
Ask HN: Best way to submit a scientific article for review as a non-academic? - lordvon
I am a software developer with a background in aerospace engineering, and am not a professional academic in any capacity.<p>The lack of an elegant model to predict drag on airfoils in inviscid and incompressible flow has always bothered me ever since my undergrad days, and I finally devised a model whose predictions match almost exactly with experimental data. There is a lot of confusion about what drag is at a fundamental level and most people believe drag is simply not possible in inviscid &#x2F; incompressible flow (a statement my theory asserts as false). I want to submit my derivation and results for review.<p>I want to submit somewhere like AIAA or arXiv, but it seems like I might need to be currently associated with a University.
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impendia
(Source: am a university professor)

Do you live near a research university, which employs anyone working in
aerospace engineering and/or fluid dynamics? Alternatively, do you ever have
the occasion to visit your old university?

I'd try to set up some meetings with professors. Say that you've been working
independently, based on questions that were bugging you in your undergrad
days, and you'd be extremely grateful if you could discuss your work with them
(at their convenience).

Resist the temptation to oversell your work. It sounds like you're claiming to
understand drag better than an entire community of experts, who devote their
careers to studying it. That is an _extraordinarily_ difficult sell. If you
make such a claim, whether in person or in a paper, then your conclusions are
likely to be immediately dismissed -- especially at the first sign of _any_
mistake.

Just say you have an alternative theory, and would be grateful to get the
chance to discuss it (and have it critiqued) with an established expert. If
you make a positive impression, then _they_ will encourage you to publish your
results, and will be happy to give you practical advice for doing so.

As a professor, I'd disagree with Nomentatus's suggestion that you should try
to "offer to help professors in the area". Accepting help usually creates more
effort (for them) than it saves.

It's okay to simply cold-email professors whom you don't know and ask if you
could meet them. Be prepared for them to say no, or for them to not reply at
all. If they do say yes, don't go in trying to establish a "relationship". The
most likely outcome is that they'll say "Oh, that's interesting, you should
read X, Y, and Z." Take notes, and -- if you're serious about this -- read X,
Y, and Z before you request a second meeting.

In the meantime, make sure you understand _why_ "most people believe drag is
simply not possible in inviscid / incompressible flow". If you _thoroughly_
understand the potential objections to your theory, then you might have a shot
at convincing someone.

Here is a blog post, which outlines some of the hurdles you could potentially
face.

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/06/19/...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/06/19/the-
alternative-science-respectability-checklist/#.W-1bBuhKjb0)

In the long run, if your theory is correct, I believe you have good odds of
getting it accepted. Good luck!

~~~
lordvon
Thanks for the great advice!

My first thought was reaching out to former professors by email (can't visit
in person), but I wanted to see if there was a more appropriate way, like an
online pre-print vetting community or something.

I will definitely tone-down my description of the current state of drag
prediction; definitely don't want to offend or be considered a crackpot before
anyone even looking at my derivation and results.

~~~
impendia
The arXiv does serve as an online preprint vetting community, and it would
provide you a venue in which to publicly disseminate your work. (You might
need either a university-affiliated email or an endorsement, though -- not
sure exactly.)

But it's not really a good place to attract attention. Dozens of papers are
published there every day, and the more unconventional ones tend to get
ignored (unless they're authored by people who are already famous).

Another thing you might do is attend a scientific conference. If possible, see
if there's some small, not-terribly-prestigious conference in a related
subject, somewhere within driving distance. In my subject, number theory,
these are quite common; they're typically held over weekends and are largely
designed to give graduate students a venue in which to speak.

Book a hotel, go to all the talks, ask questions. If you strike up
conversations with people, you might can ask if you can run your theory by
them.

~~~
lordvon
I took a look at registering for arXiv, and since I am not currently
affiliated with a University it seems like I wasn't able to proceed. And then
there is the question of whether it is beneficial for me, like you said.

I would love to go to conferences, though it might be expensive for the
ultimate aim of getting professional second opinions. Will look into it!

------
RaceWon
You might consider contacting a Formula 1 team; McLaren, Ferrari, Renault or
even Red Bull. All these top teams have their own wind tunnels and design and
build their own "chassis" from the ground up.

Their aerodynamicists are also heavily invested in CFD and the designers all
have aerospace backgrounds.

A yearly budget of $200-250MM USD is typical of these teams.

Here's the McLaren website if this idea seems like an avenue you might wish to
persue "[https://www.mclaren.com/#"](https://www.mclaren.com/#")

GL

~~~
lordvon
Potential flow simulations are not very practical these days (maybe for quick
back-of-the-envelope), and I highly doubt Formula One would be interested at
all. But my theory touches on what is taught to every aerospace engineer, and
I think the value of it would be better understanding of the relationship
between lift and drag, rather than practical purposes (though it is possible).

Just curious, how did you find this question? I assumed it would have been
buried by now.

I am thinking of just releasing it publicly on GitHub and asking random people
to vet it...

~~~
RaceWon
Now I see your point.

Not buried yet, it was still front page. Only after I replied, did I notice
you posted 2 days ago... peeps getting ready to break loose for the
Thanksgiving Break Slowdown? IDK.

------
itronitron
Publish your work before starting any collaboration. You absolutely do not
need to be affiliated with a University in order to submit anywhere. Many IEEE
conferences encourage submissions from first-time authors so if there is one
that is a good match for your paper you should submit there. It might also be
useful to contact someone on the paper committee to find out if they have
special guidance for first time authors. Good luck!

------
avs733
Some journals explicitly expect academic association but it is rare

a lot of journals implicitly expect academic association

often though, including in technical engineering from my experience, it is not
for people from industry to submit articles.

Basically..start by reading other articles in a journal you are interested in
submitting to and getting a feel for how they work. Figure out what sections
you will need to have, what prior work you can reference. Have you ever
written something similar? Are you interested in publishing the model as a
theoretical construction? If so, why does one not already exist? how confident
are you in your math? Are you interested in publishing an implementation of
the model?

It is worth noting that AIAA and arXiv are TOTALLY different beasts. arXiv is
a pre-print repository, that is NOT a peer reviewed journal. On the other
hand, AIAA publishes multiple journals with different specific areas. For
AIAA, how

What is the value/relevance of the paepr? Not just...novelty...journals get
hundreds of 'novel' submissions. What is the value of a model of drag in
incompressible flow? can you cite others making that argument?

As someone who regularly reviews (although less now because I won't review
paywalled articles anymore) a fair number of journal articles, the reason most
get rejected is lack of adherence to field norms and poor writing. Norms
aren't god, but they exist for a reason and speak to/provide evidence of
credibility in what you are saying. Poor writing...well academic writing is
HARD. everything you are doing contributes to building an argument and
providing evidence for your key point. It has to be situated, claims have to
be supported, references made, etc. There are many problems with academic
publishing...and these issues can be applied in exclusionary ways, but they
are generally useful. Often, people think that you need some crzy high minded
writing for journal articles...you don't. What you are seeing is field norms
operationalized. In a way it is a highly practical cargo cult. Each field has
a ton of knowledge and needs a way to short hand all of it to their
disciplinary peers.

Happy to answer more specific questions or similar off list if you want to get
into specifics.

~~~
lordvon
Thanks for the long post!

I want at the very least to just get my derivation and results reviewed. I
hope to avoid minutia of academic formatting, diction, etc. before getting any
reviews...

Honestly, it's a really simple idea with significant consequences (if correct,
of course). I have written a full draft and it is no more than 3 pages.
Basically all aerospace engineering undergrads get taught early on that
airfoil drag is just zero in 2D incompressible and inviscid flows, unless you
want to use complicated, empirical viscosity imitation or wake momentum
thickness methods (e.g. XFOIL). So my theory if correct would be quite
impactful because it is so relevant to what all aerospace undergrads are
taught.

My theory asserts that there is an omission of physics that is fundamental to
understanding airfoil lift and drag, and how they are physically coupled. In
my theory, drag is calculated as naturally as lift is, unlike what is
currently taught. Although I strongly believe the physics and derivation are
correct, I would not be confident enough to submit it for review if the
results didn't match so well with airfoil experimental data (NACA TR-824).

I basically want my theory disproven or validated by qualified people. After
that, I don't mind conforming to whatever minutia towards publication.

~~~
gus_massa
> _Basically all aerospace engineering undergrads get taught early on that
> airfoil drag is just zero in 2D incompressible and inviscid flows,_ [...]

Don't you need some adicional hypothesis, like that all the path integrals of
the wind field are zero? Most of the easy part of the analysis of the lift in
a wing assumes that air is inviscid (except for the initial generation of the
vortex around the wing). [And if the speed is much smaller than the speed of
sound, you can approximate that the fluid is incompressible.]

For example see
[https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/cyl.html](https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/cyl.html)

~~~
lordvon
I am not sure what you are trying to say. Thin Airfoil Theory and Vortex Panel
Methods all predict zero drag. XFOIL predicts drag by tacking on a wake
momentum thickness method.

------
zzo38computer
I agree sometimes someone who is not in the university might still want to
post a scientific article; some people are learn and do by yourself instead.

If you cannot post on arXiv then you can post on viXra.

------
Nomentatus
Sounds like an excellent target for an X prize. Say one that would reveal one
set of data for submissions to match, and not reveal another similar set. The
"theory/formulation/algorithm" with the best match for the second set, wins.

Obviously any kind of University contact would be valuable for your kind of
quest; do you have any skills you can offer to help professors in the area? So
that you could establish yourself a bit before trying to sell your idea? That
requires a fair investment in time, I know, but I think that's what you're up
against since so does evaluating theoretical ideas "just on spec."

I don't mean to contradict the previous comment, re familiarizing yourself
with a journal's style, but that's a bit like teaching yourself Spanish
without ever having anyone check your work. So there, too, an insider who can
act as a first reader is invaluable.

I wish you luck, the professionalization of the academy is part of why
innovation is now slowing IMHO.

~~~
lordvon
It's actually a pretty simple idea that could be significant because it
touches on what every aerospace engineer is taught about airfoils in
incompressible and inviscid flow, and I think it would contribute to
fundamental understanding of lift and drag. My full draft with the abstract,
derivation, results (comparison with experimental wind tunnel airfoil data),
and discussion is less than 3 pages long.

I agree with your Spanish analogy. I don't want to do a lot of work before
peer review.

