He vist a Improbable Research que una nova revista d’accés obert, Rejecta Mathematica, es dedicarà a publicar, prèvia àmplia discussió, articles que hagin estat rebutjats en altres revistes de caire matemàtic. Els editors d’aquesta revista jo han anunciat així:
We are pleased to announce that the inaugural issue of Rejecta Mathematica is now available at math.rejecta.org! To recap our mission, Rejecta Mathematica is an open access, online journal that publishes only papers that have been rejected from peer-reviewed journals in the mathematical sciences. In addition, every paper appearing in Rejecta Mathematica includes an open letter from its authors discussing the paper’s original review process, disclosing any known flaws in the paper, and stating the case for the paper’s value to the community.
De fet, n’hi ha de cinc tipus, al menys:
“mapping the blind alleys of science”: papers containing negative results can warn others against futile directions;
“reinventing the wheel”: papers accidentally rederiving a known result may contain new insight or ideas;
“squaring the circle”: papers discovered to contain a serious technical flaw may nevertheless contain information or ideas of interest;
“applications of cold fusion”: papers based on a controversial premise may contain ideas applicable in more traditional settings;
“misunderstood genius”: other papers may simply have no natural home among existing journals.
Aquesta iniciativa, si té per objectiu que es pugui publicar amb independència de l’status social-investigador d’un grup de recerca o d’un investigador, fruit del procés de peer-review, perfecte. Si es tracta de publicar qualsevol cosa sense mirar-s’ho gaire, no anirem pas enlloc.
Al primer número hi ha un article que m’interessa, sobre qubits: Mass Matrix Transforms in Qubit Field Theory. No sé pas si hi entendré gaire res, però seguiré el procés per a la seva acceptació i la discussió que s’hi generi.