Need Help Publishing Theory

Last night, an amazing theory came to me. To prevent someone else from taking credit, I will not post it. I would like to know where I can publish it. When it is published I will post it. If it never is published, I will post it anyways. Before publishing, I must first write it, so it won't be done for a while.

Could you at least tell us what this theory is about?

Is it socio-economic? Psychological? Scientific? Logic? etc...

It has to do with me possibly figuring out what all of the first 10 dimensions are.

Write a letter to Scientific American.

Write your abstract and paper and publish. Copyright laws protects you from someone else "taking credit" and that issue is not how the scientific community operates. If you think you are on to something, you can contact any of the current researchers in this area (and there are a lot with some very well developed theories) and you could collaborate. A PhD in Physics with a focus on quantum theory and some heavy n-dimensional math would also help.

Sounds like you are not a scientist as if you were you would already know about the process. In any case, you will need some heavy mathematical proofs to back up your theory and then you can publish in a peer review journal, like Physics Review first and then you hit the lay rags like SA or better rags like Science. A lay article like a lot of the drivel theories that pop up on ATS will not cut it in either case....

Also, I suggest reading "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene for a start and then some of Michio Kaku's books/papers as well. Kaku especially is at the forefront of n-dimensional theories and these guys use the heavy duty math and are peer reviewed as well.... Good luck!!

not being offensive or anything but i think theories should not be copyrighted. its only an idea which may be proven or may be put into practise. its not something invented or anything. who knows, you might have stolen the idea of someone else? or maybe someone has thought about it before but not spoken out? copyright should only be towards th every first creditor - but we will never know the very first will we? i think you better check if it is already published or something as well. im sure you dont want go into some legal stuff if your idea attacks or is similar to others.

Originally posted by Channy
not being offensive or anything but i think theories should not be copyrighted. its only an idea which may be proven or may be put into practise. its not something invented or anything. who knows, you might have stolen the idea of someone else? or maybe someone has thought about it before but not spoken out? copyright should only be towards th every first creditor - but we will never know the very first will we? i think you better check if it is already published or something as well. im sure you dont want go into some legal stuff if your idea attacks or is similar to others.

Um.. I think that's what UofCinLA is saying.

Reread the part about "that's not how the scientific community operates."

The suggestion was given to the thread starter to get his theory checked, and get it sent to a magazine to be made public.

UofC is right -- and made some real good reading suggestions. You can also get a letter published sometimes that has your theoretical material in it (there are some journals that take this.)

Your paper will need references to other papers, so here's the stylesheet you will need when you submit your paper:
www.monroecc.edu...

For math papers, the best source to see who's written what that relates to your theory is www.scirus.com... -- and you can also search on scholar.google.com...

When you do the preliminary reading, also check up on who their sources are so you can backtrack to the source. Do not make the silly mistake that most of the goofy websites do in thinking that they know everything about "the big bang" from television. You've got to read the most recent stuff on this.

If you're doing dimensions, then you'll need to have at least looked at commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, particularly the graduate level texts:
www.emis.de...*+Eisenbud+

(that's 1995 issue and an often used book, so you really will have to use them as a reference.) Y.B. Pesin is another name whose works you should be familiar with, and you may wish to look into Cantor sets, topology, equilibrium sets and so forth. This paper seems to have a decent handle on dealing with thermodynamic formalism in multiple dimensions. You might want to have a look-see and see how these equations would be modified for the theories you propose:
www.math.ist.utl.pt...

Let me echo UcLA's warning, though. The "theorizing" that goes on here at ATS would be laughed out of any university math class where they're talking about dimensions, time, space, topologies, and so forth. Before you go off with some new theory, run it by a prof or someone who has a Masters' or better in math.

Otherwise, the review you will get when you try to publish your idea will be just blistering and very very nasty.

[edit on 6-12-2004 by Indellkoffer]

I saw the Elegant Universe on NOVA, and I got the idea from that. And plus, like you said, most ATS theories are considered "crazy," so I might as well post it. I'll write up a word doc first and then copy/paste it, along with any pics.

When you post on an ATS Forum you give the owners a non-exclusive right to go publish your information anywhere they want.

If you want to copyright written material as yours, take the minimum step of writing it, signing it, placing the copyright symbol on it with a date, and sending it by registered post in a sealed envelope to yourself or a trusted individual eg solicitor "Not To Be Opened".

Originally posted by invader_chris
Last night, an amazing theory came to me. To prevent someone else from taking credit, I will not post it. I would like to know where I can publish it.

THere are a few possiblities. SInce you don't know how to publish a theory and are asking here for help, I will assume that its not the sort of thing that would get accepted to a mainline scientific journal or philosophical journal.

Effectively, a theory is not something that one can get 'credit for' in the sense of copyright or patents, so all that you'd be looking for is something to demonstrate that you thought of it first. This would merely require writting it out and going to something like a Notary Public and having it stamped signed and witnessed, and then since you'd want other people to see it you'd put it up on the internet.

You could look here, Blackwell Publishing, to try and find some sort of science/math/philosophy journal that would accept whatever kind of paper you are thinking of, one need merely look at the subject the journal publishes on and check out its submission criteria. from what I understand, a paper to these sorts of journals goes thru 'peer review', so there's no way to get it published with out people, in that field none the less, from seeing it (at least not published in a journal anyways)

The other option is to go to a 'vanity press', I think BarnesnNoble do these. You basically pay to have the book 'published', just not distributed or marketed or any of that.


You'll probably be better off just discussing the idea here tho.

By all means get it out there - in science the first to publish usually given any honors (little money in pure science - it's one grant handout to the next).

A good illustration is the work of Penzias and Wilson (3K background cosmic radiation find). At first their research was for satellite communication but they picked up the noise. They went to an astronomer who had the light bulb come on that they found the proof for the big bang and they both published separate papers. Penzias and Wilson got the Nobel and what little fame there is in pure science since they did the work but in this case they had to collaborate with another scientist to really uncover/prove what they found.

You should at least go to a research library and do a literature search to see if someone has already published something similar. If there are papers close, then you get in contact with them and lay your ideas on the line. If it has merit, they would typically either collaborate or wait for you to publish and then they would test your work. Actually, a lot of unpublished or partial work is talked and discussed openly at various conferences held around the world. Science is all about testing and re-testing theories and most do not do that in a vacuum....

The scientific process, especially theoretical work, is fun but it is low pay and a lot of work.

THEORY

I know its short, but it seems to make sense. I got a license saying that I deserve credit and that they cannot edit it. I'm also waiting for Martin to give me the calculations to prove this.

[edit on 6-12-2004 by invader_chris]

Interesting -

All the data I've seen places dimension 5+ at something smaller than the Planck length and therefore very small and problematically, unable to be seen as our viewing/testing would alter the system ('dingers cat in the box problem).

Nice hypothesis and unique but I'm not sure how you would go about testing it, especially as it relates to the ghost/spiritual stuff. You either have to prove it via direct tests and proofs or you derive it by disproving all other hypothesis. Both seemingly daunting in this case....

Now with my bio background I can tell you for a fact that the human mind is a vast area of unknowns, I can assure you that the human mind can dream up, visualize, smell and hear things without them actually being there - e.g. a dream or hallucination with no secondary confirmation of a detectable outside stimuli. Doesn't take drugs, just a busy and active mind or tumors or other damage. I have lucid dreams - I doubt highly I'm on some astral projection plane. Weird sometimes and very freaky but altogether ordinary and until we can tap into them from the outside, they are just electrochemical signals bouncing around in my noggin.

I've heard and read much about remote viewing but I've not seen any solid double blind studies that it actually works in any repeatable fashion. If that was the case, Bin Laden and anyone else could be under surveillance with ease and our ops guys in Iraq would not be getting mowed down all the time. I think corporate espionage would also be on the upswing if this were the case.

In any case, nice theory....

You cannot copyright an idea. You can however copyright some method of using your theory to accomplish something in a particular way that is unique.

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I would get it recorded as a 'public document' first. This can usually be done at a county recorders office in US. Technically I believe all you have to do is get a hard copy of it printed out to have a copyright, but for legal defense it is good to get it US/or-other-nation copyrighted.
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Well... I do have bad news for you -- mathemeticians (no kidding) have already "figured out" the 10th dimension and so forth and you're about 50 years too late with your idea.

In the field of topology, they have the mathematics of dimensions and can figure out just what a 20-dimensional cube looks like. These are fairly important problems and they have some really head-spinning research that they do.

Here's a simple explaination:
www.shef.ac.uk...

They even have ways to represent these topologies in 3-dimensional space.

The reason they know about this is that multidimensional topologies are used in solving some of the complex problems of space, time, networks, physics, databases, virtual worlds, and so forth. The mathematics of multidimensional space gives us a lot of information about complex three-dimensional things.

So, yes, mathemeticians already described the 10th dimension ... and any number of dimensions for as high as you can count. They have mathematical ways of dealing with them and of describing them.

However, topology's a great subject and a lot of fun -- I hope you'll get some books on it and start studying.

Byrd is on to it - for some time now math has been able to work out the n-dimensional stuff - the math is hairy but actually easy and well proved.

Problems come up when they use that to try and work out the physics of the Universe and make it all fit with both "standard" and quantum models. GUT is close but we're not there yet....

Nifty work been done by Kaku and others but the proof is yet to be found in the proverbial pudding and if it does it play with some ghostly, spiritual plane - well that is up for some serious debate....

You could try publishing a pre-print of your article at Arxiv, but I'm not sure if you need an academic affiliation. The article probably belongs in Gr-qc, Hep-th or one of the mathematical categories. Maybe the level of articles at Arxiv is a bit too high though. It might be better to write to a scientist first, as others have suggested above.

Referring to Byrd's post:

That's exactly what I told him on another thread he posted his ideas in.

Those 10 dimensions in String Theory don't need to be justified with a name or adjective like "Spiritual", "Mental", or "Physical".

Those dimensions are just there out of mathematical necessity to tie gravity in with the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces. That's what SuperString Theory is about, tying everything together for a TOE.