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I am an undergraduate student in Mathematics and I think that I have discovered something significant in Mathematics. My friends and some professors to whom I have sent my ideas also confirmed its significance. They suggested me to write a paper on it.

But the problem is that being an undergraduate student in Mathematics, I don't know how to write a paper. Besides, the professors to whom I have sent my ideas weren't experts in this field and they have asked me to send my works to some experts in the field. But unfortunately I don't know anyone such and I see no point in assuming that even if my work is significant, they would give time to read it without dismissing it beforehand as a work of some crank.

So what should I do? Can some suggestions be provided?

Peter Jansson
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    Hi there! There're some thoughts in: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8121/how-to-write-a-white-paper-for-a-non-academic – yo' Aug 21 '14 at 13:49

2 Answers2

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Ask your professor to introduce you to a suitable expert.

If some of your professors think that your work is of substantial quality and probably novel, then they are surely fine with introducing you to some suitable researchers in the field. Note that, for example, a postdoc in the respective field may suffice. They should be willing to give your work the "badge" that in their oppinion, your work seems to have potential by writing that to the suitable researcher themselves. This should get rid of the problem that you describe in your second-last sentence:

"But unfortunately I don't know anyone such and I see no point in assuming that even if my work is significant, they would give time to read it without dismissing it beforehand as a work of some crank."

Note that an experienced academic in the respective field can add a lot of value to your paper, including improving the accessibility and providing a more comprehensive literature survey.

DCTLib
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  • Thanks for your answer. I have already tried to send my ideas to a professor (who is an expert in this field) as suggested by one of those professors who are not expert in the field but to whom I first sent my ideas. But the professor was silent for quite some time and so when I inquired whether he had gone through my works, he replied that he hadn't given time to verify my works for he thinks that it is fairly improbable for an undergraduate to make some significant advance in Mathematics, simply because his training of Mathematics isn't complete yet! –  Aug 22 '14 at 05:02
  • That only means that the professor did not invest the time to look into your write-up (yet). I would say that you can inquire again in two weeks or so. If after three inquiries, she/he still did not read it, ask for the task to be delegated or for someone else to contact instead. – DCTLib Aug 22 '14 at 13:11
  • I don't know anyone else. Besides I am afraid that I will get a similar response from that person too! –  Aug 22 '14 at 16:49
  • @user170039 That's too bad. I see two options here (after the third inquiry) - (1) go back to your initial non-expert professor and ask for help, and (2) making a "sales pitch" to the expert professor during his/her office hours such that she/he actually wants to read your paper. – DCTLib Aug 22 '14 at 18:34
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First of all, Im not a mathematician but I am in a closely related field (CS)

I work in the machine learning domain and sometimes I read mathematical papers to find hints of my problem so I think I may able to provide a little help.

According to my experience, the most different part in Maths to the other domain is that, their main results, are always a collection of theorems or properties instead of experiments / methods.

In most of the cases I saw people organize their paper in the following way:

  • Formulate the problem, provide some minimum facts that is nessasary for the readers to understand your contribution.

  • List out your main results in layman terms.

  • Write all the necessary lemmas and theorems that finally lead to your main results.

  • QED!

  • If available, some application examples.

Rein
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