Timeline for Advice for contacting journals for the first time
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 8 at 19:47 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Ben Webster♦ | ||
| Jun 15, 2020 at 17:31 | comment | added | Nik Weaver | Well, good luck! | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 11:30 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | @NickWeaver that's exactly my situation... | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 8:57 | comment | added | Nik Weaver | Is the situation this: you think you've solved a famous problem, but you're afraid no one will take you seriously because you are an unknown? If so, the way to deal with that is to make your paper as clear and correct as possible. Numerical experiments might best be described in an appendix --- that would convey their significance without leading people to think that's all you have. | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 8:50 | comment | added | Nik Weaver | Well, if you have a rigorous proof of a theorem which answers an important open problem then you need to write a "mature document" that presents it, so that people can check your proof. As you can see by Stanley's and my reactions, laying emphasis on numerical experiments is likely to lead people into assuming you don't have a proof. | |
| Jun 15, 2020 at 3:13 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | @NikWeaver I am convinced that I have a rigorous proof as understood by professional mathematicians that utilizes a new idea for transforming the problem to one that is already solved and I'm sure that every argument in the proof can easily be checked and nodded off. So even if the proof turned out to be flawed its ideas would shed a new light on the problem. The numerical experiments would only be performed before thinking about communicating the proof, primarily to gain confidence in its correctness or that it is worth looking at. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 19:32 | comment | added | Nik Weaver | However, you might not be familiar with important aspects of this community. For instance, when a mathematician says that they have "solved" a problem this is understood to mean that they have a rigorous proof. If you mean something different (having amassed experimental evidence of some sort) then that greatly limits the possible venues for publication. Stanley's first comment about journals for experimental math is very on point. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 19:29 | comment | added | Nik Weaver | @ManfredWeis it sounds like you are an independent researcher with little involvement in the mathematical "community". In that case you are really to be commended for having the wherewithal to pursue research on your own. Good for you! | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 18:15 | answer | added | Gerhard Paseman | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 17:37 | answer | added | Alex B. | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 17:20 | comment | added | Stanley Yao Xiao | If you believe you have solved a problem that would be of interest to some mathematical community, then your best bet is to prepare a manuscript carefully and submit to a journal. Your manuscript should 'look like' a math paper: i.e., preferably in LaTeX, demonstrate a good knowledge of existing literature, and has good exposition. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 16:40 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | @StanleyYaoXiao I wouldn't have a problem to provide details on that algorithm on MO, but that would be self advertising, which is deprecated. If however someone asked for it the situation may be a different one. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 16:36 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | @StanleyYaoXiao I am very sure that I have found the solution to an interesting problem, specifically an algorithm to find a solution; the experimental evidence would be to run it on test instances and document its performance. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 16:24 | comment | added | Stanley Yao Xiao | Based on your description, it does not seem like you solved any particular problem that would be of interest to some part of the mathematical community but rather found some numerical evidence that something is true. There are journals who publish experimental results, as long as the computations are interesting (Mathematics of Computation comes to mind). You can try emailing one of the editors of a journal like this and see if they are interested. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 15:45 | history | asked | Manfred Weis | CC BY-SA 4.0 |