<p>I can think of two cases where this (more or less) happened.</p>

<p>Valiant published his first paper on PAC learning in <em>Communications of the ACM</em> <strong>27</strong> (1984). Charlie Bennett got Stephen Wiesner's paper on quantum cryptography published in <em>SIGACT News</em> <strong>15</strong> (1983). I believe that at the time of publication, the editors had more latitude in accepting articles without extensive peer review than in the standard model of refereed journals. </p>

<p>In both cases, the idea turned out to be enormously valuable, and I am sure the prestige of Valiant and of Bennett helped the work get published. In both cases, the research was quite a bit better worked out than "barely a sketch", but it was still very sketchy, and not completely convincing to contemporary researchers.</p>

<p>If you are an unknown researcher, in order to get anybody to pay attention, you probably need to work out your ideas at least as well as they were worked out in these two cases, and even then I am not sure whether you could get sketchy ideas published without having the backing of a respected researcher (as Wiesner did).v</p>

<p>Ralph Merkle did not succeed in getting his sketchy ideas on what was to become public-key cryptography published until after Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, Shamir and Adelman had worked out the sketchy ideas in enough detail to convince everybody they were worthwhile. Fortunately, somebody put him in touch with Diffie and Hellman, who were clever enough to see the value of his ideas, talented enough to work them out in some detail, and honest enough to give him his fair share of the credit. See <a href="http://www.itas.fzk.de/mahp/weber/merkle.htm">this article</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T19:52:48.833Z
Fair division of credit in PK crypto got too complicated since the disclosure that Merkle, DH and RSA where respectively preceded by Ellis, Williamson and Cocks.
didest
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T19:17:54.337Z
"...his fair share of the credit."  Except for, you know, the Turing award.
Jeffε
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T17:42:15.750Z
2012-03-04T18:47:24.703Z
2012-03-04T18:47:24.703Z
Peter Shor 
<p>When someone develops a new theory on computer science, specifically in artificial intelligence domain, which is barely on schetch (so there are no measurements, nor simulations, nor finished code or ready application) with just a mathematical and conceptual description, in which scientific journals people use to publish these theories/concepts?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T19:18:59.063Z
A new theory **on** computer science, or a new theory **in** computer science?
Jeffε
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T20:57:32.540Z
so you are asking where to publish results that are not even wrong?
Sasho Nikolov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T21:33:11.520Z
For the AI part of this, and for general academic feelings (not just those of the cstheory community) towards theory sketches consider asking on [academia.SE](http://academia.stackexchange.com/)
Artem Kaznatcheev
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-05T11:46:37.000Z
OP asked the same question on physics.SE: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/21848/new-theories-and-publications
Dave Clarke
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-06T20:04:35.917Z
Pretty much any journal really.  Work in theoretical computer science mainly involves mathematical and conceptual descriptions, and no measurements, simulations or finished code.  Whether it has ready applications is not an issue.  But it should be something that contributes to people's understanding, and it should be about problems that people think are worth understanding.
Uday Reddy
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-04T17:20:28.213Z
Hopefully none would accept such a work; you could try a workshop.
Dave Clarke
<soft-question>
New theories and publications on computer science
Rego
# New theories and publications on computer science

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-03-04)

When someone develops a new theory on computer science, specifically in artificial intelligence domain, which is barely on schetch (so there are no measurements, nor simulations, nor finished code or ready application) with just a mathematical and conceptual description, in which scientific journals people use to publish these theories/concepts?

**Tags:** soft-question

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Hopefully none would accept such a work; you could try a workshop.  
> **username_1**: A new theory **on** computer science, or a new theory **in** computer science?  
> **username_2**: so you are asking where to publish results that are not even wrong?  
> **username_3**: For the AI part of this, and for general academic feelings (not just those of the cstheory community) towards theory sketches consider asking on [academia.SE](http://academia.stackexchange.com/)  
> **username_4**: OP asked the same question on physics.SE: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/21848/new-theories-and-publications  
> **username_5**: Pretty much any journal really.  Work in theoretical computer science mainly involves mathematical and conceptual descriptions, and no measurements, simulations or finished code.  Whether it has ready applications is not an issue.  But it should be something that contributes to people's understanding, and it should be about problems that people think are worth understanding.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2012-03-04. Score: 21 | Accepted answer

I can think of two cases where this (more or less) happened.

Valiant published his first paper on PAC learning in *Communications of the ACM* **27** (1984). Charlie Bennett got Stephen Wiesner's paper on quantum cryptography published in *SIGACT News* **15** (1983). I believe that at the time of publication, the editors had more latitude in accepting articles without extensive peer review than in the standard model of refereed journals.

In both cases, the idea turned out to be enormously valuable, and I am sure the prestige of Valiant and of Bennett helped the work get published. In both cases, the research was quite a bit better worked out than "barely a sketch", but it was still very sketchy, and not completely convincing to contemporary researchers.

If you are an unknown researcher, in order to get anybody to pay attention, you probably need to work out your ideas at least as well as they were worked out in these two cases, and even then I am not sure whether you could get sketchy ideas published without having the backing of a respected researcher (as Wiesner did).v

Ralph Merkle did not succeed in getting his sketchy ideas on what was to become public-key cryptography published until after Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, Shamir and Adelman had worked out the sketchy ideas in enough detail to convince everybody they were worthwhile. Fortunately, somebody put him in touch with Diffie and Hellman, who were clever enough to see the value of his ideas, talented enough to work them out in some detail, and honest enough to give him his fair share of the credit. See [this article](http://www.itas.fzk.de/mahp/weber/merkle.htm).

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "...his fair share of the credit."  Except for, you know, the Turing award.  
> **username_7**: Fair division of credit in PK crypto got too complicated since the disclosure that Merkle, DH and RSA where respectively preceded by Ellis, Williamson and Cocks.  

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