5 ms·
Whilst amusing, I find it hard to believe that the repeated excuse of "not practical" would ever have been given. Do academics really have such strong objection
by Jabbles 14y ago
Whilst amusing, I find it hard to believe that the repeated excuse of "not practical" would ever have been given. Do academics really have such strong objections to ideas which are purely academic?
"Structured programming is a nice academic exercise, which works well for small examples, but I doubt that any real- world program will ever be written in such a style."
"The paper contains no real-world example to convince us that any model of practical interest can be cast in it"
- fargolime 14y agoIt's much worse than the article describes. I've solved five outstanding problems in physics, or so I claim. Just little ones like dark energy. I dedicated a decade to the effort (not that that proves anything, I'm just saying I didn't slap anything together). Yet I can't get a single paper read. Every editor rejects based on subject matter. A journal on gravity, for example, is in reality a journal on general relativity, so they won't consider a paper that purports a problem with that theory. In informally researching the issue further, the vast majority of physicists I've encountered support the blanket rejection of any paper that purports an issue with existing physics. They'd rather keep their outstanding problems, even physical paradoxes. (Arxiv isn't an option. Papers are regularly deleted there by mods for the same reasons as above.) So yes, I can easily believe the repeated excuse of "not practical". I've even got angry responses for my subjects.
- Jabbles 14y agoDo you accept that you might be wrong?
- fargolime 14y agoOf course I do.
- mng2 14y agoThen instead of "I have solved", you should say "I have proposed solutions to."
- fargolime 14y agoI said the equivalent: "I have solved...or so I claim".
- geoffschmidt 14y agoIn fact, that (and your other parenthetical about how having worked on something for 10 years doesn't mean it's valuable) is why I took the time to reply to you above.
- VMG 14y agoEither that - or you're a crank. We'd have to read the actual paper to decide.
- fargolime 14y agoAs I said, no one who could expertly read my papers will read them. So while I'm a crank, a crackpot, nowadays that's based on subject matter alone.
- msellout 14y agoWhy don't you post the papers on your own website?
- fargolime 14y agoI've done that, FWIW, which isn't much. The solutions will likely be lost to science. Perhaps a future internet archaeologist will find and disseminate them to a more scientific audience.
- geoffschmidt 14y agoI understand that frustration can be hard to deal with but this attitude really doesn't advance your cause. No one likes to talk to whiny emo people. (Except at goth clubs where it can be kind of fun.)
- fargolime 14y agoBut I'm not frustrated, nor whining. I have no cause to advance; I no longer seek publication of my ideas. Your comment demonstrates the following thinking I've seen in today's scientific community though: If you have anything to say against blanket rejection of ideas based on subject matter, you're an even bigger crackpot (or whiner) than we assumed you were.
- 14y ago
- vonmoltke 14y agoI used to work in a quasi-academic development and production environment (DOD S&T[1]), and I heard that excuse quite a bit. Usually it was because someone had a pet idea that would be threatened or was too afraid of the risk of moving from the established development line. [1] http://www.acq.osd.mil/chieftechnologist/index.html http://www.acq.osd.mil/chieftechnologist/index.html
- adunk 14y agoIts not uncommon in computer systems conferences to see rejects based on comments about the system not having practical application or being too non-practical. Oddly enough, it is not too uncommon to see papers getting one review rejecting the paper because it is not practical enough and another review (for the same paper) rejecting the paper because it is too practical :P