Популярно о конечной математике и ее интересных применениях в квантовой теории

Letter reference: HAA01

Dear Editors,

I am grateful that you have reconsidered your decision to immediately reject my paper. I thought about your request to confirm that I agree if you continue processing my paper. However, my decision is that I will not try to publish my paper in JPCO. I don't know whether or not you are interested in my reasons but they are described below.

First about me. I graduated from the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology, got PhD from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow and Dr. Sci. Degree (in Russia there are two doctoral degrees) from the Institute for High Energy Physics also known as the Serpukhov Accelerator. In Russia I worked as a leading scientist at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Moscow region) but in the US I work at a software company.

I gave talks at many international conferences, have many papers published in known journals on physics and mathematical physics (Annals Phys., Finite Fields and Applications, J. Math. Phys., J. Phys. A: Mathematical and Theoretical, Nucl. Phys. A, Phys. Lett., Physics of Particles and Nuclei, Phys. Rev. C and D, Phys. Rev. Letters, Theor. Math. Phys. and others) and 44 papers in arXiv.

My experience is that when I sent to known journals papers done in the framework of more or less mainstream approaches then typically such papers were accepted without problems. However, when a paper was based on non-mainstream approaches then great problems arose. This was not because the editors could say something specific or refute my results. Typically, they even did not understand what the paper was about, but they saw that the paper was not based on what was sacred for them.

The editorial policies of known journals are typically very impressive. However, when I dealt with those journals then typically it became obvious that the referees and board members did not feel obliged to follow those policies, they thought that they know better what papers should or should not be published and the referees often even did not understand that it was disgraceful to write a negative report if they understood nothing in the paper.

For example, I have five papers published in JPA, the last of them was published in 2004. All those papers have been done in frameworks of more or less mainstream approaches. The referee reports were very professional and helped to improve the papers. For example, in the last case there were two referee reports, positive and negative, the adjudicator advised in my favor, and this is a reasonable situation. However, all my next submissions to JPA have been rejected without any explanations, and nobody tried to understand my results. Typically, they sent me the same standard text as you sent on Sep 26th that"…articles must be of high scientific quality and be recognised as making a positive contribution to the literature. Your Paper has been assessed and has been found not to meet these criteria." So, in fact the statement is that my paper is not of high scientific quality and does not make a positive contribution to the literature. Scientific ethics implies that any negative statement should be substantiated but in all those cases no explanations have been given, and the phrase that the paper has been assessed gives no info on how it has been assessed.

For me it's interesting whether the editors understand that their actions contradict scientific ethics. I propose papers where quantum theory is based not on complex numbers but on finite math. I explain that my approach is more fundamental than standard one and moreover I have rigorously proved that standard quantum theory is a special degenerate case of quantum theory based on standard math. I have no doubt that my papers are fundamental and sooner or later (rather later than sooner) this will be acknowledged. My observation is that majority of physicists do not have even very basic knowledge in finite math. This is not a drawback because everybody knows something and does not know something, and it's impossible to know everything. I believe the mentality of physicists should be such that in physics different approaches should have a right to compete. However, the mentality of many physicists is such that if they don't understand something then this should not be published. My observation is that when physicists see that my papers are based on finite math then they immediately conclude that this is philosophy, pathology, exotics etc. and contradicts their dogmas (although, as I noted, typically they do not have even very basic knowledge in finite math).

When JPCO was created I was impressed by its editorial policy. The policy says that JPCO differs from other journals, that it «does not make a subjective assessment on the potential future significance of a paper, instead providing a rapid platform for communicating research that meets high standards of scientific rigour and contributes to the development of knowledge in physics». However, my experience with two papers shows that at least in my case the editors do not feel obliged to follow the editorial policy. They do not understand that my papers give FUNDAMENTAL contributions to the knowledge in physics. Therefore, the papers not only fully satisfy the JPCO policy but should be welcome by the editors. The most plausible explanation of such a situation is that when they see the words «finite mathematics» then their intention is to reject the paper right away and probably for them a strong argument in favor of their belief is that I am not from a university. It seems to me that the mentality of all editors should be such that they should welcome nonstandard approaches because this will make their journals more attractive. Especially, in view of the JPCO policy, this should be the case for the editors of JPCO. However, I see that the editors of JPCO have the same mentality as the editors of many other journals and if a submitted paper is not in mainstream then the paper has no chances to be published.

You acknowledged that the treatment of my paper was not fair because it had been commissioned. However, even if it had not been commissioned your response contradicts your policy and scientific ethics. So the fact that you have reconsidered your decision does not mean that mentality of the editors has been changed. In view of this situation, I think that if I agree that you continue processing my paper then the most probable scenario is the following. Probably you will not find referees who have even very basic knowledge in finite math and the mentality of majority of physicists is that if they do not understand something (e.g., if the words "finite mathematics" contradict their dogmas) then probably they will write a meaningless referee report with the advice to reject the paper. They will not care that their treatment of the paper contradicts the editorial policy and scientific ethics. In view of my experience, for editors this will be a good pretext to reject the paper. According to your policy, the authors have a right to appeal the decision. However, my experience with the first paper shows that all my arguments that the reports contradict the editorial policy and scientific ethics will not be taken into account and the appeal will not be considered. Since I am not young and do not want to have additional negative emotions, I have decided not to try to publish my paper in JPCO.

Sincerely, Felix Lev.