<p>I was trying to solve a common problem the other week and upon checking Stackoverflow there was a solution, but it just seemed like there should be a better way to do it. I thought about it for a while and then had a random idea which I thought could have a chance of working, but I didn't really understand why it would work. It was just a hunch. Regardless, I ended up spending a couple days testing it out, and to my surprise, it actually worked!</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I'm the first one to discover this technique (probably not), but what should I do now? I'm not a researcher, don't have a blog, not in school, etc. Is there anywhere I could post this and have people let me know if it is novel, interesting, correct, or something along those lines? I could just post it as an answer to the existing question, but because it is an old question with many replies I doubt it will get much notice.</p>
<p>My apologies if this isn't the correct place to post a question like this. I looked through the Stackexchange site listing and this seemed like a good place, but I'm not sure.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-12T21:26:25.477Z
You can write it up and put it on the ArXiv and think about what to do later if you find out that  it is already known.  You could of course ask some experts in the area if you know them but since you don't seem to be in the standard communities. You could also ask here informally.
Chandra Chekuri
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-12T21:42:30.933Z
Okay, I don't really know much about ArXiv (just learned what it is), so I think what I'll do is make a GitHub Pages post with all the details and then ask another question here with the code and a brief explanation and then link to the post for more details. Does that sound okay?
Erick Weber
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-13T05:05:07.883Z
"I could just post it as an answer to the existing question [...] not much notice" : well at least it would trigger some notice, from people potentially interested in this, so it may be enough for you to have feedback. And if the OP is still looking for an answer, then you should post it there and see.
holf
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-13T07:09:16.590Z
Given only the information presented, posting on arxiv seems to be very bad advice.
mathworker21
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-13T19:41:52.610Z
My advice would be: take a more skeptical view of your discovery.  It's quite common to feel that you've figured out something new, but then have it turn out that (a) there is a mistake, or (b) it is not new.  What you've written doesn't give enough detail to get any feedback here about either of those things, and it doesn't sound like you've gotten feedback from anyone else.  From what you've written it sounds as if you might be relatively new at this as well, in which case feedback is particularly useful.  Github idea might be useful, but note that this site is not about implementations.
Neal Young
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-13T22:18:21.467Z
@NealYoung I ended up making a post about it here https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/50478/is-this-a-novel-technique-for-determining-whether-or-not-two-rotated-rectangles
Erick Weber
<soft-question>
I think I may have discovered a new algorithm for a common problem. Now what?
Erick Weber
# I think I may have discovered a new algorithm for a common problem. Now what?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-09-12)

I was trying to solve a common problem the other week and upon checking Stackoverflow there was a solution, but it just seemed like there should be a better way to do it. I thought about it for a while and then had a random idea which I thought could have a chance of working, but I didn't really understand why it would work. It was just a hunch. Regardless, I ended up spending a couple days testing it out, and to my surprise, it actually worked!

I'm not sure if I'm the first one to discover this technique (probably not), but what should I do now? I'm not a researcher, don't have a blog, not in school, etc. Is there anywhere I could post this and have people let me know if it is novel, interesting, correct, or something along those lines? I could just post it as an answer to the existing question, but because it is an old question with many replies I doubt it will get much notice.

My apologies if this isn't the correct place to post a question like this. I looked through the Stackexchange site listing and this seemed like a good place, but I'm not sure.

**Tags:** soft-question

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You can write it up and put it on the ArXiv and think about what to do later if you find out that  it is already known.  You could of course ask some experts in the area if you know them but since you don't seem to be in the standard communities. You could also ask here informally.  
> **username_0**: Okay, I don't really know much about ArXiv (just learned what it is), so I think what I'll do is make a GitHub Pages post with all the details and then ask another question here with the code and a brief explanation and then link to the post for more details. Does that sound okay?  
> **username_2**: "I could just post it as an answer to the existing question [...] not much notice" : well at least it would trigger some notice, from people potentially interested in this, so it may be enough for you to have feedback. And if the OP is still looking for an answer, then you should post it there and see.  
> **username_3**: Given only the information presented, posting on arxiv seems to be very bad advice.  
> **username_4**: My advice would be: take a more skeptical view of your discovery.  It's quite common to feel that you've figured out something new, but then have it turn out that (a) there is a mistake, or (b) it is not new.  What you've written doesn't give enough detail to get any feedback here about either of those things, and it doesn't sound like you've gotten feedback from anyone else.  From what you've written it sounds as if you might be relatively new at this as well, in which case feedback is particularly useful.  Github idea might be useful, but note that this site is not about implementations.  
> **username_0**: @NealYoung I ended up making a post about it here https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/50478/is-this-a-novel-technique-for-determining-whether-or-not-two-rotated-rectangles  

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## 0 answers

