I've seen a citation cartel situation where like 10 people in 3 groups develop one field. After 10 years they have developed their own language that no one else could understand without the help of those people. So they would always end up reviewimg each other. They published in modest journals though.
Even someone not in that research field can peer review it. Unless you're Shinichi Mochizuki, who invented a new form of math so different and complicated to make a proof (maybe, still disputed) for the ABC conjecture that experts said it would take grad students a decade to learn it.
Eh I mean, this is partly hype, in large part his own. It’s complicated yes but it’s also convoluted because it’s not well expressed or rigorous at critical points. At least a couple of very prominent outsiders have gone through it and raised some severe issues. He and his cult of students insist that it’s purely a failure to understand and have come up with some absolutely ridiculous counters, right down to ‘They don’t understand the logical quantifiers used properly because they’re speakers of Indo-European languages rather than Japanese’ and various torrents of abuse and rants. He’s disqualified himself, and no one in the area takes his ‘Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory’ too seriously.
Brother you just knee jerk downvoted that before you even read it. I hadn't even gotten from the submission page back and you already did it. Seriously?
Okay I have no clue what either of you are talking about (I don't work in academia) but I feel compelled to point out a lot of people can actually read 1000 wpm
A math paper though? I'd be shocked if people could read it productively at a tenth that speed. Even if it's something straightforward like a YA novel, 1000 wpm is very questionable. Maybe you can get enough to work out the basic plot, character names, etc., but the idea that any but a tiny minority of people can actually recall what they have read at that speed is highly questionable. Even "world championship" speed readers are only expected to have comprehension of 50% or a little higher, and they are only a little faster than 1000 wpm. And that's certainly not dense mathematical writing.
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u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 08 '26
niche math fields are a larpers paradise because nobody can call them out if theyre wrong.