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During my research, it appears that I have managed to stumble upon a new kind of solution for a problem that our lab has previously worked on. My classmate in the lab worked on that problem prior to me and developed and implemented a solution to that problem.

To clarify, I was not deliberately aiming to address that particular problem. It just turns out that the primary problem I was working on included this particular problem as a sub-problem, and it was almost immediately solved as a consequence.

The solutions are distinct, but presently, I am leaning towards mothballing my results for this particular problem. There are no personal conflicts presently, but I am worried about the possibility that this might engender some negative feelings in the lab. What is the best course of action?

Sursula
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user1848065
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    Are you and the colleague both graduate students, or both post-doc or faculty? If you're both PhD students, how close are each of you to finishing, and has your colleague published their results/solution? – CrimsonDark Mar 17 '23 at 04:00
  • We are both PhD students, and will probably graduate around the same time. My colleague has written up a draft of their results and I can see them publishing within the next half year. – user1848065 Mar 17 '23 at 04:09

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A similar issue arose in CS several years ago. Two students from different universities worked on exactly the same important problem independently and finished at the same time. They actually knew one another (conference meet ups) and their advisors knew one another quite will. But nobody on either side knew of the work of the other. There wasn't even any hint that either "should have known" of the work of the other.

There was a fairly long investigation when this came to light, but the end result was that it was determined that the work was independent. Both students earned their doctorates.

And they published a joint paper. That may be the solution you need here.

Your problem is a bit different if you have extended their work but it might be worth having a discussion between yourselves and the advisor(s) about how to maximize the outcome for everyone.

Buffy
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First thing I'd do is to talk with the classmate and your supervisor. It may benefit all of you to put something together that can become potentially even better than any single approach seen as isolated. Science is collaborative by nature.

Furthermore, there may well be space in the literature for two different approaches to the same problem, and the community may learn from them both, although of course this can't be assessed without knowing and being expert in the field. One more reason to talk.

Christian Hennig
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Go ahead and publish --- advance the science

I recommend you proceed with research and publication for this result. If the result is new and advances the field (and it certainly sounds like it would) then it is desirable for the advancement of knowledge that it be developed and published. Depending on the overlapping research by your classmate, there might be scope for a fruitful collaboration, or it might be best to go ahead and publish your existing result without further input. The ideal ethos for science is one that recognises the value of that knowledge as being something above the importance of personal advancement and careerism. We all need to get used to the fact that scientific advancements may occur in ways that retard our own personal career advancement, but which give broader social benefits. Your classmate will have to get used to this fact, and there is no better time to start getting used to that than now.

If you were to mothball your result in the interests of keeping the problem open for your classmate then you will be delaying a scientific advancement in your field, purely on the basis of careerist considerations (albeit for him, not for you). There is no guarantee that your classmate will rediscover your solution, and his work might not be as good a solution as your own. The longer the publication of a valuable solution to the problem is delayed, the more time and efficiency is lost when others encounter the problem you have solved. It is also a loss of efficiency if your classmate continues working on his own solution without becoming aware of this new solution, which might render some of his research redundant, or set him on a path to further improvements. Publish your solution and give him the chance to adapt his own research to the new state of the science, without delay.

It is likely that your classmate will indeed experience some negative feelings about having someone else solve a problem he had been hoping to solve. It is perfectly natural to feel disappointed when you work hard on something and the output of that work turns out to have less value than you thought it would. (I once spent a summer researching and solving a problem that I thought waas a big deal and would be a great paper; to my disappointment, it turned out that I had rediscovered an old result.) Your classmate will need to adapt his own research to take account of your solution, which might or might not set him back in his PhD candidature, but which will give him an opportunity to advance further from a higher state of knowledge. If he is mature enough to see the bigger scientific picture then his negative feelings will be limited to his own disappointment, and will not manifest in any negativity or ill-will towards you.

Ben
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