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So, there's two (slightly off topic) questions this article raises that I've had for a while. Perhaps someone who's been in academia longer than I have can enl

So, there's two (slightly off topic) questions this article raises that I've had for a while. Perhaps someone who's been in academia longer than I have can enlighten me. First, the article talks about experts within the field. I've been a graduate student for about a year now, and within my field of research (molecular dynamics), I still have no idea who the "experts" are. I see the same names frequently pop up on papers I read -- are these the experts? I don't know of any online forums where people discuss MD; if they're out there, then they must be a secret. I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" So where does this group collaboration and unanimous identification of who the leaders in a field are come from? Conferences are only a few times a year; I can't imagine that's where all of these people meet up and socialize. And secondly, how is this mathematician "virtually unknown", as the article puts it? The University of New Hampshire is surely a well-known institution. I'm sure it ranks top 100-500 in the world, right? And there's maybe 20-25 mathematics professors at each university. I also know math is very diverse, and an expert in topology isn't going to know too much about number theory. So within each "domain" of math, there can surely only be a few hundred in the world at any given time who are actively researching the subject. How can he be so unknown then?

jckt 13y ago
@ your second question, the article notes that "Without communicating with the field’s experts, Zhang started thinking about the problem", so maybe he just worked on it in his free time? Not that it means he hasn't published much, but there aren't many Yitang Zhang papers on arXiv either. As far as I know he has no website, and according to UNH he is a "lecturer" rather than a professor. I'm not sure how the academic ranks work in the USA but I believe that, typically, lecturers are of lower "rank" than professors. So in that case, Zhang would have been effectively less renowned, hence "unknown", but obviously no less able.
- curveship 13y ago
  A lecturer is the bottom of the heap. It's the lowest title you can have and teach in a university. Tenured professor > tenure track professor > visiting assistant professor > adjunct / lecturer. It means he's paid per course and isn't guaranteed any classes beyond the current semester.
  - jckt 13y ago
    Is there any widespread stigma surrounding the lower-ranks (academic/intellectual ability, etc), or is the system just widely acknowledged as simply some sort of salary structure?
    - saraid216 13y ago
      Both. If you're any good, you're supposed to magically move up the escalator. It's a career thing like any other.
- BruceIV 13y ago
  Lecturers sometimes don't have PhD's, tend not to do research, and get stuck with all the courses that the tenured profs don't want to teach (and don't get paid much better than their TA's to teach the course).
ChuckMcM 13y ago
"I still have no idea who the "experts" are. I see the same names frequently pop up on papers I read -- are these the experts?" Yes, they are the people who are saying stuff that everyone else is quoting. In the context of your question they are "the experts." All it takes to join their ranks is to get your citation rate up :-).
- ky3 13y ago
  And just to make sure one is not at some local optimum, it's not so much the names on the front page. Read papers the way experts do: from the biblio!
jcomis 13y ago
If you don't publish or at the very least attend conferences in academia I'd say you would be labeled unknown.
beambot 13y ago
Speaking to your first question: "Molecular dynamics" is too broad. Can you name the dominant players working on the specific molecules / processes where you publish? For example, I have my PhD in EE / Robotics. I am an expert in (long-range) UHF RFID for mobile robots. There are probably only 5 other dominant researchers in this space. There are a lot of similar, related fields (eg. UHF sensors, power harvesting, indoor channel modeling, Radar sensing, etc) and I've co-published in some of these too, but... Ultimately, you'll become an expert in a very (very!) narrow topic. You'll probably know all of the dominant players by first name. You may go for beers with them at conferences (as we do). I recommend checking out Matt Might's "Illustrated Guide to a PhD": http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
lake99 13y ago
> And there's maybe 20-25 mathematics professors at each university. Yitang Zhang is not a professor, he is a lecturer [1][2]. A quick seach on Google Scholar reveals that people with that name have published extremely few papers in mathematics. He doesn't seem to have a website of his own, especially one that lists his publications. I'd find it quite believable that he is relatively unknown in his field. [1] http://db.unh.edu/directories/facstaff2/getfs.asp?id=4713 http://db.unh.edu/directories/facstaff2/getfs.asp?id=4713 [2] http://www.math.unh.edu/faculty http://www.math.unh.edu/faculty
gaurav_v 13y ago
I work in an area tangential to MD; I would say that a list of 'experts' would include: DE Shaw, Benoit Roux, Vijay Pande, David Baker (and associated people in their labs). You say: I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" I am not yet a graduate student and I do exactly that relatively frequently. It has very often led to great talks about science. You should be informed and knowledgable about the work you want to discuss (and be specific with your queries), and I think you'll find that most academics are more than happy to talk about their own work. You can learn a lot about a subfield this way.
impendia 13y ago
I am a professional mathematician and number theorist, who has studied work closely related to Zhang's. I had never heard before of an older (40+) mathematician, who has done essentially no meaningful work in the subject before, and has virtually no publication record, coming out of seemingly nowhere and proving such a big theorem. This is in no way a slight against older mathematicians, indeed many spectacular results are proved by people over 40, but they typically accumulate an excellent track record on the way. Indeed, I fully assumed that this guy was full of shit. However, I have heard that well-known experts in the area have closely read Zhang's paper and found it to be correct. This is enough to put a smile on my face. There is something wonderful about skepticism and cynicism being proven wrong, especially when the skepticism is my own.
- Xcelerate 13y ago
  Ah, I did not realize he had not really published before. I suppose that is very surprising. Also, the way your post is written seems to suggest that most results out of nowhere are "crankish". Are there really people who spend their time working on these things that aren't professional mathematicians and who submit flawed papers to math journals? I would think that would be an unproductive use of one's time...
  - impendia 13y ago
    > Are there really people who spend their time working on these things that aren't professional mathematicians and who submit flawed papers to math journals? Yes, as well as people who are professional mathematicians (usually not well known) who also do so. There is not a flood of such papers, but my thesis advisor, in his capacity as editor of the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, gets at least a dozen or so such papers each year. I refereed some of them, and had to explain to these authors why their proofs were mistaken.
    - cantos 13y ago
      Attempted proofs of Fermat's Last theorem by cranks used to be so common that Edmund Landau, a German mathematician, had a form letter for them: “Dear Sir/Madam: Your proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem has been received. The first mistake is on page _____, line _____.” I have sometimes seen notes on the pages of prominent mathematicians that they don't have time to examine unsolicited attempts at major problems by amateurs so there must still be a good number. I also have known someone whose sibling is a software engineer and whose hobby is trying to resolve P ? NP.
vicaya 13y ago
Yitang's PhD is in a completely different field of math: algebraic geometry. Number theory is his hobby. This is a very inspiring story!
- CurtMonash 13y ago
  "Completely different" is a bit of an exaggeration. Some number theorists are really algebraic geometers. But yes, there are people who switch away from their thesis areas. Barry Mazur, if the story is correct, wrote an awesomely short thesis on topology. But he's famous as a number theorist.
  - gchpaco 13y ago
    The old saw is that when you finish your PhD you will either be sick to death of the subject and do something quite different, or still interested and spend most of your career on the same subject. It does seem to be quite binary in practice.
- nijk 13y ago
  The proof of Fermat's last theorem is algebraic geometry.
jere 13y ago
Using your numbers, he'd be one out of thousands or tens of thousands of math professors at well known universities. But it's worse because he has never published before and he's only a lecturer. Needle in a haystack.
droithomme 13y ago
> I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" You can do this, especially if you have an intelligent question, or interesting insight. I have emailed top people in various fields with specific questions and gotten answers. They usually won't want to do a private tutorial to someone with no knowledge of the field, but if there is some ambiguity or possible error in a paper of theirs they pretty much always will respond. I have also on a number of occasions made cold calls on luminaries in fields when I am in their city, and when going to conferences the opportunity to meet and greet are one of the main purposes. I also receive cold calls, visits and emails from people interested in the couple of fields where I am known, and I always respond positively to them. My email responses get more spaced out if there's too much tutorial, but brief yes and no questions, or interesting comments are pretty much always well received. I don't really like getting phone calls, but I have had some pretty interesting conversations with people who managed to find my phone number, most of these are from people overseas.
- snprbob86 13y ago
  > if there is some ambiguity or possible error in a paper of theirs they pretty much always will respond I just want to chime in and also mention that while proper scientists should always enjoy an opportunity for improvement, any proper human always enjoys some acknowledgement of success. I've implemented some cool algorithms I've seen in papers and emailed the authors to 1) Thank them for their research, 2) Show them my implementation , 3) Ask them for their feedback. Their email addresses are generally at the top of the papers, so I figured "what the heck" and the response I've gotten the few times I've done this has been amazing. I'll further extend this to say that you should never be afraid to talk to somebody because of your perception of their status. You'd be amazed at how accessible top tier folks are. Often a key factor in their greatness is their ability to collaborate! But please, be extremely respectful of their time: Keep your messages brief, to the point, and pleasant. Don't fawn or apologize. Don't ask to ask. Don't justify or elaborate. Treat them as a colleague and they will generally treat you as such.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    > I'll further extend this to say that you should never be afraid to talk to somebody because of your perception of their status. I'm quoting this for truth, because it didn't feel emphasized enough. Status is never, never, never a don't-talk-to-me forcefield. Even the goddamn POTUS reads letters from random little people. You're allowed to talk to whoever you please, and they're allowed to say no or decline to answer.
emhart 13y ago
-I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?"- Why not? I am a barista with a high school dimploma and no interest in higher education, but I have emailed linguists and archaeologists to ask questions and discuss my independent research. In most cases I have heard back within 24 hours, in one, where the gentleman I reached out to had a 32 page CV, had held multiple chairs, and ran 2 institutions, I heard back from him within the hour. In each case I was received with enthusiasm and treated as a peer who just needed some questions answered. It was a revelation for me, and I'm just some guy. I suggest that if you are active in both your field of study and academia, you should absolutely reach out to the experts in your field. As Regina Spektor says, "People are just people, they shouldn't make you nervous."
- rz2k 13y ago
  That's pretty impressive. I followed a couple links, and enjoyed reading this: http://ronininstitute.org/in-defense-of-the-independent-academic-lifestyle/412/ http://ronininstitute.org/in-defense-of-the-independent-acad... Is independent academia a big thing?
  - emhart 13y ago
    I have been sitting for 20 minutes now, trying to come up with an answer to this. Simply, I don't know. For me, I hope that being able to put "Ronin" down in the "institute" field on CFPs and research grants allows my work to be taken seriously. It's hard to corral a movement out of "independents" but Jon Wilkins and the folks at Ronin are devoting themselves to it. I believe it's people like Jon who are giving me the chance to be someday remembered as someone who contributed to the sum total of human knowledge, rather than just some guy who knew a lot about locks.
- 616c 13y ago
  Good for you, and I seriously mean that. One of my friends, who actually finished a BA and dropped out of a MA degree (not to say your educational credentials matter, but it will become relevant later in my post) had some really neat ideas on ancient Semitic linguistics, related to a bunch of wall inscriptions he found out about while living in Egypt. He later tried to contact the foremost authority, a Western academic who is one of the few who had any interest or academic weight (with a topic this esoteric, I imagine the former is more important) and present his ideas. Needless to say, that ancient Semitic linguist was not amused. He not only ripped into my friend, but at the suggestion my friend visit the site that inspired him to do said research, the professor mentioned he had an exclusive memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian governmental body in charge of the antiquities, and threatened him if he ever visited without the permission the professor had no intention of providing, he would be arrested. Keep in mind he was not even in the locale, but in the United States. I saw subsequent emails where he refused to even consider my friends theories, and was increasingly dismissive. So my friend, not easily discouraged, went on to contacting the less than a dozen experts in this field, few with any knowledge on this period. He presented paper drafts to several; many ignored, and those who responded rudely dismissed him without getting into the content. Maybe it is just because the field is narrow, but I suspect certain academic disciplines believe in some kind of job security, and pouncing on amateurs and pushing them out the door, regardless of their perceived contribution to the field, is paramount. I am glad you have had the opposite experience. I too a masters degree dropout from an accelerated program, and left with out the masters in the bachelors masters combo. Why? Because despite the money I never had experiences like you in school. All the teachers in my program, despite thinking my knowledge level was quite strong and generally liked me, disliked meeting with me outside of class or pushing me to read or study things we could discuss. I got disheartened, and was disgusted at how many teachers do not belong in academia, and just like the echo chamber of their own ideas. I know I could have made a better effort, but the lack of effort on their end to sit and talk with anyone who had a modicum of interest was shocking to me. To this day, I wish private universities would take the out of class contact more seriously in evaluating professors, because your comment proves no one is too busy to talk on academic subject they are passionate about. My friend's anecdote just shows some cliques are just that, and letting anyone is calculated risk to the group regardless of contribution; some people will never take that risk. I just wish assholes like that would go somewhere else other than a university setting. tl;dr I had the opposite experience with academics, and one of my friends tried hard in a very small domain and had even worse results; YMMV and some academics have no interest in spreading knowledge at all. Fuck them.
anusinha 13y ago
Talking to other people in the field is a great way to find influential work. You can only read so many papers, but by talking to many other people, you expand your accessible information. Other people can mention that this paper is great or that they've seen a series of great papers from a particular lab, etc and point out connections that you might miss. It's not just the frequency of names that matters though, it's the quality of work? Are they doing revolutionary or deeply insightful work or are they doing lots of good work, but that isn't _great_ work. (Yes, the comparison is a little vague--leaving that open to interpretation intentionally).
jacquesm 13y ago
> I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" I've done just that on a number of occasions and more often than not the answer is "yes, sure". As long as the chat is interesting enough. If you start off without asking you at least save yourself the rejection. But you will also save yourself acceptance.
randomsearch 13y ago
> I see the same names frequently pop up on papers I read -- are these the experts? Not always, but often, yes, the names you see frequently are people leading the field, or people who have been around much longer and have acquired more background knowledge than most. When you go to conferences, it's obvious who the leaders of the field are - sometimes they're the ones generally speaking most sense, or the ones quietly sat at the back and chiming in with insights from time to time. > So where does this group collaboration and unanimous identification of who the leaders in a field are come from? Conferences. Yes, that is where people meet, socialise, network, and then subsequently collaborate. Usually there are a few large conferences in a field, and then smaller groups breaking off from that to workshops, networking meets etc. When you make contact with someone at a conference, stay in touch, visit them to give a talk or host them, and relationships build from there. It takes time.

jckt 13y ago

@ your second question, the article notes that "Without communicating with the field’s experts, Zhang started thinking about the problem", so maybe he just worked on it in his free time? Not that it means he hasn't published much, but there aren't many Yitang Zhang papers on arXiv either. As far as I know he has no website, and according to UNH he is a "lecturer" rather than a professor. I'm not sure how the academic ranks work in the USA but I believe that, typically, lecturers are of lower "rank" than professors. So in that case, Zhang would have been effectively less renowned, hence "unknown", but obviously no less able.

curveship 13y ago
A lecturer is the bottom of the heap. It's the lowest title you can have and teach in a university. Tenured professor > tenure track professor > visiting assistant professor > adjunct / lecturer. It means he's paid per course and isn't guaranteed any classes beyond the current semester.
- jckt 13y ago
  Is there any widespread stigma surrounding the lower-ranks (academic/intellectual ability, etc), or is the system just widely acknowledged as simply some sort of salary structure?
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Both. If you're any good, you're supposed to magically move up the escalator. It's a career thing like any other.
BruceIV 13y ago
Lecturers sometimes don't have PhD's, tend not to do research, and get stuck with all the courses that the tenured profs don't want to teach (and don't get paid much better than their TA's to teach the course).

ChuckMcM 13y ago

"I still have no idea who the "experts" are. I see the same names frequently pop up on papers I read -- are these the experts?" Yes, they are the people who are saying stuff that everyone else is quoting. In the context of your question they are "the experts." All it takes to join their ranks is to get your citation rate up :-).

ky3 13y ago
And just to make sure one is not at some local optimum, it's not so much the names on the front page. Read papers the way experts do: from the biblio!

jcomis 13y ago

If you don't publish or at the very least attend conferences in academia I'd say you would be labeled unknown.

beambot 13y ago

Speaking to your first question: "Molecular dynamics" is too broad. Can you name the dominant players working on the specific molecules / processes where you publish? For example, I have my PhD in EE / Robotics. I am an expert in (long-range) UHF RFID for mobile robots. There are probably only 5 other dominant researchers in this space. There are a lot of similar, related fields (eg. UHF sensors, power harvesting, indoor channel modeling, Radar sensing, etc) and I've co-published in some of these too, but... Ultimately, you'll become an expert in a very (very!) narrow topic. You'll probably know all of the dominant players by first name. You may go for beers with them at conferences (as we do). I recommend checking out Matt Might's "Illustrated Guide to a PhD": http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

lake99 13y ago

> And there's maybe 20-25 mathematics professors at each university. Yitang Zhang is not a professor, he is a lecturer [1][2]. A quick seach on Google Scholar reveals that people with that name have published extremely few papers in mathematics. He doesn't seem to have a website of his own, especially one that lists his publications. I'd find it quite believable that he is relatively unknown in his field. [1] http://db.unh.edu/directories/facstaff2/getfs.asp?id=4713 http://db.unh.edu/directories/facstaff2/getfs.asp?id=4713 [2] http://www.math.unh.edu/faculty http://www.math.unh.edu/faculty

gaurav_v 13y ago

I work in an area tangential to MD; I would say that a list of 'experts' would include: DE Shaw, Benoit Roux, Vijay Pande, David Baker (and associated people in their labs). You say: I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" I am not yet a graduate student and I do exactly that relatively frequently. It has very often led to great talks about science. You should be informed and knowledgable about the work you want to discuss (and be specific with your queries), and I think you'll find that most academics are more than happy to talk about their own work. You can learn a lot about a subfield this way.

impendia 13y ago

I am a professional mathematician and number theorist, who has studied work closely related to Zhang's. I had never heard before of an older (40+) mathematician, who has done essentially no meaningful work in the subject before, and has virtually no publication record, coming out of seemingly nowhere and proving such a big theorem. This is in no way a slight against older mathematicians, indeed many spectacular results are proved by people over 40, but they typically accumulate an excellent track record on the way. Indeed, I fully assumed that this guy was full of shit. However, I have heard that well-known experts in the area have closely read Zhang's paper and found it to be correct. This is enough to put a smile on my face. There is something wonderful about skepticism and cynicism being proven wrong, especially when the skepticism is my own.

Xcelerate 13y ago
Ah, I did not realize he had not really published before. I suppose that is very surprising. Also, the way your post is written seems to suggest that most results out of nowhere are "crankish". Are there really people who spend their time working on these things that aren't professional mathematicians and who submit flawed papers to math journals? I would think that would be an unproductive use of one's time...
- impendia 13y ago
  > Are there really people who spend their time working on these things that aren't professional mathematicians and who submit flawed papers to math journals? Yes, as well as people who are professional mathematicians (usually not well known) who also do so. There is not a flood of such papers, but my thesis advisor, in his capacity as editor of the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, gets at least a dozen or so such papers each year. I refereed some of them, and had to explain to these authors why their proofs were mistaken.
  - cantos 13y ago
    Attempted proofs of Fermat's Last theorem by cranks used to be so common that Edmund Landau, a German mathematician, had a form letter for them: “Dear Sir/Madam: Your proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem has been received. The first mistake is on page _____, line _____.” I have sometimes seen notes on the pages of prominent mathematicians that they don't have time to examine unsolicited attempts at major problems by amateurs so there must still be a good number. I also have known someone whose sibling is a software engineer and whose hobby is trying to resolve P ? NP.

vicaya 13y ago

Yitang's PhD is in a completely different field of math: algebraic geometry. Number theory is his hobby. This is a very inspiring story!

CurtMonash 13y ago
"Completely different" is a bit of an exaggeration. Some number theorists are really algebraic geometers. But yes, there are people who switch away from their thesis areas. Barry Mazur, if the story is correct, wrote an awesomely short thesis on topology. But he's famous as a number theorist.
- gchpaco 13y ago
  The old saw is that when you finish your PhD you will either be sick to death of the subject and do something quite different, or still interested and spend most of your career on the same subject. It does seem to be quite binary in practice.
nijk 13y ago
The proof of Fermat's last theorem is algebraic geometry.

jere 13y ago

Using your numbers, he'd be one out of thousands or tens of thousands of math professors at well known universities. But it's worse because he has never published before and he's only a lecturer. Needle in a haystack.

droithomme 13y ago

> I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" You can do this, especially if you have an intelligent question, or interesting insight. I have emailed top people in various fields with specific questions and gotten answers. They usually won't want to do a private tutorial to someone with no knowledge of the field, but if there is some ambiguity or possible error in a paper of theirs they pretty much always will respond. I have also on a number of occasions made cold calls on luminaries in fields when I am in their city, and when going to conferences the opportunity to meet and greet are one of the main purposes. I also receive cold calls, visits and emails from people interested in the couple of fields where I am known, and I always respond positively to them. My email responses get more spaced out if there's too much tutorial, but brief yes and no questions, or interesting comments are pretty much always well received. I don't really like getting phone calls, but I have had some pretty interesting conversations with people who managed to find my phone number, most of these are from people overseas.

snprbob86 13y ago
> if there is some ambiguity or possible error in a paper of theirs they pretty much always will respond I just want to chime in and also mention that while proper scientists should always enjoy an opportunity for improvement, any proper human always enjoys some acknowledgement of success. I've implemented some cool algorithms I've seen in papers and emailed the authors to 1) Thank them for their research, 2) Show them my implementation , 3) Ask them for their feedback. Their email addresses are generally at the top of the papers, so I figured "what the heck" and the response I've gotten the few times I've done this has been amazing. I'll further extend this to say that you should never be afraid to talk to somebody because of your perception of their status. You'd be amazed at how accessible top tier folks are. Often a key factor in their greatness is their ability to collaborate! But please, be extremely respectful of their time: Keep your messages brief, to the point, and pleasant. Don't fawn or apologize. Don't ask to ask. Don't justify or elaborate. Treat them as a colleague and they will generally treat you as such.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > I'll further extend this to say that you should never be afraid to talk to somebody because of your perception of their status. I'm quoting this for truth, because it didn't feel emphasized enough. Status is never, never, never a don't-talk-to-me forcefield. Even the goddamn POTUS reads letters from random little people. You're allowed to talk to whoever you please, and they're allowed to say no or decline to answer.

emhart 13y ago

-I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?"- Why not? I am a barista with a high school dimploma and no interest in higher education, but I have emailed linguists and archaeologists to ask questions and discuss my independent research. In most cases I have heard back within 24 hours, in one, where the gentleman I reached out to had a 32 page CV, had held multiple chairs, and ran 2 institutions, I heard back from him within the hour. In each case I was received with enthusiasm and treated as a peer who just needed some questions answered. It was a revelation for me, and I'm just some guy. I suggest that if you are active in both your field of study and academia, you should absolutely reach out to the experts in your field. As Regina Spektor says, "People are just people, they shouldn't make you nervous."

rz2k 13y ago
That's pretty impressive. I followed a couple links, and enjoyed reading this: http://ronininstitute.org/in-defense-of-the-independent-academic-lifestyle/412/ http://ronininstitute.org/in-defense-of-the-independent-acad... Is independent academia a big thing?
- emhart 13y ago
  I have been sitting for 20 minutes now, trying to come up with an answer to this. Simply, I don't know. For me, I hope that being able to put "Ronin" down in the "institute" field on CFPs and research grants allows my work to be taken seriously. It's hard to corral a movement out of "independents" but Jon Wilkins and the folks at Ronin are devoting themselves to it. I believe it's people like Jon who are giving me the chance to be someday remembered as someone who contributed to the sum total of human knowledge, rather than just some guy who knew a lot about locks.
616c 13y ago
Good for you, and I seriously mean that. One of my friends, who actually finished a BA and dropped out of a MA degree (not to say your educational credentials matter, but it will become relevant later in my post) had some really neat ideas on ancient Semitic linguistics, related to a bunch of wall inscriptions he found out about while living in Egypt. He later tried to contact the foremost authority, a Western academic who is one of the few who had any interest or academic weight (with a topic this esoteric, I imagine the former is more important) and present his ideas. Needless to say, that ancient Semitic linguist was not amused. He not only ripped into my friend, but at the suggestion my friend visit the site that inspired him to do said research, the professor mentioned he had an exclusive memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian governmental body in charge of the antiquities, and threatened him if he ever visited without the permission the professor had no intention of providing, he would be arrested. Keep in mind he was not even in the locale, but in the United States. I saw subsequent emails where he refused to even consider my friends theories, and was increasingly dismissive. So my friend, not easily discouraged, went on to contacting the less than a dozen experts in this field, few with any knowledge on this period. He presented paper drafts to several; many ignored, and those who responded rudely dismissed him without getting into the content. Maybe it is just because the field is narrow, but I suspect certain academic disciplines believe in some kind of job security, and pouncing on amateurs and pushing them out the door, regardless of their perceived contribution to the field, is paramount. I am glad you have had the opposite experience. I too a masters degree dropout from an accelerated program, and left with out the masters in the bachelors masters combo. Why? Because despite the money I never had experiences like you in school. All the teachers in my program, despite thinking my knowledge level was quite strong and generally liked me, disliked meeting with me outside of class or pushing me to read or study things we could discuss. I got disheartened, and was disgusted at how many teachers do not belong in academia, and just like the echo chamber of their own ideas. I know I could have made a better effort, but the lack of effort on their end to sit and talk with anyone who had a modicum of interest was shocking to me. To this day, I wish private universities would take the out of class contact more seriously in evaluating professors, because your comment proves no one is too busy to talk on academic subject they are passionate about. My friend's anecdote just shows some cliques are just that, and letting anyone is calculated risk to the group regardless of contribution; some people will never take that risk. I just wish assholes like that would go somewhere else other than a university setting. tl;dr I had the opposite experience with academics, and one of my friends tried hard in a very small domain and had even worse results; YMMV and some academics have no interest in spreading knowledge at all. Fuck them.

anusinha 13y ago

Talking to other people in the field is a great way to find influential work. You can only read so many papers, but by talking to many other people, you expand your accessible information. Other people can mention that this paper is great or that they've seen a series of great papers from a particular lab, etc and point out connections that you might miss. It's not just the frequency of names that matters though, it's the quality of work? Are they doing revolutionary or deeply insightful work or are they doing lots of good work, but that isn't _great_ work. (Yes, the comparison is a little vague--leaving that open to interpretation intentionally).

jacquesm 13y ago

> I'm sure I can't just email these professors and say "hey, want to chat?" I've done just that on a number of occasions and more often than not the answer is "yes, sure". As long as the chat is interesting enough. If you start off without asking you at least save yourself the rejection. But you will also save yourself acceptance.

randomsearch 13y ago

> I see the same names frequently pop up on papers I read -- are these the experts? Not always, but often, yes, the names you see frequently are people leading the field, or people who have been around much longer and have acquired more background knowledge than most. When you go to conferences, it's obvious who the leaders of the field are - sometimes they're the ones generally speaking most sense, or the ones quietly sat at the back and chiming in with insights from time to time. > So where does this group collaboration and unanimous identification of who the leaders in a field are come from? Conferences. Yes, that is where people meet, socialise, network, and then subsequently collaborate. Usually there are a few large conferences in a field, and then smaller groups breaking off from that to workshops, networking meets etc. When you make contact with someone at a conference, stay in touch, visit them to give a talk or host them, and relationships build from there. It takes time.