Email me the Nobel Prize in cosmology oops

[Sigmaleph]

Rookies have made important scientific discoveries, but with decreasing frequency in the modern era, and not of the "Set out to solve a major problem in X field and succeed" sort. People are drawn to the dark matter problem because it's high-profile, but for the same reason trained scientists are drawn to it, and they have a powerful advantage.

Is it impossible that the dark matter problem will be solved by an amateur? I'd guess not. But I'm almost certain it won't happen, and if it does, it will be because they made an accidental discovery on a different subject and that leads to further insights, not because they set out to solve it.


Which isn't to say one shouldn't try, anyway. It can be a fun intellectual exercise, at the very least. But realistic expectations say that if you want to solve a specific high-profile problem in a scientific field, you should become a scientist in that field.

[Hoplite]

P.S. It is great to see people get engaged in science. But a word of caution: the ideas tractable by novice cosmologists have been long exhausted.

I am going to have to disgree with this.

I could accept that the majority of ideas that novices can think of have been either proven or disproven already but not all of them. Every now and then some rookie does have a new idea. Sure, it's likely to be wrong but sometimes, just sometimes those new ideas might prove to be a real discovery.

And even if it isn't, so what? The rookie might still learn something new to him/her.

I will repeat that I find it great that more people are engaged in science.
But I will have to ask for understanding on behalf of the astrophysical community in that we don't have the time to weed out the thousands of rookie ideas that come to us to find the one in maybe 20 years idea that is novel and can work. The streamlined process of modern science might find the same thing in a much slower manner, but it will also find many other things in a much faster way.

Yes, I know. I just think sometimes there can be the little things that we all contribute to that can potentially lead to breakthroughs. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. In any case, I just plan to try to elicit a simple explanation from a friend in an university, and use that as a probable correction, and move on from there. If what I have should ever prove to be useful, I'd be tickled to know that, of course.

This new subject reminded me of a book I read in the 80's, Sagan's 'The Demon Haunted World.' I believe Sagan took the time to take on Immanuel Velikovsky's 'Worlds in Collision' theory and dissemble it, and I did think that was a colossal waste of time for a mind like Sagan's, but innately I knew he was right in his explanation as to why he took on a project to discredit what was obviously the precursor to fundie science. Not that it would have made any difference to Velikovsky's proponents. In any case, Velikovsky's theory has been left behind in the ash heap of history.

[Witchyjoshy]

Considering the very nature of science is to try to discover and prove or disprove hypotheses, it seems ass-backwards to discourage amateurs and beginners from trying to discover and prove or disprove hypotheses.

[Lithp]

I'm going to say that every or nearly every rookie idea has been tried, but it's very doubtful that all of them have been "disproven." That implies that we already know the solution which, of course, we don't.

Not really. You don't need to know what the solution is to know that something isn't a solution.

I was more getting at that some ideas are still in the testing stage.

Considering the very nature of science is to try to discover and prove or disprove hypotheses, it seems ass-backwards to discourage amateurs and beginners from trying to discover and prove or disprove hypotheses.

I don't believe that anyone is trying to do that. I think we're pretty much saying this:

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[Undecided]

"We?"

If you do not wish to waste your time on checking the validity of ideas from newbs then that is totally ok and it is your choice. If someone else is willing to humour a rookie then kudos to them. I'm not saying that scientists must spend all their days explaining why the theory that moon is made of cheese is wrong (In fact ideas like that can be checked by the rookie himself/herself from information freely available to everyone.) but there really have been scientific discoveries made by rookies (or even teenagers) and disregarding everyone who isn't an established scientist will also harm the advancement of knowledge.

*sigh* I'm breaking one of my own rules here by attributing to a community what is merely my own opinion...

Yes, reluctantly, "We".

A prerequisite for solving a problem is knowing how to formulate it. In the case of cosmology it can't be done without understanding General Relativity and its predictions for the interactions of gravitation with radiation and matter. Another prerequisite for solving a problem—albeit not a formal one—is knowing what is plausible and what has already been tried. Quite a few of the attacks to problems in cosmology invoke subatomic particles in some fashion (this is an understatement), and that means one has to know at least a little Quantum Field Theory, a notoriously forbidding and treacherous subject. These two subjects aren't the type that you can just pick up in a year and a day; they are usually taught in physics graduate school over several terms. But if you want to be a theoretical physicist, having an acquaintance with them is nonnegotiable.

Now, as to the "we". Physics researchers literally get scores of emails from people asking them to examine their ideas. There just isn't the time to deconstruct every single one. So, like everyone else with bounded rationality, they use heuristic tests to decide which ones are important—having credentials, certainly, but also demonstrating command of existing techniques. And the emails almost invariably fail the latter.

I should probably disclose that I am a graduate student studying theoretical condensed matter physics (and not, in particular, cosmology, but I think my statements survive scrutiny).

[edited for clarity]

[Yla]

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The second one is inaccurate in saying "Sweet, maybe I can publish this." and just going 'back to start' instead of expanding on that can of worms.

Peer review is review by people who are exactly as dumb as you.