How does an ordinary person announce major discoveries?
While this is a hypothetical question, I am actually looking for a 'real-world' answer. This is my first time here, so please let me know if I should ask it somewhere else.
So, let's say I am an ordinary person (i.e. not famous, not a scientist or in academia at all) -- for example, a tax accountant. One day, while tinkering around on the weekends, I accidentally discover something major (eg. cure for cancer).
If this actually happened in the real world, given my lack of connections and publicity, how would I actually let people know, so that they would actually believe me and, after verifying it, put it into production?
Do I just announce it on a public Facebook post and hope someone notices?
Do I email a bunch of newspapers and hope they take me seriously?
Do I beg a reputable scientist to look at my work and use his clout to get a paper published in a prestigious journal?
ps: I was initially going to put 'truly intelligent AI' as my hypothetical discovery, but then the obvious answer to my question would be: ask the AI ;)
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Short answer: All of the above. Throw it at all of the walls, see if it sticks. Try to find people who are in-the-know about whatever this discovery is to verify it and use their clout.
In reality, though, regardless of how REAL the discovery is, odds are it'll be discounted until someone with clout and respect finds it out/verifies it. There have been many, many times in history where multiple people invented or discovered the same thing, but one got all the credit because they had a better media campaign.
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Twitter. (Or Facebook, or other similar vector.) What you need is the "share" or "retweet" concept, a button that a reader uses to put your post in front of his readers, whose readers have a button... this is how Internet phenomena start.
There are no guarantees; lots of interesting, legitimate posts never go anywhere and lots of dreck spreads like wildfire. But if it's something important to enough people, like a cure for cancer or the discovery of a new planet or something that'll take down the top management of a major company, it'll spread, be criticized, be endorsed, be praised, be scoffed at, be investigated... and that's on the first day.
You'll also need a place to post a long-form article -- a blog, a publication that's ready to report on your work, etc. Your tweet (or Facebook post or whatever) is the short description with a catchy title/lede and a link. The link target is where you explain your research results in detail. It'll be a rough ride, but you should enable comments there.
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