Timeline for How do you check that your mathematical research topic is original?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| May 22, 2020 at 15:04 | history | edited | Hollis Williams | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2020 at 12:49 | comment | added | Hollis Williams | Google Scholar for example allows you to search for papers where a concept was first referred to (for example, one can find the paper where the Tits alternative was first referred to as such) and it allows you to find the most cited papers which themselves cite the paper which you are reading. These things didn't always exist and are very useful. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 12:47 | comment | added | Hollis Williams | At times my experience of speaking with my supervisor is that sometimes they will not know either if a particular thing has been done and so they might ask you to look into it just in case, so I regard this as a useful skill. No-one's knowledge is boundless, you can't expect your supervisor to always know whether something is completely original, even Atiyah would often stumble across things which he thought were knew but which had already been done by previous mathematicians. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 12:29 | comment | added | Hollis Williams | I'm not saying it's foolproof to do a literature search, but it can be extremely helpful. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 12:03 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| May 22, 2020 at 8:59 | comment | added | Neil Strickland | I don't really agree with this. This scenario is common: you come up with an idea in connection with problem A, it has previously been studied in connection with problem B, the terminology used is natural if you are thinking about B but you would never guess it if thinking about A. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 3:36 | comment | added | user44143 | It’s not easy to do an exhaustive literature search — especially if you don’t read Chinese. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 2:15 | comment | added | Kimball | It's not that hard nowadays to do a fairly exhaustive literature search to make sure something hasn't been done before. - I often find it very hard to determine whether something I'm wondering about (in my field or not) is known. A big issue is that the way you formulate something often won't match the way other people do. Also, papers can be vague/unclear. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 1:30 | comment | added | Jingeon An-Lacroix | Yes, I am willing to develop the skill, and I agree it is not as hard as before. Then this may be a trivial question : how do you develop the skill? I guess the answer is by doing it. Maybe I just want some tips from more experienced.. | |
| May 22, 2020 at 0:13 | history | edited | Hollis Williams | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2020 at 0:05 | history | edited | Hollis Williams | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 21, 2020 at 23:59 | history | answered | Hollis Williams | CC BY-SA 4.0 |