Timeline for Math papers where the only issue is that someone else could've done it but didn't
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 29, 2023 at 23:17 | comment | added | David White | @ClarkBarwick I'm happy to report that this paper was finally published in JPAA. The process is slow, but most of the time it does make the paper better (as it certainly did in this case): authors.elsevier.com/a/1i8n8562DUWwX | |
| Apr 19, 2023 at 8:26 | comment | added | David White | @ClarkBarwick No need to be sorry! I wasn't trying to criticize you here, and I'm grateful for that remark you wrote, as it guided me to write this paper in the first place. I was only trying to point out to the OP some of the things that can happen when you submit a paper proving something that's obvious to the experts. As I wrote, I used to do the same kind of thing. Anyway, the paper now has a favorable referee report and I'm optimistic that it will be accepted. No need to cook up a strategy (I hope). Thanks for the offer, though. | |
| Apr 18, 2023 at 10:04 | comment | added | Clark Barwick | A colleague pointed out this post. I’m sorry to hear about this, David! If you want, you can contact me privately, and we can try to cook up a strategy to undermine that criticism. | |
| Nov 23, 2022 at 2:29 | vote | accept | Display name | ||
| Nov 21, 2022 at 19:19 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | Your final paragraph reminds me of Jaffe and Quinn's famous (notorious?) article on Theoretical Mathematics. Here's one example that comes to mind. In 1995, Russell Impagliazzo claimed the relativized existence of Heuristica, citing joint work with Rudich "in preparation." A proof did not appear until 2011. In this case, Impagliazzo admitted at some point that the original "proof" with Rudich was wrong, but if you didn't know that, would you work on this problem? Surely not. | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 19:48 | comment | added | gnasher729 | "Fermat knew how to prove it but didn't write it down". | |
| Nov 3, 2022 at 12:48 | comment | added | anomaly | In reading papers, I'm a big fan of ones that mention open conjectures or problems. Even in the likely scenario where I can't do anything toward resolving them myself, it gets me thinking about the topic and interested in doing, versus reading, math. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 15:15 | comment | added | user3067860 | @Z.M Reminds me of the left-pad fiasco... Software development is definitely a field where progress is made by dwarves standing on the toes of other dwarves. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 13:29 | comment | added | Z. M | For programmers, a small patch is still, at least theoreticaly, credited. We mathematicians however might not credit nontrivial implementations as long as only thought to be known. | |
| Nov 2, 2022 at 6:23 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Asaf Karagila♦ | ||
| Nov 1, 2022 at 20:32 | vote | accept | Display name | ||
| Nov 23, 2022 at 2:29 | |||||
| Nov 1, 2022 at 19:13 | comment | added | Display name | "makes the paper more likely ... less likely": I mean that if only 1 person tried it may be discounted whereas more people failing makes the paper stand out more. | |
| Nov 1, 2022 at 18:34 | history | answered | David White | CC BY-SA 4.0 |