Re: A Note of Caution About "Reforming the System"

From: Arthur Smith <apsmith_at_APS.ORG>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 15:07:07 -0500

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
> [...]
> On the other hand, if the entire literature is systematically delayed for
> peer review and distribution for an entire year or more, there is no way
> to guess what is missing from the older literature. Another way to say
> it is that the arXiv accelerates the citation cycle from its traditional
> time scale measured in years to a more useful time scale (conjecturally)
> measured in months. [...]

The peer review cycle in mathematics seems to be a bit slower than I'm
used to. I suspect in physics the arXiv has speeded things a bit, but
unpublished research was widely circulated before the arXiv came along,
and the peer review cycle really isn't very long in physics - some of
the papers in Physical Review journals get published just 3 or 4 weeks
from the time they were submitted (3-4 months is more normal). We often
publish papers that cite work published only 1 or 2 months previously.

                        Arthur Smith (apsmith_at_aps.org)
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT