New Einsteins need positive environment, independent spirit

Lee Smolin’s response to letter-writer William Carter (Physics Today, January 2006, page 16 ) indicates that he is unaware of the changes that have occurred at the arXiv e-print server. Smolin says, “I do not think the issue of journals is key, now that we have the arXiv e-print server.” When the server was at Los Alamos National Laboratory, it was a government-sponsored resource and therefore fairly accessible. Now that it is at Cornell University, any unknown researcher must have the endorsement of a certified endorser to publish a paper. ¹ An independent researcher who isn’t known to any endorser is simply locked out. And endorsers can lose certification by endorsing readers they know, if the ideas are too unfamiliar. Thus, for an independent researcher with new ideas, the e-print server is no more accessible than the mainstream journals. That’s probably why its content as a whole has been so deadly dull lately.