Practical Tips: Mathematical research and discoveries [closed]

Solution 1:

Since it looks like people like the question, I may as well post my answer as an answer. It was sincere, after all:

Write it up, preferably using LaTeX. (That is a "trade skill" for mathematics writers.) It will be important that you have this ready, if you are seriously interested in taking credit.

Then ask experts in the field if they think it is original, keeping record of the correspondence. There is little to be worried about concerning academic dishonesty here, especially if you keep track of correspondence in an organized way. You don't have to give them your entire write-up if you don't trust them. You can just convey your main ideas, and if they have appeared before, you will likely be pointed to the publication. The odds are that if your work was worthwhile, it would hardly be reproducable in a short amount of time. Remember that you must have been working on it for a while, so there must be some content that took some thinking.

If they believe it's original, submit it to a journal. If it is accepted, you can feel you have accomplished something. You can still submit it if your experts say it's not worth publishing, but if you ignore valid reasons that they have, you may face some embarassment.

At any rate, don't be too distressed if it turns out someone thought of it already, or if you have some mistake: this is fairly common. A lot of people have thought about mathematics in the past few thousand years, so there is a large chance of paths crossing :)

In conclusion, you are probably not going to get anywhere without talking with some experts on the topic you are researching. It is reasonable to consult them, exposing the core part of your ideas. It is unlikely that the body of your work will be totally hijacked.