Timeline for How do you check that your mathematical research topic is original?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 22, 2020 at 15:06 | comment | added | Sam Hopkins | I'm surprised no one has suggested MathOverflow, which is actually a great resource for this kind of thing. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 13:01 | comment | added | Nat | "Some engineer out there has solved P=NP and it's locked up in an electric eggbeater calibration routine. For every 0x5f375a86 we learn about, there are thousands we never see." -xkcd. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 12:03 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| May 21, 2020 at 23:59 | answer | added | Hollis Williams | timeline score: 3 | |
| May 21, 2020 at 23:20 | history | became hot network question | |||
| May 21, 2020 at 20:30 | vote | accept | Jingeon An-Lacroix | ||
| May 21, 2020 at 20:11 | answer | added | Alexandre Eremenko | timeline score: 5 | |
| May 21, 2020 at 17:38 | answer | added | R. van Dobben de Bruyn | timeline score: 13 | |
| May 21, 2020 at 16:55 | comment | added | shane.orourke | You've mention Google Scholar. For mathematics in particular one very valuable resource is MathSciNet which indexes and gives reviews for most published mathematical research articles. In most cases you can look up which articles have cited a given article etc. Hopefully your institution has a subscription to this. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 16:18 | answer | added | Will Sawin | timeline score: 28 | |
| May 21, 2020 at 16:17 | comment | added | Mikhail Borovoi | *"do you think this kind of situations (lack of knowledge on the standard terms) won't happen for professional mathematicians?" In my case, yes. Once I learned about previous work on the topic of my paper from the referee report. Then I had to revise the paper significantly, in particular, to change the title. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 16:12 | comment | added | YCor | @JingeonAn "do you think this kind of situations (lack of knowledge on the standard terms) won't happen for professional mathematicians?": in my case, yes, frequently. Sometimes converging to the right keywords takes time. In one case I was looking for reference to a result which sounded "too basic to be unknown", I spent hours without success, tried again weeks later with new ideas of keywords, found something which led me to try to ask some researcher (which I don't know, not in my department) and he confirmed me that it's standard, pointed out the right refs, the used terminology... | |
| May 21, 2020 at 16:09 | comment | added | Jingeon An-Lacroix | @MikhailBorovoi Yes, I strongly agree to that it's more likely that I don't know the standard terms :) Just one more thing, do you think this kind of situations (lack of knowledge on the standard terms) won't happen for professional mathematicians? For example, a mathematician who delve into the other topic from his/her previous areas. I guess in that case, he would talk with his/her colleagues who is expert on the field? Thank you for your precious comments! | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:48 | comment | added | Mikhail Borovoi | The second question is whether your results are new. Try Google! However, it may happen that your problem and results are not new, but you don't know the standard terms, and therefore your Google search gives nothing. Again, here the advisor can help. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:45 | comment | added | alvarezpaiva | Usually you know the history of your subject well enough to understand up to what point your problem is interesting and/or new, but there remains the possibility that the same problem has been tackled in a different form and different terminology in another area. It is still interesting to make the connection even if it takes away from your claims to originality. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:43 | comment | added | Mikhail Borovoi | The first question is whether your problem is interesting. A (good) professional knows what is interesting. Here the advisor can help. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:33 | comment | added | Jingeon An-Lacroix | @MikhailBorovoi Yes, of course that's what I'll do. But I wonder what independent mathematicians will do in general. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:32 | comment | added | Mikhail Borovoi | Since you are starting a graduate study, I would recommend you to choose an advisor and to ask him/her, whether your problem is interesting and whether your results are original. | |
| May 21, 2020 at 15:18 | history | asked | Jingeon An-Lacroix | CC BY-SA 4.0 |