Reply #10: Thoughts from a former scientist [View All]

[pmbryant]

I would suggest writing to a respected scientist (or more than one) in the fields you are interested in.

If you write to scientists, I cannot emphasize strongly enough to keep your initial contact brief, but to still get the key points across. Usually this should be enough for an expert to tell if you are onto something or not. These guys are extraordinarily busy, and if they get sent huge treatises by non-scientists (and they do get sent these things all the time), they tend to toss them at grad students to deal with, and the grad students (not surprisingly) tend to ignore them in favor of their own work.

Tons of scientists work in the fields you are talking about. There have been innumerable good ideas about both dark matter and string theory. If your ideas are good, there is a strong likelihood they've already been, or are already being, worked on.

As for retaining "credit," that is always tough when dealing with cut-throat scientists. Publication in a respected scientific journal is the only way to assure scientific credit.

--Peter