers?

I understand that it will be met with difficulty from the community, as it changes the traditional view and challenges the standard model.

I want to play hangman, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . Any guesses?

It does go someway to completing the 'checklist'. No one here can deny that much, and given that I'm yet to hear of anyone who has come here proposing such amazing ideas outside of these threads I can't say I'm holding my breath on this one.

I have studied all of the relevant theory to a great extent

Studied under others who are qualified or simply read through it yourself?

First, get it checked. You must do this. Send it to people in universities to check over. They will point out any immediate flaws. Don't send them 90 pages, they won't even open it.

The odds of you getting to present it to such acclaimed people are slim to none. They think exactly like people here.

 

[TMFKAN64]

Further, could you tell me how many papers were cited in the special and general theories of relativity, and the number of degrees the author had, and the number of previously published papers?

Einstein had two degrees: a mathematics and physics teaching diploma from ETH Zurich in 1900, and a Ph.D. from the Univerity of Zurich in 1905.

If wikipedia is to believed, special relativity was the subject of his 22nd published journal article. General relativity is first mentioned in his 43rd journal article.

I'm sorry I don't have the papers in front of me, so I cannot give you exact citation counts.

Einstein was definitely a genius. But an untutored genius, no. He went through the same hoops as everyone else.

 

[TMFKAN64]

Actually, I see many of his early articles listed there were just reviews of other people's work. No matter the exact number, my point remains, he was a scientist publishing in the usual way scientists publish, and special relativity was early, but not his first published work. (And by the time general relativity was published, he was world famous.)

 

[JDGates]

Further, could you tell me how many papers were cited in the special and general theories of relativity, and the number of degrees the author had, and the number of previously published papers?)

Okay, I'll bite.

The first paper on special relativity had no citations, though you presumably are familiar enough with the content and the history of the relevant physics to know why it needed none. The author completed his PhD the same year (the dissertation appears to have been completed before publication of the SR paper, though I can't find exactly when the degree was granted). The author appears to have had seven prior papers published in the Annalen der Physik (which you may have heard of), the content of one of which was called out specifically in the citation of the author's Nobel Prize.

The 1916 foundational paper on general relativity appears at a quick glance to contain three references. The author retained said PhD, and appears to have published in the neighborhood of 50 refereed papers by that time (my German is rusty and my French nonexistent, so I'm not sure if I'm discounting some that don't appear to be full journal articles), most of them in the aforementioned Annalen der Physik.

But seriously, now...did you really just compare yourself to Einstein?

[Darn...I see TMFKAN64 beat me to it.]

 

[TMFKAN64]

[Darn...I see TMFKAN64 beat me to it.]

Clean living and Wheaties every morning.

 

[twofish-quant]

TDoes anyone else have a comment on if submitting to U.S Copyright Office for this original theory of quantum gravity would be pointless?

It would be. One problem is that if you want to get it published you have to turn over the copyright to the journal anyway.

I have done significant background research and found that at my State University, there is only a small "hard" physics department, and I am apparently more knowledgeable in gravity theory than the professors.

Which doesn't mean much. Physics professors tend to be specialists, and it's not hard to know about something different than someone else. To use the sports analogy, it won't be that difficult for me to be better at fencing or kite flying than Muhammed Ali in his prime, but that's sort of irrelevant.

I should also add that the manuscript is currently in the form of a book, rather than the format of a journal article. Again, I just want to have my name officially on the theory before making the details known to more formal theoretical physicists..

Why? That's not how physics works.

The big thing that you have to worry about is not getting credit. If the theory is any good, then you will get credit for it. The big thing that you have to worry about is presenting your new theory and finding that everyone thinks that it stinks.

Physicists are pretty free about sharing their ideas, and in exchange they get to take other people's ideas and tweak them a little bit. It's a good bargain.

 

[Pengwuino]

To continue the humoring that is occurring here, how about this.

What current issues does your theory address that present theories do not?

How does your theory correctly explain everything we already know as true?

 

[twofish-quant]

Currently, I am the only person who understands it, due to it's unconventional take on general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Then it's useless. I can summarize general relativity in one sentence so that someone interested in the field can thing it is interesting (gravity curves space). I can also summarize special relativity in one sentence (the speed of light is constant). I can then write one more paragraph, that makes the theory *interesting* to someone else.

I can summary string theory in one sentence (loops of string fixed renormalization) and loop quantum gravity in one sentence (it helps if you think about quantizing gravity).

If you can't do that with your theory, then it's likely to be not very good.

I have gone to great pains to explain it in a way that is understandable in the manuscript--to the point that if someone reads it and studies it thoroughly, they will be able to explain its basis and the two new ideas that come together to illuminate how gravitation works through the interaction of the nature of spacetime and individual particles.

That's not the problem. People don't have much time, so can you in one sentence or one paragraph explain why someone should bother reading the rest of your manuscript. And why *your* manuscript, there isn't a huge lack of ideas in quantum gravity. The problem is not lack of ideas. The problem is getting those ideas to do something useful.

The ideas are relatively simple concepts on their own, only requiring an open view. Thus, I want to have some kind of protection before going around revealing the basic concepts to others..

That's not how physics works.

understand that it will be met with difficulty from the community, as it changes the traditional view and challenges the standard model.

In your new theory, what is the lifetime of the muon, and how does it change neutrino-electron scattering. With the standard model, I can calculate the lifetime of the muon, and I can get NES scattering parameters. If you are offering somethng different, then how does it change those numbers?

The *difficulty* with the standard model is that the universe is messy. It's *trivially* easy to come up with an elegant theory that purports to explain the universe. The problem isn't coming up with an elegant theory. The painful part is to come up with a theory that deals with the messiness of the universe. There happens to be no right handed neutrinos that anyone has been able to detect. That's one messy fact out of dozens. Another thing is that if you aim a beam of neutrinos at a beam of electrons, you get this scattering curve. Great!

Now come up with something that will let you calculate the shape of that curve.

The first then that you have to do to get me to even look at your theory is to convince me that you understand why it's difficult to come up with a new theory.

As far as a refreshing new approach, the loop quantum gravity people have decided that it is just too hard to come up with something that duplicates the standard model, so they don't even try. That's a cool idea.

I have studied all of the relevant theory to a great extent, and I realize that the paradigm will be shifted by it, if it is correct.

What's your backup plan if someone figures something obvious wrong with it.

Ideally, I'd like to present it in person to Wilczek or Lee Smolin, as it has been influenced by both of their works. However, this will require some arranging.. More thoughts?

If you get it into the Los Alamos Preprint Server than they'll see it.

Also, you might find it more useful to deal with a graduate student. They have more time.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also if you look at the biography of Einstein, he wasn't locking himself in a room. He was constantly talking with other people in the field. This helps because when he published his papers, people knew who he was.

One thing that I'd suggest you do is to publish something other than your latest greatest theory. If you really understand the standard model as well as you claim you do, you shouldn't have much problem publishing something that uses the standard model to calculate something interesting.

To be blunt, I don't think that you understand the standard model as well as you think you do, and publishing a paper that uses the standard model to do something interesting proves me wrong. It also means that you've got something to show even if it turns out that your new idea happens to be junk, which it probably will be, since most new ideas are junk.

One reason to talk to other physicists, it that it keeps you from spending months on something that someone else has figured out is junk. Happens a lot to me. I come up with an idea, and then I talk to someone and find out that they had the same idea a few months/years ago, and it didn't work because of X, Y, Z. At that point I work on something else, or else trying to get around problems X, Y, and Z.

Look at Pablo Picasso. Something that's interesting about Picasso is that his early work consists a lot of traditional realistic painting. The fact that Picasso understood realistic painting and understood the limits is why he was able to get around those limits.

The other thing is that scientific writing is a lot like other forms of writing, in that a lot of it depends on finding things that your audience will find *interesting*.

 

[cbd1]

I see I have started some controversy with the Einstein comment. My point was that completely new physics does not tend to require citing a lot of other physics. This is a theory, not a paper on experimental results or literature review. It is about concepts foundational to a new theory.

This is in the form of a book right now, with two theories intermixed in the thought process used to get quantum gravity. It really should be two separate papers, if it were to be presented as papers.

I don't know what else to say. No, I am not Einstein. Yes, I did compare SR and GR to what I'm doing, in that they didn't require citing a bunch of other works, because they were pioneering, like this would be IF it works out in the equations, as I believe/hope it should. I am not going to e-mail it to anyone, and would like to discuss it in person.

Prior to the Einstein comment I had gotten 3 general responses: copyright is a pointless and stupid idea; there is no way that I could be right because most physicist's ideas are wrong; and that I should work on getting it submitted as a paper, but that I probably lack any ability to do that. (I am sorry if I excluded other responses.)

What have I overlooked? I think I want to send some letters out to such named theoretical physicists whose works have been inspiring to me and try to see them in person...

 

[JaredJames]

What have I overlooked? I think I want to send some letters out to such named theoretical physicists whose works have been inspiring to me and try to see them in person...

Think about how many people do this. How many people contact them each week for this sort of thing. Do you really think they'll jump at meeting you? You need to prove something to them by starting the publishing process or discussing with universities.

You won't email it to someone? Why not?

 

[petergreat]

Apr 1st...

 

[JaredJames]

Apr 1st...

Unfortunately, I somehow doubt it is.

 

[Pengwuino]

Apr 1st...

The thread wasn't started today.

 

[JaredJames]

The thread wasn't started today.

Unless the OP isn't in the States.

Yesterday morning for me (2am UK time 1st April).

 

[Pengwuino]

Unless the OP isn't in the States.

Yesterday morning for me (2am UK time 1st April).

Good point. It sure wouldn't be that hilarious of a joke since we get these kinda threads fairly regularly in the first place.

 

[JaredJames]

Good point. It sure wouldn't be that hilarious of a joke since we get these kinda threads fairly regularly in the first place.

Yep. My thoughts exactly.

 

[twofish-quant]

I see I have started some controversy with the Einstein comment. My point was that completely new physics does not tend to require citing a lot of other physics.

Yes it does. You need to explain how the new idea relates to the old idea. Also a new idea will gain acceptance a lot more quickly if you explain how to "translate" the old idea into the new idea.

This is in the form of a book right now, with two theories intermixed in the thought process used to get quantum gravity.

You need to get it down to a paragraph before anyone serious will read it. If you have to write 90-pages to explain the theory, it's junk. I can explain general relativity in one page.

Yes, I did compare SR and GR to what I'm doing, in that they didn't require citing a bunch of other works, because they were pioneering,

My guess is that Einstein just didn't have time or energy to put in citations since he had a day job at the patent office. But that didn't mean that he couldn't have.

Prior to the Einstein comment I had gotten 3 general responses: copyright is a pointless and stupid idea; there is no way that I could be right because most physicist's ideas are wrong; and that I should work on getting it submitted as a paper, but that I probably lack any ability to do that. (I am sorry if I excluded other responses.)

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying is that productive physicists have an enormous about of self-critical ability, and I'm skeptical that your ideas are worth anything, because you don't seem to have this self-critical impulse. You don't seem to be that interested in getting your ideas smashed into dirt.