My Concerns Poem by Dmitry Garanin

I have been working day and night for a year
performing numerical calculations.
I hope to write a big paper,
lengthen my publication list,
maybe even raise my citation count,
and prominently feature on Google Scholar.

However, there are concerns
that my results might be wrong.
Or, if my results are correct,
they might be misinterpreted
and I might be making claims
that might cost me my reputation
because the majority firmly believes the opposite,
which I don't understand.

If my results are correct and correctly interpreted,
they might still be irrelevant.
Or, if they are relevant,
they might not be new.
Or, if they are new,
they might not be so exciting,
they might not be advancing science,
they might not be transformative research.

If they are still new, and correct, and transformative,
some very nice people might get upset,
because these people knew this twenty years ago
but never published it,
because they were busy with more important things.

New York,14 February 2013