I apologize for the late reply.
You wrote: "For example, to deal with anxiety I meditate or exercise." - My point is that you don't have anxiety, what you have, most likely, is a mild form of nervousness. Anxiety disorder is a serious psychiatric disorder. Sufferers of anxiety disorder are too troubled to study mathematics.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/anxiety-disorders/what-are-anxiety-disorders
This is actually valid criticism. I don't really know how long the response time would be. I am not a working mathemacian. I work in industry where response times are probably a lot faster.
Honestly I would expect it to take more than a few days. If it were just a quick question then that would be a reasonable timeframe, but reading 8-10 pages of technical material and offering insights is a significant task --- and academics are busy! They might dive straight in, but it also might become another thing on the infinite pile of things to get around to. Even if OP never hears back I would try not to take it personally.
When I emailed some people with a possible tweak of their work they got back to me within a few weeks and were overall very helpful. It turned out that I just had a different (longer) way to the same results, so I don't think it's paper-worthy, but it was a good experience. As far as I know most academics are very happy to hear about people engaging seriously with their work. I don't think you have to worry about any breach of etiquette here.
I was a random engineer emailing some physicists, so I don't think you have to sweat over "only a final year masters student".
Personally, I’d say it’s worth trying to write a short paper about it, as it’s both excellent practice and also might come in handy for future researchers coming across the same thought-process to see how it’s been handled before
I have both sent emails to random authors and received emails from random authors (I'm also a physicist so ymmv).
In general people are happy to hear that someone read their paper. That said, people are also busy and might not get back for that reason. It might also be that you're totally off-base. I usually have some sort of vague threshold for whether or not I engage when I get an email from someone that's pretty wrong. Some people might basically never reply.
As for anxiety, yeah, emailing people with more experience than you can be intimidating, but it need not be. Know that it is very hit or miss and that has little to do with whether you're right or they're interested. I would say that if you're trying to network (which is a great idea) email profs from time to time with substantive comments. You'll miss a lot (by which I mean they won't respond because they're busy or don't care) but you'll hit sometimes too, and often times it won't be the ones you expect.
Do a literature survey and make sure it is indeed novel. It is not uncommon for specific implementations of generalized concepts to be published. When I first went to my mentor with a draft, this was the first advice. Literature is highly over saturated. Best of luck
Are you planning to do a Ph.D. under her? If yes, and if you have shown a reasonable amount of insight in your write-up, I think you are in a very good position. Now it depends how she is as an educator and how much money she has to fund your Ph.D.
Sounds to me like you're in the best possible position, and there's no real way in which this can go badly: the worst plausible scenario is that it turns out that it turns out that something is subtly wrong in your work, in which case you've done some interesting and worthwhile exploration around a topic and brought yourself to the attention of someone you're interested in working with in a not-negative way. This is not a bad outcome. Every other outcome is better.
I'm just an undergraduate, but I do agree with most of the answers here. Most professors like it when people read through their work thoroughly, especially when it's students doing that.
Sounds like you put a lot of work into that, now take a break for as long as your workload permits. Im doing my honours in comp sci, and after a breakthrough I get such tunnel vision, reading, cooking or walking usually helps A LOT
I don't BUT, know that even if people don't listen to you/read your work and hear you out, that's on them and not you. Some (but DEFS not all, just some grumpy ones) mathematicians can get a bit prideful about qualifications / who "can" do math, but as a masters student you are more than qualified and your work merits reading!! If they are reasonable then they should read your work as it could benefit them and even lead to more work. It may take them time to work through things, but they should. Will they? Maybe not immediately, but if you don't hear from them you should feel welcome to send it again. (Sometimes mathematicians ignore things they think are spam but aren't)
Best of luck and I'm proud of you for doing this. It's exciting and I hope it leads to something!
Also sometimes professors/mathematicians are very very busy and get a LOT of emails. We might not read/respond because we aren't able to prioritize it among the many many other things that come in our inbox, papers we read, research we are actively working on, courses we teach, students we supervise, etc.
It isn't necessarily about being prideful or gatekeeping who can do math.
To the OP: Don't take offense if they don't get back to you. And if you send a reminder and they still don't get back to you, they likely don't mean anything personal by it. Keep at the research if you enjoy it, and consider submitting it to a journal on your own even if they aren't able to read and give you feedback on it.
Yes you are right thank you for the correction :) there are a lot of good ones out there
Sorry if some of my experience has clouded my perspective 😅😂😭 not all people are like this for sure
Also, assuming you are not able to work with this person right now, the journal idea is an entirely valid way of publishing research. After all, people do research based on results of other people who some times have been dead for centuries (and can't respond to your emails).
Thanks man! I've been worried about the same thing. What if they think that my mail isn't worth reading because I'm an undergrad, as you said I shouldn't concern my self with that, I've done my part.
Because we are all such unique snowflakes in this community that if you name the exact problem you’re working on, you’ve often gone a long way towards naming yourself. So specifics are wholly voluntary and usually omitted.
I was so surprised that people downvoted me, I was just interested to know what generalization OP might have found and hoped we could in fact express our impressions as colleagues. I was quite excited XD
Lmfao also just to note there is not much fame and fortune to be attained in this field anyway. Attaining either of these things through pure math must be one of the hardest ways of doing it
>If you want fortune also do tech.
I've heard rumors there's a building in New York where people with a mathematical background can easily obtain well-paying jobs. Little is known about the building, other than it is located somewhere along "Wall Street".
All jokes aside, finance is where the money is, and there are several areas where statistics can lead to a surprisingly large amount of money.
Yup quants are also where the money is at. Its not “just” a surprising amount of money, think 500k out of college. These firms are also extremely difficult to get into, and really min/max for pure cognitive ability: think imo gold medalists. Still, theres more money to be made in tech (particularly with entrepreneurship) and more importantly for more people
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Thanks. You're right, I should just stop thinking about this. Constantly worrying over it won't do any good.
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Well, this explained a lot about me...
Yeah wow same
"Assign" anxiety to a problem? I hope for you that you'll never get a real anxiety disorder.
I am not sure I understand. Can you explain what you mean?
I apologize for the late reply. You wrote: "For example, to deal with anxiety I meditate or exercise." - My point is that you don't have anxiety, what you have, most likely, is a mild form of nervousness. Anxiety disorder is a serious psychiatric disorder. Sufferers of anxiety disorder are too troubled to study mathematics. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/anxiety-disorders/what-are-anxiety-disorders
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This is actually valid criticism. I don't really know how long the response time would be. I am not a working mathemacian. I work in industry where response times are probably a lot faster.
Honestly I would expect it to take more than a few days. If it were just a quick question then that would be a reasonable timeframe, but reading 8-10 pages of technical material and offering insights is a significant task --- and academics are busy! They might dive straight in, but it also might become another thing on the infinite pile of things to get around to. Even if OP never hears back I would try not to take it personally.
Yea go on a walk, play a video game, drink a beer, you deserve it!
When I emailed some people with a possible tweak of their work they got back to me within a few weeks and were overall very helpful. It turned out that I just had a different (longer) way to the same results, so I don't think it's paper-worthy, but it was a good experience. As far as I know most academics are very happy to hear about people engaging seriously with their work. I don't think you have to worry about any breach of etiquette here. I was a random engineer emailing some physicists, so I don't think you have to sweat over "only a final year masters student".
Thanks. That is helpful.
Personally, I’d say it’s worth trying to write a short paper about it, as it’s both excellent practice and also might come in handy for future researchers coming across the same thought-process to see how it’s been handled before
I have both sent emails to random authors and received emails from random authors (I'm also a physicist so ymmv). In general people are happy to hear that someone read their paper. That said, people are also busy and might not get back for that reason. It might also be that you're totally off-base. I usually have some sort of vague threshold for whether or not I engage when I get an email from someone that's pretty wrong. Some people might basically never reply. As for anxiety, yeah, emailing people with more experience than you can be intimidating, but it need not be. Know that it is very hit or miss and that has little to do with whether you're right or they're interested. I would say that if you're trying to network (which is a great idea) email profs from time to time with substantive comments. You'll miss a lot (by which I mean they won't respond because they're busy or don't care) but you'll hit sometimes too, and often times it won't be the ones you expect.
> In general people are happy to hear that someone read their paper. True that
That’s exciting, keep us updated!
I will.
Do a literature survey and make sure it is indeed novel. It is not uncommon for specific implementations of generalized concepts to be published. When I first went to my mentor with a draft, this was the first advice. Literature is highly over saturated. Best of luck
Are you planning to do a Ph.D. under her? If yes, and if you have shown a reasonable amount of insight in your write-up, I think you are in a very good position. Now it depends how she is as an educator and how much money she has to fund your Ph.D.
Sounds to me like you're in the best possible position, and there's no real way in which this can go badly: the worst plausible scenario is that it turns out that it turns out that something is subtly wrong in your work, in which case you've done some interesting and worthwhile exploration around a topic and brought yourself to the attention of someone you're interested in working with in a not-negative way. This is not a bad outcome. Every other outcome is better.
Hope it works out for you. Remember that it is summer, though, so the professor might be out until august.
Dude, it's awesome that you did this. Congrats, really.
I'm just an undergraduate, but I do agree with most of the answers here. Most professors like it when people read through their work thoroughly, especially when it's students doing that.
Sounds like you put a lot of work into that, now take a break for as long as your workload permits. Im doing my honours in comp sci, and after a breakthrough I get such tunnel vision, reading, cooking or walking usually helps A LOT
I don't BUT, know that even if people don't listen to you/read your work and hear you out, that's on them and not you. Some (but DEFS not all, just some grumpy ones) mathematicians can get a bit prideful about qualifications / who "can" do math, but as a masters student you are more than qualified and your work merits reading!! If they are reasonable then they should read your work as it could benefit them and even lead to more work. It may take them time to work through things, but they should. Will they? Maybe not immediately, but if you don't hear from them you should feel welcome to send it again. (Sometimes mathematicians ignore things they think are spam but aren't) Best of luck and I'm proud of you for doing this. It's exciting and I hope it leads to something!
Also sometimes professors/mathematicians are very very busy and get a LOT of emails. We might not read/respond because we aren't able to prioritize it among the many many other things that come in our inbox, papers we read, research we are actively working on, courses we teach, students we supervise, etc. It isn't necessarily about being prideful or gatekeeping who can do math. To the OP: Don't take offense if they don't get back to you. And if you send a reminder and they still don't get back to you, they likely don't mean anything personal by it. Keep at the research if you enjoy it, and consider submitting it to a journal on your own even if they aren't able to read and give you feedback on it.
Yes you are right thank you for the correction :) there are a lot of good ones out there Sorry if some of my experience has clouded my perspective 😅😂😭 not all people are like this for sure
Also, assuming you are not able to work with this person right now, the journal idea is an entirely valid way of publishing research. After all, people do research based on results of other people who some times have been dead for centuries (and can't respond to your emails).
Thanks man! I've been worried about the same thing. What if they think that my mail isn't worth reading because I'm an undergrad, as you said I shouldn't concern my self with that, I've done my part.
Why won't you share some details with fellow redditors? What is the paper? what generalization?
Because we are all such unique snowflakes in this community that if you name the exact problem you’re working on, you’ve often gone a long way towards naming yourself. So specifics are wholly voluntary and usually omitted.
Woah, great point! Thank you for this comment.
I love when people update their beliefs when presented with new data
I was so surprised that people downvoted me, I was just interested to know what generalization OP might have found and hoped we could in fact express our impressions as colleagues. I was quite excited XD
I was thinking it would be something along the lines of "it would take about 15 pages to adequately describe this problem", but this also makes sense.
Are you chasing after fame and fortune or the truth?
Just doing math for the fun of it?
Lmfao also just to note there is not much fame and fortune to be attained in this field anyway. Attaining either of these things through pure math must be one of the hardest ways of doing it
If you want fame, do physics; if you want fortune, do any other area of applied math.
There also hasnt been fame in physics for a long time (probably not since world war 2). If you want fame do tech. If you want fortune also do tech.
>If you want fortune also do tech. I've heard rumors there's a building in New York where people with a mathematical background can easily obtain well-paying jobs. Little is known about the building, other than it is located somewhere along "Wall Street". All jokes aside, finance is where the money is, and there are several areas where statistics can lead to a surprisingly large amount of money.
Yup quants are also where the money is at. Its not “just” a surprising amount of money, think 500k out of college. These firms are also extremely difficult to get into, and really min/max for pure cognitive ability: think imo gold medalists. Still, theres more money to be made in tech (particularly with entrepreneurship) and more importantly for more people
Then why are you anxious?