Today on the arXiv, animals!
1004.2037, "Warped Penguins"
Csaba Csáki, Yuval Grossman, Philip Tanedo, Yuhsin Tsai
as well as
1004.1846 "Solar Chameleons"
Philippe Brax, Konstantin Zioutas
And the guy's called Brax! I want to be a Doctor Who villain...
Monday, 12 April 2010
Friday, 9 April 2010
Deliberately contentious review.
Here are samples of three reviews of my paper. Words have been tweaked for the sake of anonymity, the messages have not.
Reviewer #1: "This paper is sound and is sufficiently illuminating to deserve publication."
Reviewer #2: This paper is not suitable for publication. I am not an expert on subject though, so I might have missed the point. Review by an expert may lead to a different opinion.
Reviewer #3: Nobody doubts that the lattice gives the correct nonperturbative description of QCD.
So, one referee loves it, another admits he hasn't a clue what's going on, but rejects it, and his opinion apparently counts for something, while a third almost ignores the actual content of the paper because he thinks all the difficulties of QCD can be avoided if you just shove it on a lattice. The review spans a side of A4 which tells me only one thing -- we should all be lattice theorists.
Does anyone else doubt that the lattice is the best thing ever? Because, I'm sure it gets all the topology right. Absoloutely spot on. I'm sure that taking the incredibly complicated configuration space of QCD, with all its topology, you know, that thing which makes it different from QED, and replacing it with a box of discrete points is utterly fine. Oh yes. And I'm sure that at short distances spacetime is entirely equivalent to a not very finely grained euclidean 4-torus. That sounds totally reasonable.
How are you supposed to fight reviews like this?
Reviewer #1: "This paper is sound and is sufficiently illuminating to deserve publication."
Reviewer #2: This paper is not suitable for publication. I am not an expert on subject though, so I might have missed the point. Review by an expert may lead to a different opinion.
Reviewer #3: Nobody doubts that the lattice gives the correct nonperturbative description of QCD.
So, one referee loves it, another admits he hasn't a clue what's going on, but rejects it, and his opinion apparently counts for something, while a third almost ignores the actual content of the paper because he thinks all the difficulties of QCD can be avoided if you just shove it on a lattice. The review spans a side of A4 which tells me only one thing -- we should all be lattice theorists.
Does anyone else doubt that the lattice is the best thing ever? Because, I'm sure it gets all the topology right. Absoloutely spot on. I'm sure that taking the incredibly complicated configuration space of QCD, with all its topology, you know, that thing which makes it different from QED, and replacing it with a box of discrete points is utterly fine. Oh yes. And I'm sure that at short distances spacetime is entirely equivalent to a not very finely grained euclidean 4-torus. That sounds totally reasonable.
How are you supposed to fight reviews like this?
Can you guess?
CURRENT STATUS OF MANUSCRIPT: With referee(s)
CORRESPONDENCE:
SENT RECEIVED DESCRIPTION
07Apr10 Reminder to referee [others sent (not shown) at 1-2 week intervals]
17Mar10 -- 23Mar10 Review request to referee; report received
17Mar10 Acknowledgment sent to author
17Mar10 Review request to referee; response not yet received
16Mar10 Correspondence (miscellaneous) sent to author
So, a referee reviews a high energy physics paper in under a week. There are only two options.
1. The referee is a mate of mine and has advised publication. This is doubtful since all the people likely to do this are co-authors of the paper.
2. The referee didn't bother reading the paper because he doesn't like me, or my collaborators, or the subject area in general, and has advised rejection. This is most likely. He could have declined to review the paper, but instead he will have had his spiteful fun by giving a heavily biased or uninformed opinion which it will be impossible to refute, because it has no scientific basis. Something like "this is an uninteresting area", or "they should have done it all on the lattice". He will probably end his review with something incredibly pompous like "The decision is final."
CORRESPONDENCE:
SENT RECEIVED DESCRIPTION
07Apr10 Reminder to referee [others sent (not shown) at 1-2 week intervals]
17Mar10 -- 23Mar10 Review request to referee; report received
17Mar10 Acknowledgment sent to author
17Mar10 Review request to referee; response not yet received
16Mar10 Correspondence (miscellaneous) sent to author
So, a referee reviews a high energy physics paper in under a week. There are only two options.
1. The referee is a mate of mine and has advised publication. This is doubtful since all the people likely to do this are co-authors of the paper.
2. The referee didn't bother reading the paper because he doesn't like me, or my collaborators, or the subject area in general, and has advised rejection. This is most likely. He could have declined to review the paper, but instead he will have had his spiteful fun by giving a heavily biased or uninformed opinion which it will be impossible to refute, because it has no scientific basis. Something like "this is an uninteresting area", or "they should have done it all on the lattice". He will probably end his review with something incredibly pompous like "The decision is final."
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Something new to click on.
Whiling the quiet hours away clicking refresh on my PRL and PRD document status pages (the editor is sitting on one, the reviewer on another, I am filled with dread), I have found something new to click on.
It's the ATLAS update page!
Higgs yet?
Click
No.
Higgs yet?
Click
No.
It's the ATLAS update page!
Higgs yet?
Click
No.
Higgs yet?
Click
No.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Honesty.
One month ago, I sent a paper to PLB. 12 days later, it was reviewed. I am still waiting for the editor to forward me the decision.
One week ago, I sent a paper to PRL. I am still waiting for the editor to either reject it outright, or send it our to review.
Journals are like the Death Star. You are like Alderan. The former has complete power over the latter. The former may obliterate the latter at will. And, stretching the analogy to breaking point and beyond, while the Death Editor knows exactly what Alderan is (it's lunch), Alderan has no idea... who... grand moff tarkin is. See, I've lost it. Grand Moff Tarkin is the reviewer. Or the editor. Whoever it is who knows who you are, but you don't know who they are.
The point is, double blind refereeing will never work in physics, because of the arXiv. But the fact is that there are some people who know nothing, nothing at all, but are in a position of power to reject papers, and do so anonymously. This infuriates me. Some fat pig somewhere believes that I'm an idiot, because he doesn't understand QED. I want to know who that prick is, so I can tell him to his face how wrong he is at conferences.
I am fed up of being treated like shit by these people.
One week ago, I sent a paper to PRL. I am still waiting for the editor to either reject it outright, or send it our to review.
Journals are like the Death Star. You are like Alderan. The former has complete power over the latter. The former may obliterate the latter at will. And, stretching the analogy to breaking point and beyond, while the Death Editor knows exactly what Alderan is (it's lunch), Alderan has no idea... who... grand moff tarkin is. See, I've lost it. Grand Moff Tarkin is the reviewer. Or the editor. Whoever it is who knows who you are, but you don't know who they are.
The point is, double blind refereeing will never work in physics, because of the arXiv. But the fact is that there are some people who know nothing, nothing at all, but are in a position of power to reject papers, and do so anonymously. This infuriates me. Some fat pig somewhere believes that I'm an idiot, because he doesn't understand QED. I want to know who that prick is, so I can tell him to his face how wrong he is at conferences.
I am fed up of being treated like shit by these people.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Verlinde on Entropy
If this paper had not been written by Verlinde, but rather "Bobby Stardust", of the "Self Invented University for thinking about gravity in my front room, with the telly on and licking a spoon of jam", would anyone be giving the slightest fig about it?
I sounds facetious, I know. Let me rephrase: if a patent clerk had brought this to the community's attention, would anyone give it a second glance?
And try comparing it with Baez's crackpot index. Non-zero score.
I sounds facetious, I know. Let me rephrase: if a patent clerk had brought this to the community's attention, would anyone give it a second glance?
And try comparing it with Baez's crackpot index. Non-zero score.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Lubos
Lubos is claiming on his blog that global temperature could rise 13° and we'd all be fine. Possibly apart from some poor people with dark skin, but that really doesn't matter, does it? Especially if they don't have very many citations.
No, you racist idiot, of course not. As long as you're safe in your ivory tower of right wing bigotry, everything is fine. Until the melting ice caps release enough water to drown you in your sodding tower. I hope the last thing you see is a desperate, dark skinned chap climbing over you to get to higher ground. Possibly stopping just long enough to hold your head under for a bit.
No, you racist idiot, of course not. As long as you're safe in your ivory tower of right wing bigotry, everything is fine. Until the melting ice caps release enough water to drown you in your sodding tower. I hope the last thing you see is a desperate, dark skinned chap climbing over you to get to higher ground. Possibly stopping just long enough to hold your head under for a bit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)