9

I am an independent researcher in mathematics. I wrote a research paper and I intend to publish it.

It is my first math research paper, I have no prior experience in this.

I submitted my paper to multiple journals, but they found out about the multiple submissions and replied negatively.

I tried to list my article on arXiv, but they require endorsement, which is hard to get.

These days I have been sending about 40 emails per day to either universities professors and to authors on arXiv and ask for the endorsement.

So far zero success.

My article is about number theory. First year at uni math knowledge should be enough to understand.

Can I please have an advice?

Publishing an article seems to be a real nightmare.

cag51
  • 67,924
  • 25
  • 181
  • 247
Jano
  • 109
  • 3
  • 6
    Your question seems to be more or less: What do I have to know in order to get a manuscript published smoothly? That's a rather broad question, probably too broad to be answered properly here. It would be best if you knew somebody personally who has experience with publishing and can guide you. Anyway, what you have learned already is that simultaneous submission to multiple journals is strongly frowned upon. There are various questions on this site about that. – Snijderfrey Dec 27 '22 at 16:53
  • 27
    A research paper should prove theorems that no mathematician currently knows and no mathematician could figure out easily from what they know. Given how much number theory is already known, it is extremely unlikely that a paper that can be understood with first year uni math knowledge has theorems no mathematician currently knows (or could easily figure out). – Alexander Woo Dec 27 '22 at 17:27
  • 17
    Don't most journals require authors to make a declaration at submission time that the manuscript isn't under consideration by any other journals? If so, one good piece of advice to OP might be "don't lie in declarations, and if you must lie in declarations, don't get caught". – Daniel Hatton Dec 27 '22 at 18:21
  • 4
    I think Bryan Krause has given an excellent answer to this question, thereby demonstrating that the question is answerable as it is. Thus, I voted to reopen. – Arno Dec 28 '22 at 11:30
  • Here is some more advice. The first option is to break up your paper into questions suitable/acceptable to math.SE. There's plenty of expertise on that website capable of determining the correctness of your ideas. If the math.SE option doesn't work, consider googling the following phrase: math PhD tutor. There is a surprising number of math PhDs offering their services as math tutors. They can quickly determine the correctness of your work, where the faults are if they exist, and what to do about it if it's correct... – ShyPerson Jan 14 '23 at 02:15
  • ....(Disclaimer: I am neither a math PhD nor a tutor. I have no financial interest in posting this nor anything else to gain.) – ShyPerson Jan 14 '23 at 02:15
  • First, congratulations on your result! One of the rules is that you can't submit a paper to more than one place at the same time. I recommend that you find an established and trusted mathematician who agrees to take the time to understand your result. Are there any at your university? – cgb5436 Jan 17 '23 at 18:49

2 Answers2

38

It is my first math research paper, I have no prior experience in this.

The purpose of PhD programs is to train people to do research, including the process of publishing papers. If you're an independent researcher with no prior training, you should not expect this to be easy and likely not even possible. Imagine if instead your post was "I'm an independent carpenter with no prior experience. I have some wood and I'd like to build a house; I put in some nails but no one wants to live there even though I've been handing out pictures of my wood pile to people on the city bus. Please help." I don't write this to be rude, I write this to help explain that doing and publishing research is a trained profession, and no one without training should expect they can do it without training, and that this is totally okay and does not mean you don't have potential to publish good research or talent any more than someone with interest and talent in carpentry is not expected to build houses from scratch with just that interest and talent.

I submitted my paper to multiple journals, but they found out about the multiple submissions and replied negatively.

Yes, they replied negatively because this is extremely rude behavior - reviewing a manuscript in academia takes volunteer time. You've asked a bunch of different volunteers to simultaneously spend their valuable time all on your manuscript rather than the many others they've received to review. An advisor would have helped you avoid this.

I tried to list my article on arXiv, but they require endorsement, which is hard to get.

ArXiv requires endorsement because they're trying to limit the amount of junk that gets posted on their site. An advisor could help you with both the endorsement part and with knowing whether your paper is useful or junk.

These days I have been sending about 40 emails per day to either universities professors and to authors on arXiv and ask for the endorsement.

This is also rude. Don't do this.

My article is about number theory. First year at uni math knowledge should be enough to understand.

If your article is understandable with just first year university math knowledge, it might be a good demonstration of what you understand about first year university math, but it is almost certainly not useful research-level mathematics, the kind that gets published in journals. An advisor would help you understand what sorts of papers are useful to publish and whether yours fits this category.

Can I please have an advice?

You need a research advisor/mentor. One way to obtain such a mentor is to apply for graduate programs - PhD programs and many masters programs provide mentorship in research; for PhD programs it's the main point. It may be possible to find someone to mentor you even without formally enrolling in a program, but this is also difficult - possibly more difficult than applying the normal way (why should a professor spend time mentoring someone who isn't admitted to their program, when they have other students who are admitted that also have questions?). You're more likely to convince someone to be your mentor if they appreciate your potential for research rather than this paper in particular.

Bryan Krause
  • 114,149
  • 27
  • 331
  • 420
  • 9
    Hmmm. The advice is good, but you are a bit harsh on a newbie in the first paragraph. A newbie on several levels, actually. – Buffy Dec 27 '22 at 17:30
  • 31
    @Buffy I don't consider it harsh to let someone know that they shouldn't expect to be able to do something that requires training without having training. It doesn't reflect poorly on them at all to be unable to publish research without training in publishing research. – Bryan Krause Dec 27 '22 at 17:43
  • 24
    I think the first paragraph is a work of art. The carpentry quote is a worthy candidate for the Academia.SE Hall of Fame, right along with the Holy Grail, or some other famous cup. – cag51 Dec 27 '22 at 17:57
  • 4
    @cag51: I also liked the first paragraph, and I think the last sentence of that paragraph quite adequately takes care of any possible perceived meanness. Regarding the Holy Grail example, I find myself unable to resist coming up with other examples: a 1000 terawatt fusion power plant, or some other power source; a Noble prize, or some other award; the Frontier supercomputer, or some other digital device; the SLS rocket, or some other horseless carriage. However, none of these really do it like the Holy Grail example . . . – Dave L Renfro Dec 27 '22 at 20:26
  • 1
    "I don't write this to be rude": But you ARE quite rude to the OP. Since it is not your first time, I seriously suggest you reconsider the way you approach questions and askers. –  Dec 28 '22 at 04:10
  • 4
    @User Given that the OP said "I submitted my paper to multiple journals, but they found out about the multiple submissions and replied negatively". I think the OP needs this kind of advice to seriously consider getting a mentor to learn how to publish. – Nobody Dec 28 '22 at 04:35
  • 18
    The advice in this answer may be “a bit harsh”, but it is also truthful, informative, and useful. In other words, it is just the sort of advice people come to this site to receive. I’ll take such advice any day over the polite but mostly useless advice that some people here seem to prefer. – Dan Romik Dec 28 '22 at 04:59
  • 6
    I echo @DanRomik's comment. Telling people what they want to hear is not always good advice; and not all good advice is what people want to hear. – Yemon Choi Dec 28 '22 at 05:06
  • 1
    If you're an independent researcher with no prior training, you should not expect this to be easy and likely not even possible. does this imply something is broken in research publication process, since it would likely mean someone with brilliant subject knowledge but little procedural/process knowledge would likely be declined/unpublished/ignored? Are there any counter examples of extremely unpolished yet groundbreaking research actually going all the way through to publication? – stevec Dec 29 '22 at 02:16
  • 7
    @stevec: In modern math, it is next to impossible to have "brilliant subject knowledge" without proper training. At the same time, amateurs sometimes do solve important math problems (in areas where very little depth of knowledge is required, see e.g. here). – Moishe Kohan Dec 29 '22 at 03:18
  • 5
    [submitting to multiple journals] is extremely rude behavior - not just rude, it is unethical and dishonest, as you typically have to agree the paper is not under consideration elsewhere when you submit – Kimball Dec 29 '22 at 13:01
  • 3
    @stevec In some fields, those aren't distinct concepts. – Azor Ahai -him- Dec 29 '22 at 16:28
  • 5
    @stevec I'd agree with Azor Ahai - research that is "extremely unpolished" is of little value and doesn't actually break ground - ideas are cheap, converting them into knowledge useful to humankind requires polish. Otherwise, you're just producing work for everyone else, and if it's your own idea and you won't put in the effort to understand how it fits in with what is already known, why should anyone else? – Bryan Krause Dec 29 '22 at 17:05
2

First, congratulations on your result!

One of the rules is that you can't submit a paper to more than one place at the same time. Also, there are different kinds of mathematical journals. If you submit a paper to a journal, you want to make sure your paper is suitable to that journal.

The reason your e-mails are not getting responses is because mathematicians do in fact receive e-mails from people who are almost certainly writing faulty proofs, so their "default" position is to not respond to your e-mail.

I recommend that you find an established and trusted mathematician who agrees to take the time to understand your result. Is there a local college or university you can go to? Going to a secretary at a physical location would probably be a better bet than e-mailing. I think a liberal arts college (if you're in the US) would likely be more welcoming than a research university.

Do you know anyone who knows the mathematical background to determine correctness? Maybe an undergraduate math major?

Wait a minute: was your paper by any chance about the Riemann hypothesis? I got an e-mail from someone about this a couple days ago.

cgb5436
  • 3,852
  • 2
  • 18
  • 40