I believe I have a clever idea/tool that should be widely adopted by the research community. How to interpret a lukewarm response?

Question

Related to this question, except I do not believe (and have not claimed) that I have solved an open problem, famous or otherwise.

I came up with an idea (specifically, how to pronounce numbers in bases that are a power of two) that I think is useful for the research community, for educators, and in recreational math.

I have seen it mostly ignored and poorly understood. Occasionally it has been ridiculed and called 'pure crankery', 'Doctor Seuss names', 'pure bullsh*t' without the asterisk, downvoted, and even in a some rare cases deleted on internet answers sites. But about three (out of about a hundred) maths and computer professors have said it is 'valid', 'very clever, or 'works to some extent' (all on Quora).

How do I interpret this? How to find out whether I am a crank? I am not aiming to convince others that I am not a crank because only others can judge whether I am a crank or not. I don't want to convince people that I am not a crank if I actually am one, because that would mean I would be more likely to stay deluded, if I am deluded.

How should I respond to those that refuse to discuss the idea on the ground that it is crankery? What are they thinking?

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Dan Romik · Answer 1 · 2021-03-27T20:48:05.133

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If I draw a drawing on a piece of paper and show it to some friends, that won’t make me a crank despite the fact that I have zero talent in drawing. But if I start claiming my drawing is an important work and should be published or sold or talked about, then I am a crank. The difference is in having a realistic view of the significance of what you’ve done.

Your idea is “valid” and can be reasonably described as “clever”. It is a cute idea, in the same way that I thought it was cute one day many years ago when I discovered I can count all the way to 1023 using my fingers instead of 10 if I make use of binary representations. But your idea is not an idea in math — maybe in math education or in the general area (that doesn’t have a proper name because there is little need for one) of math terminology/notation. And, like my idea at the time, it solves a problem that I don’t think is a real problem anybody has: there just aren’t enough people with a need to extensively communicate numbers in base two by reading them out loud.

What does it mean when on the Internet most academics ignore your idea, and a few say you are a crank and a few say your idea is valid?

It means your idea is technically valid but not as interesting as you think it is.

How do should I respond to those that refuse to discuss the idea on the ground that it is crankery?

You should not respond in any way but leave those people in peace. People have no obligation to discuss your idea, and if they don’t want to discuss it then it means they don’t think it is interesting enough to discuss. Find someone else who does, or find a better idea that people will be more impressed by.

edited Mar 27 '21 at 20:48

answered Mar 27 '21 at 19:24

Dan Romik

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I was once told that in some cultures the fingers have an ordinal, not cardinal sense. So, if you want to signal the barman to bring you one beer, hold up your pinky. But if you hold up your index finger you get four. I told this to a group of students once and was asked by a wise--guy "How do you ask for three?". Not my proudest moment as a professor, but I did demonstrate. – Buffy Mar 27 '21 at 19:33
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – cag51 Mar 28 '21 at 20:52
"when I discovered I can count all the way to 1023 using my fingers instead of 10 if I make use of binary representations... And, like my idea at the time, it solves a problem that I don’t think is a real problem anybody has" The scientists who invented computers would probably disagree. There's a reason why computers store numbers in binary format, after all. – nick012000 Mar 29 '21 at 11:03
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This answer and Stephen McKean's answer combined would be a very good answer. +1 – justhalf Mar 29 '21 at 11:48
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@nick012000 Using binary numbers in general does solve a real problem that people have. Using your fingers as binary digits, not so much. There is not often a reason to indicate several hundred things by holding up two hands and nothing more. – Mar 29 '21 at 14:46
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@nick012000 there’s a reason why humans count in base 10, after all. – Dan Romik Mar 29 '21 at 15:17
@justhalf thanks. Stephen McKean’s answer is already very good with no help from my answer. – Dan Romik Mar 30 '21 at 21:50
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+1 OP solved a problem which is simply not a problem for virtually all people, and has a hard time accepting it. That's all there is to it. People don't need to care about anyones ideas. – cheersmate Mar 31 '21 at 07:19
@Buffy that same wise--guy would have asked what 4 was in the binary way of counting with your fingers. – Maarten Buis Mar 31 '21 at 11:17

score 29 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '21 at 14:53

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In my opinion, "Dr. Seuss names" and other epithets you get don't contradict statements like "it's valid" or "clever". If I understand your idea correctly, you basically propose to introduce alternative number names, such as "shi" for what I'd pronounce as "sixty-four", which provides some potential benefits.

Academics would ignore this proposal because it's simply outside the domain of academic research. For me, introducing "shi" as an alternative for "sixty-four" is like proposing Dvorak (or other alternative) keyboard layout instead of the usual QWERTY.

You can do it, and you can argue why it is superior in your opinion, but what kind of response do you expect? Some people would like your idea, others would not. I personally can't force myself to use "kibibytes" and "mebibytes" even though they are kind of established.

Even if you manage to prove that your method is "better" according to some well-defined criterion, I think it is still mostly a political and cultural matter, and should be treated as such, rather than a part of an academic discourse.

answered Mar 27 '21 at 14:53

rg_software

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+1 but what on earth is a kibibyte?! – astronat supports the strike Mar 27 '21 at 14:54
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1.How does 'pure bullsh*t' not contradict 'it's valid', 'it's very clever', and 'it works to some extent'? 2.There is pedagogical research, and psychological research. There's also linguistics, history of counting systems, and that's off the top of my head.3.How is it a political matter? 4.How is it a cultural matter?5.Your one valid point in my opinion: it is like proposing Dvorak etc. Was that ridiculed, sworn at, called crankery, and deleted and did anyone refuse to discuss it on the ground that it was crankery. If not then what is your point here precisely? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 16:03
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This box is too small, sorry. "Pedagogical & psychological research" is too general to talk about. If you write a scientific paper, it will be reviewed, and you'll receive more specific feedback rather than "bullsh*t". It's political/cultural matter because I am not switching to Dvorak regardless of it's benefits, and I can both recognize it's efficient and call enforcing it 'crankery' due to other (non-scienific) reasons I might have. Likewise, I might recognize ingenuity of your system and oppose its adoption for this or that reason. – rg_software Mar 27 '21 at 17:07
@rg_software 1."Pedagogical & psychological research" is too general to talk about." What do you mean? They are relevant parts of academia. 2. Writing a scientific paper isn't enough, surely? It must be published by a recognized journal surely? Otherwise it will likely not even get read let alone be reviewed. 3. Who said anything about enforcement? On the contrary. I have always maintained that there will always be a place for the current predominant method of zip code style pronunciation, just as there is in base ten, for zip codes, and other codes, and telephone numbers and so on. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 17:25
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When we discuss 'research', we usually don't discuss 'research in general', we analyze a specific work (paper). Your proposal is not 'research' because it doesn't provide experimental evidence proving anything. It isn't bad, it just isn't research (in terms of genre). It is enough to submit your paper in order to get feedback, even if it is rejected. If you say that you aren't pushing eforcement, then what is your goal? You published your proposal, and anyone interested can follow it. Some criticize it, but you can't please everybody, really. – rg_software Mar 27 '21 at 17:31
Who mentioned 'research'? 2. Mathematical research doesn't provide experimental evidence proving anything, does it? 3.Your only not necessarily invalid point, in my opinion: 'It is enough to submit your paper in order to get feedback'. How would I go about submitting my idea as a paper? 4. My goal is to show people what is in some situations a better way of pronouncing binary numbers, and numbers in some other bases, and hopefully get some appreciation in return, or at least see it thoroughly analyzed. 5. I never aimed to please everybody, but 3 percent seems a bit low. And why deletion?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

Mar 27 '21 at 20:12

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Right, in math you don't usually experiment, but then you solve some problem and provide proofs. And here are no problems/solutions/proofs here. (For starters, the issue you are tackling might not be considered a 'scientific problem') You can submit your idea, but the odds are it will be considered out of scope for most journals since it is not 'research', and they do publish 'research'. I can only speculate why people tend to comment harshly on your proposal, but I think no 'scientific' issues are involved here (and hence I called it 'political/cultural'). – rg_software Mar 28 '21 at 03:05

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@astronat: See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#Multiple-byte_units – Daniel R. Collins Mar 28 '21 at 04:24

score 25 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 28 '21 at 21:14

The main question to ask is: why should anyone care?

Naming conventions are a dime a dozen. It's not like they need to be nonsense, not at all. Every computer library developed from scratch comes up with naming conventions, usage conventions, interface conventions, etc. But precisely because such conventions are quite freely choosable, it creates a cost to use them consistently and this will not happen if there is not a very tangible benefit.

If I have a software library with very extensive, say, parallelization support, then it may make sense to learn the conventions that it imposes on the user. Maybe it even finds a way of expressing things more cleverly than existing models and if that happens, it may ultimately take on. Still, this can take a very long time. Many clever programming paradigms from languages such as Lisp or Haskell took decades to seep into the mainstream. Mind you, these are operational advantages that they confer and yet it was not easily accepted.

Introducing a notation/expressive language that does not fill an obvious niche or confer a distinct advantage is mostly a futile exercise and rarely takes off, independent of its rationality. Perhaps the most interesting such experiment is Esperanto, which is, comparatively spoken, a modest success.

So, your idea may be rational (I cannot judge if it is), it may be even modestly useful (I have no opinion on that), but to get many people to adopt it or even just take it seriously, it needs to provide very tangible and substantial benefits and even then its success may still be decades off.

Unlike a mathematical theorem where there may be few people able to judge its merits or proof, but where there is at least a kind of "objective" importance to the question and reality check to the proof, naming jugglery is often close to crankery in the sense that many self-styled physics "revolutionaries" simply clothe either trivialities or non-committal vague statements with verbal jiu-jitsu which makes them capable of "proving anything" and impossible to falsify. I guess that your idea is also a name game is what may induce some of your critics to consider your idea close to crankery.

Again, I personally do not have an opinion about that, but it's clearly not an idea many people consider important to discuss or advances their own understanding of things.

The fact that 3 out of a hundred profs have stated something positive about your idea, may give some indication that you are trying to cram the idea into a hundred people's throats. Is it really such an important idea? I mean, it's not solving world hunger, cancer or even just determining the nature of Dark Matter or the Hubble constant.

It begins and ends with the one question I mentioned at the beginning: Why should anyone care?

The main question to ask is: why should anyone care? --- It seems likely that I've spent more time reading all the comments (including those in chat) and answers here than I've spent over my entire life actually writing and/or speaking numbers in different bases, and I'm in math. For me this only seems to be when working non-trivially with the ternary representation of elements in the Cantor middle thirds set. — Dave L Renfro, Mar 30 '21 at 13:14
Naming conventions are a dime a dozen. Reminds me of this xkcd. — Dan Romik, Mar 31 '21 at 02:21
Good answer. Why should anyone prefer to pronounce 10,120 (base eight) as "one tin one shi two mi (base eight)", instead of "ten thousand one hundred twenty (base eight)"? It just replaces the widely known names of the ones/tens/hundreds/etc places with unfamiliar names. It seems this just reduces the number of syllables needed, but that's not a problem most people need or want solved. I haven't seen any argument of why the proposed method is in any way superior to the usual "non-zip code" way of pronouncing numbers. This seems similar to renaming the digits 0-9, which no one wants. — Nuclear Hoagie, Mar 31 '21 at 17:00
@NuclearHoagie Did you click on the phrase 'an idea' in the question? It's a link to an article explaining and justifying the idea. Your complaints are all addressed in it. Including how renaming the digits could help prevent confusion among young students learning/acquiring additional/foreign spoken bases. — Matthew Christopher Bartsh, Apr 05 '21 at 03:19
@MatthewChristopherBartsh I think you'd need some way to show that adding a language element has any pedagogical benefit, and isn't just additional overhead that makes the problem worse. You also have the problems that you can only count up to 2^9 with this system, and you need to remember about twice as many place names (every power is completely unique, unlike ten thousand/hundred thousand/ten million/hundred million, which only introduces a new term every third power). — Nuclear Hoagie, Apr 05 '21 at 12:37

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 28 '21 at 20:36

Terry Tao might suggest that you be skeptical of your own work. In order to produce great ideas, you need to put bad, average, and good ideas through many phases of refinement. If you do not view your own work critically, you might not identify necessary changes.

It is my personal opinion that your idea is not a mathematical idea (or at least, not an interesting one); based on the responses you have received from others, it seems like I am not alone in this opinion. It may be an idea about a topic relevant to math, but it does not provide any insight into the sort of questions that math aims to study. If you view your work skeptically, you may come to the same conclusion as me.

However, this is not to say that your idea is not interesting whatsoever. Suppose I were reading a science fiction book with a civilization that used binary as their customary number system. If one of these creatures said the word "tinmirlish" for 2^123456, I would be intrigued. If I then went and read your naming system, I would be floored by how creative and interesting it is -- changing vowels to express negation and inversion?? Awesome!

Upshot: Maybe the real issue you are facing is how to categorize your idea. I don't think your idea is interesting mathematically, but I think it is very interesting as a world-building concept. Perhaps other people find it interesting in some scopes and uninteresting in others. If you want to convince someone that your idea is interesting, try presenting it in a context that best fits the idea.

I mean world-building, but word-building is a part of that. If you've read anything by Tolkein, you'll know that good word-building is a huge boon to world-building. — Stephen McKean, Mar 28 '21 at 21:31
I'm not a linguist, so I can't speak to whether your idea is linguistic or not (it seems to be more in the realm of con-langs to me). But making up new words for numbers isn't mathematical, because it doesn't answer any questions that you couldn't have answered with pre-existing names or symbols. If I start using "#" for addition and "@" for multiplication, rewriting pre-existing equations isn't math. — Stephen McKean, Mar 28 '21 at 21:33

score 13 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 27 '21 at 18:26

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In answer to the 'How to find out whether I am a crank?' sub-question, you could try surveying the (especially peer-reviewed) literature in the same area to see whether there are any easily-discoverable objections to your ideas, or alternatives to your proposal, with which your articles have failed to engage. For example, given the IEC definition of "kibi", isn't it rather unfortunate that your proposal uses "ki" for $2^7$, rather than reserving it for $2^{10}$? And what makes your proposal better than that of Stern (1958, Science 128(3324):594-596), or that of McFeely (1959, Math. Teach. 52(5):356-357)?

You could also check the text of your articles for potentially-controversial assertions that are presented without a citation or other supporting evidence (For example, 'In schools and universities around the world, students are often invited or required to do arithmetic in base two, and/or in base eight. The students are often explicitly asked to compare base two or base eight with base ten' sounds far from obviously-true to me.)

answered Mar 27 '21 at 18:26

Daniel Hatton

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1.My idea seems to be completely new. I haven't been able to find anything remotely like it regarding binary, although I did see some stuff about pronouncing base eight and base sixteen. 2.You are one of the first to actually think about my idea in detail. It might be unfortunate that ki does not equal 2^10. I hadn't thought about that. But it's a minor detail, and the algorithm can easily be tweaked to deal with that. 3.How can I read about those proposals from the 1950's? 4.You got me. Perhaps I should substitute 'are sometimes explicitly asked...' or 'are often implicitly asked to...' 5. +1 – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 20:52
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@MatthewChristopherBartsh 'How can I read about those proposals from the 1950's?' If you're on the campus or logged in to the library web services of an institution whose library subscribes to the relevant journals, you should be able to get the papers here and here; if your library doesn't subscribe to the relevant journals, then you can make inter-library loan requests; and if you don't have a library, you may have to hand over some money to the publishers. – Daniel Hatton Mar 27 '21 at 22:14
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@MatthewChristopherBartsh "Perhaps I should substitute 'are sometimes explicitly asked...' or 'are often implicitly asked to...'" Even those weakened forms of the claims remain potentially controversial, and shouldn't be asserted without a citation or some other form of supporting evidence. – Daniel Hatton Mar 27 '21 at 22:26
It makes sense. I guess I could look for evidence. 2.Is there any chance you could tell me how each of these guys from the last century would have pronounced the binary number 111111 ?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

Mar 28 '21 at 16:43

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@MatthewChristopherBartsh I'm currently in the "don't have a library" category, so I'm flying somewhat blind, but from a subsequent letter in Science, I'm fairly sure Stern would pronounce 111111 binary as "aponedagcidbruapone". – Daniel Hatton Mar 28 '21 at 20:27

I looked at that letter. What a complicated system. I think I can cross Stern of the list of serious rivals to my system. I'd pronounce binary 111111 as 'thirty-two sixteen eight four two one', 'li ri mi four two one' or 'li ri mi ni ti si'. Note that teh last two have the same number of syllables as 'one one one one one one'. Binary 100000 would be just 'li'. How about McFeely? How would he pronounce binary 111111? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 28 '21 at 21:08

Please anyone if you have access to a library find out how McFeely would pronounce binary 111111 and/or any other binary numbers please help me/us out by posting it here. Could I post this as a question on SE Academia? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 29 '21 at 09:39

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@MatthewChristopherBartsh You might well be able to make a case that your formulation is superior (at least in some ways) to Stern's, but to avoid the suspicion of crankery, you'll need to present that case in a more analytical, more temperate, and more balanced (can you really not spot any advantage that Stern's formulation has over yours?) way than you did in your comment above. – Daniel Hatton Mar 29 '21 at 14:19

I don't understand why I should avoid the suspicion of crankery. If my idea is good, intelligent people should be able to see that, suspicion of crankery or not, surely? Especially when it is explained clearly, and is really not in any shape or form 'rocket science' but very simple. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 29 '21 at 19:53

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"If my idea is good, intelligent people should be able to see that." If enough intelligent people do not think your idea is good, then you need to honestly ask yourself whether your idea is good. – Stephen McKean Mar 30 '21 at 21:37

@StephenMcKean I have asked myself that. How about you answer my question about why I should avoid the suspicion of crankery? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 05 '21 at 03:32

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Cranks have earned the reputation of producing work that is not worth being taken seriously. – Stephen McKean Apr 05 '21 at 12:25

@StephenMcKean That doesn't apply in this case, because this is the first piece of work I have shown. And that's quite apart from the fact that many cranks produce no work. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 06 '21 at 12:55

I've read Stern's paper now, and I can say that, although it isn't utter rubbish as I'd thought from reading the letter to the newspaper about it by the author, and does work after a fashion, it really doesn't have anything my system doesn't have except senseless concatenation of the words that is not even analogous to decimal as we know it. I lacks many awesome features my system has. By the way, you nearly got the 100 rep bounty I posted. If I could have, I would have divided it equally between you and AppliedAcademic. Your answer still could get accepted and get a green check mark. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 09 '21 at 03:49

@DanielHatton Not only is my 'proposal' better than Stern's, Stern's is essentially merely a small part of mine. My system is a unified and infinite naming and pronunciation system (with an algorithm for the names) for all bases that are a power of two. Stern's is merely a blend of base two and base sixteen, imperfectly analogous to our everyday blend of base ten and base one thousand (a blend of bases two and eight would be a better/perfect analogy), and has only a half dozen names powers of two. Stern doesn't even say how his names are to be pronounced, nor why they are concatenated. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 10 '21 at 01:00

@DanielHatton If Stern was the first to propose a usable system for pronouncing binary numbers roughly analogous to how we pronounce decimal numbers then he did well, and others should have improved on his system. Do you think he was the first? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 12 '21 at 18:16

" For example, given the IEC definition of "kibi", isn't it rather unfortunate that your proposal uses "ki" for $2^7$, rather than reserving it for $2^{10}$?". The word/name/term "ki" is not similar enough to "kibi" to for there to be any confusion of the two. In my system there is no "bi" or "kibi". I should have pointed this out long ago. I guess I was too pleased with your answer that was the first to show some significant depth of understanding of my idea. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Apr 29 '21 at 17:18

score 10 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 27 '21 at 13:44

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First of all, find out if you are not even wrong. From your description of your proposal, it does not seem to be a falsifiable statement.

answered Mar 27 '21 at 13:44

Federico Poloni

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My idea is a precise procedure, an algorithm more or less, and is not a theory, and so it is of course not falsifiable. So it is not even wrong, but wrong and right don't apply to a procedure. The question is whether it works. In my humble opinion. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 14:01
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Define "works". "This method of counting makes it easier to understand the binary system"? That's a falsifiable claim. – Federico Poloni Mar 27 '21 at 14:09
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Upvoted F Poloni. I hadn't thought of that. I guess in that sense my idea is falsifiable, as long as an operational definition of 'easier' and 'understand' is found. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 14:14
To newbies: of course, by 'falsifiable' we mean 'in principle capable of being falsified', and not that it can actually be proved to be false in actual fact. It's a term from the philosophy of science. Don't imagine that I conceded that my idea is false. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 27 '21 at 15:15
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@MatthewChristopherBartsh "Easier to understand" is a well established, testable notion. People have been performing randomized studies to settle such questions for a long time. Take a few hundred students of appropriate age, teach a random half your method and the other half a normal curriculum about binary numbers, then give both halves the same test on the topic and perform some statistical analysis on the results. Doing that would be proper science. Arguing about your idea with people on the internet is not. – mlk Mar 29 '21 at 12:27
Do mean I should carry out the experiment myself? – Matthew Christopher Bartsh Mar 29 '21 at 12:45

AppliedAcademic · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-04T06:19:59.680

A lukewarm response would mean that either the idea is not interesting or useful to the intended audience. You should try to judge whether the idea is intrinsically interesting (the question certainly indicates that you feel so) and whether you are approaching an appropriate audience using an appropriate medium.

It certainly seems that you are pushing the idea too hard when you face a lot of indifference and still continue to reach out to individual professors. It is evident that they aren't interested in discussing it, and you should respect that. Maybe the proposed method has value in a different setting. Not every tool that is/could be useful to a researcher is published in scientific literature or discussed on academic fora. Seek out other media, gauge interest and try to identify if there is a group that is interested in/benefits from the idea as you envisage them to.

If you don't find such a group, record the method somewhere, preferably on an open platform and simply leave it until somebody that finds it useful comes along. If the idea is ahead of its time, then you should wait for somebody visionary enough to come across it. If you feel that the idea can do with more refinement, keep working at it and then try exhibiting it once you find significant improvement. Or if you feel it can be monetized and are interested in that, explore intellectual property options.

The bottomline is, irrespective of the true worth of an idea, it is counter-productive to force people to take note of it.

EDIT: Since articles related to the idea/tool have recently been shared by the OP, I am adding a few thoughts specific to the present situation. I hope that these will help clarify the difference between a research submission and an invention.

At the outset, the idea is (to me) clever, of possible interest to hobbyists and recreational number crunchers, and may have some potential contributions to specific fields (linguistics). There is no indication of crankery. As such, a case may be made that this idea (once established as novel) could be converted into a research submission. To make this case, the following crucial points would need to be addressed:

Identification of a target group/domain which would be benefitted by this work.
A clear and emphatic justification of why there is a need to undertake this effort. Presently, this is lacking. There must be a concrete use-case or demonstration of value, beyond a general statement of it being interesting or 'worth exploring'. Without this, the academic reader would conclude that insufficient background study and thought has gone into this idea. The onus of establishing worth through objective arguments lies on the author of the idea, not on the reader.
A discussion of why this has not been addressed so far (i.e. did nobody think of it or was it not worth the effort), and the related work that has already been done in the field. This may indeed require access to some academic literature, but is necessary. Hopefully OP has found some useful references in the linked answers.
A clear statement of what benefit the proposed tool gives. Is it to make teaching easy (in that case, look for a pedagogical audience)? Is it to enhance linguistic/numerical abilities (look for a linguistic audience)? It is going to make some computational process more efficient or unambiguous (go to computer scientists)? Is it going to add to how we deal with number systems (seek out mathematicians)?
Related to 4., demonstrate (ideally quantitatively) that the tool achieves this objective in comparison to the existing procedure, and therefore is worth consideration.

If these can be addressed, the response from academicians may be warmer. Personally, I think the blog format is well-suited and is quite engaging for these ideas.

Could you provide some examples to illustrate your points? I'm wondering what sort of size document you are envisaging for example and just how formal the language would have to be. — Matthew Christopher Bartsh, Apr 05 '21 at 08:25
@MatthewChristopherBartsh : The primary form of scientific communication in many fields is a scientific journal. Each journal has its own style guide that specifies these points (they can vary significantly). As example, see this guide (selected because of its reputation and because you won't be blocked by paywalls): https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/formatting-guide — AppliedAcademic, Apr 05 '21 at 13:30
@MatthewChristopherBartsh I should also mention that there are some journals which cater specifically to recreational math. You'll be able to find them quite easily on Google. — AppliedAcademic, Apr 05 '21 at 13:31
Should I send a link to an article on my blog to the journal? — Matthew Christopher Bartsh, Apr 06 '21 at 12:10
It's as if you are saying that academics judge even the shortest, simplest book by its cover, or which book shop it is in. — Matthew Christopher Bartsh, Apr 06 '21 at 12:58

I believe I have a clever idea/tool that should be widely adopted by the research community. How to interpret a lukewarm response?

7 Answers7

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