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Re: Way,WAY off topic diatribe -was : Paying to present



I recall that at the APS meeting there was someone who would regularly
submit an abstract that was a parady of the most recent in jargon in
physics. Each abstract more or less grew on the previous ones, getting
more and more far out.
As I novice I went to hear the talk out of curiosity, but of course the
author did not appear...it was only a joke in print.
I wonder if that sort of thing still happens....or do we now take
ourselves too seriously,

cheers,

joe

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004,
Hugh Haskell wrote:

At 12:09 -0500 3/6/04, Bob LaMontagne wrote:

I think the event that turned me sour on the value of
meetings was when presentations from the Maharishi
Institute (I'm sure I have the name wrong) were treated
with equal standing as any other presenters in the physics
community. I suddenly realized that if you were willing to
pay, you could have your 15 minutes.

I remember those days. Those papers were usually good for a few
laughs, and they were frequently rather well-attended, but I doubt
they were treated with equal consideration with the more serious
submissions--they were usually placed in the last session of the last
day of the meeting, a session that was seldom well-attended even in
the best of times (I know, I once chaired such a session, and I
thought I was going to have to deploy press gangs to get anyone into
the room). What those guys did do was to actually draw an
audience--not too bad, considering the time.

The stated purpose of the contributed papers has always been to give
everyone a chance to be heard, even if they can't get their
cockamamie ideas published. That's not a bad policy. Every so often,
one does hear something worthwhile from the lunatic fringe. And it is
certainly in the spirit of open scientific communications. Obviously
not every paper submitted to Phys Rev or AJP or whatever, can be
published, and sometimes that results is some worthwhile stuff not
making it into print, so the contributed papers are the outlet for
what isn't going to be published otherwise. If what they have to say
is worthwhile, it will probably be noticed. If not, it will sink into
the mud with the rest of the dross.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. 574-284-4662
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556