Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007)
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"Tai's formula is the trapezoidal rule"
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1224.short
As well as Tai's response: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1225.2.short
As a fellow academic, it seems to me like Tai wasn't really claiming to have reinvented the wheel here (or maybe I should say the area under the wheel). It looks to me like she took what my psychologist friends call the "Least Publishable Unit" (LPU) too much to heart. She claims, in the response, that she was asked to publish it by some colleagues so that they could cite her in a paper of their own; it's unclear to me why they would need to cite such a thing, but most likely it was just the typical explanation - where you cite your friends at any possible opportunity, even when they recapitulate Isaac Newton ;)
Granted, I think it's a weak rationale, but I suspect it's not so much that no one involved knew calculus; it's more that they wanted to drum up more citations for people inside their field rather than outside. In fact, I see that even the people who wrote in to protest managed to rack up 7 citations.
Also, the context of citations is important and isn't quantified by anyone. My guess would be that this paper has been cited more as a cautionary tale than in actual practice, and those two citations should not be treated equally.
Just by the way Tai's Method was invented in 1994. Nothing has changed since then in terms of peer-review credibility or reliability. You will need to be a genius or a miracle worker to change up academia.
What would they add beyond sci-hub?
Also, it would give the people doing the grunt work and gathering the experimental data some visibility rather than just the lead author.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Visualized_Experime... [1] https://www.jove.com/
I wanted to try researchers wearing go pros or similar while collecting the data and all of this archived. You never know what detail someone may care about later.
At some point (if not already), the limiting factor in discovery of new knowledge is going to be the time required to search previous knowledge (both for relevant inspiration and to avoid duplication).
We're already past the point where one can "just read" to stay abreast of a field.
EDIT: Er, calculus rather. Still not far removed from high school and should be a college course required for being a researcher.
In Tai's Model, the total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately calculated from their respective geometrical formulas. The total sum of these individual areas thus represents the total area under the curve. Validity of the model is established by comparing total areas obtained from this model to these same areas obtained from graphic method Gess than ±0.4%). Other formulas widely applied by researchers under- or overestimated total area under a metabolic curve by a great margin.
Absolutely hilarious!
You learn this theory (you find the area under a curve by adding up the boxes under a a curve) in your first semmester of calculus and is the basis for the integration which is a huge focus for the next two symmesters of calculus. (And that's only what I have taken.)
The trapizoidal rule that she "comes up with" (something you learn in Calculus 2) is acctually not even the most accurate way to estimate the area under a curve. Simpsons rule is more accurate.
It's hilarious because any engineer would instantly know to use these rules since you learn them freshman year of undergrad. This medical student redefined very commonly know theroms around those who use calculus more.
DISCLAIMER: I am only a Junior CS student who did well in Calculus. Anyone more experienced, please feel free to correct me.
https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cites=18129095207210817294...
It's like an academic equivalent of a software patent on an existing idea.
For whatever it's worth, physicists aren't necessarily up on everything written by the medical community. Take for example, these letters to Diabetes Care written in 1994 criticizing Tai's article soon after it was published:
www.math.uconn.edu/~kconrad/math1132s14/handouts/taicomments.pdf
I'm confused. While I definitely believe that you are correct in that assessment, the example you gave doesn't seem relevant.
Mary Tai was an EDD (doctorate of education), not a physicist. and the reply was from the mathematical community, not the medical community.
This is similar to founders/creators getting kicked out when mass marketing kicks in - who generated the wealth?
In terms of human good, unfortunately it's the latter.
And if the definition of the Scientific Method includes sharing with a community. If so, you cannot do science alone. But how big does the community need to be? Does sharing it with one other person enough? A small community? A large community? Everyone?
I think, if we're going to include sharing, it has to be with all humanity (broadly, to include other imtelligences). Wartime science isn't science.