iMechanica - If I have an imperfect or incomplete idea, shall I publish a paper? - Comments

Thanks

Weixu Zhang — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:30:59 -0500

Thanks Prof. Suo and Prof. Chen

an idea in bio-area is OK

Xi Chen — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:00:53 -0500

In bio-area, they have journals that specialize in only publishing ideas, you could either describe your model, or just a hypothesis regarding a bio-process, you do not need any theoretical/numerical/experimental proof. I actually think this is a good thing and it may invoke collaboration once noticed by somebody else who are interested in this topic. Of course this also shows that biology has a different "culture" than ours.

Why should I post original ideas in iMechanica?

Zhigang Suo — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:39:06 -0500

I wrote this generic answer a while ago. You may want to take a look:

Why should I post original ideas in iMechanica?

By posting your idea, you can establish your priority. However, if the idea appeals to someone else, she might choose to work on the idea herself. If she completes the problem before you do, she and you will have to share the credit. There is no algorithm as to exactly how the credit might be shared.

If you know that you are not likely to finish the problem, then there seems to be no downside to just post the idea. At least you get some partial credit. Who knows? Maybe another iMechanician is willing to point you to some direction that you can actually finish the problem, or make you see a larger problem, or make you see that your problem has been solved in a different context.

The decision has to be yours. It is hard to predict what kind of dynamics will unfold before you post your idea.

If I have an imperfect or incomplete idea, shall I publish a paper?

Weixu Zhang — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 00:44:24 -0500

Recently I am very interested in a physical phenomenon. Although the physicsts have had some physical explanations. Their explanations are just quantitively analyses. I think without the description of a real mechanical constitutive equation, their theory is very difficult to use for the engineers. So I give a phenomenological model with some parameters need to be experiementally fitted. It needs a long time for me to accomplish my model, and this work has no relation to my research at this stage.

So I want to some suggestions. Shall I publish my coarse model or give it up?

In my own idea, the most important thing is the idea, not the correctness. If I am wrong there will be another one to correct it.

What shall I do?