Re: Submitting is easy once you stop thinking about it

Richard D. Latham wrote: 
Not being a published author, and all, my take is guaranteed to be
worth at least what you paid for it ... but, I think your answer
should be extremely short.

Did you leave the part out where you also forfeit 10 years of your
expected life-span, and additionally your immortal soul, at their sole
discretion ?

I'm reminded of a story about a set of negiotations carried out in the
early 20th century, by courier and telegraph.

Having received , by courier, a copy of a proposed contract, the
response was "Fuck You.<stop> Nasty letter to follow <stop>".

If you're too well behaved to use foul language (even in a good cause
such as this) , consider the elliptical phrase "and the horse you rode
in on".

There was an article in _Physics Today_ last week about Einstein's one encounter with submitting an article to a journal that sent it out for peer review, in about 1937 or so.

Essentially, upon getting back comments from an anonymous reviewer stating that the reviewer thought Einstein's conclusions were wrong, Einstein sent back essentially that sort of letter (though, of course, rather more politely worded) explaining how he had not sent his article to this editor for it to be sent out to some anonymous "expert" for commentary prior to publication, and that this was completely unacceptable, and that he was never sending the editor an article again unless the editor published the article as it stood. The editor stood by the review, and Einstein stood by his word and never published there again.

Meanwhile, shortly thereafter, the anonymous reviewer talked to Einstein's coauthor -- without actually letting on that he'd seen the paper -- and conveyed some of his concerns.

And the upshot is that Einstein and coauthor published the paper, about a year later with the conclusions completely revised and corrected as the reviewer had originally suggested, in another journal. And thus produced a useful addition to the field, rather than a controversial and completely incorrect declaration that something was impossible when it was in fact quite possible.

- Brooks


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