We first mentioned Rejecta Mathematica almost two years ago. While it did take them a while, the site has finally gone live and they recently announced their inaugural issue, which contains papers that have been rejected by peer reviewed journals on mathematical sciences.
The most interesting feature of this initiative is the open letter that prefixes each paper, in which the author illustrates what they believe is the reason behind their work’s rejection and asserts their paper’s case. Scientific papers, like notorious novels, do sometime get undeservedly rejected before their true value is acknowledged. The hard part is distinguishing the hidden gems.
Contrary to what one may have expected though, this edition clearly debunks the notion that Rejecta Mathematica would be a breeding ground for crackpots. The six papers included in this first edition all appear to be interesting and well researched.
Is it the revenge of the rejected? Perhaps, but this unusual publication will still help to enrich our beloved discipline in its own way.
Despite the probability (inevitability) of totally disoriented errogenous papers, I think “Rejecta Mathematica” is a step in the right direction for open science. It leaves room for a form of public review process. This was a very interesting blog entry.
Its a good step forward because who knows we may find another great idea in the rejected papers.
the idea sounds interesting. But the crackpot expectiation unfortunately was reinforced when I tried to read the issue.
My sample of one (1) article (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 58-83) it was a complete nonsense, it teaches you how to add vectors and numbers.