When Einstein submitted his first paper to Annalen der Physik did it matter to the editors at all that he wasn’t working at a university or research institution, or did they give his paper the exact same consideration as someone so employed? Did getting the first paper published make it easier for him to get the rest of the Annus Mirabilis papers published? Finally, would a modern day underemployed PhD with a paper that upends reality be given the same chance?
Today, papers are supposed to be subject to blind peer review before publication (authors do not know who the reviewers are, and vice versa). However, this was not necessarily true in 1905; the Annalen der Physik reportedly had a high acceptance rate back then (90% or more) compared to today (32%) so it may have been much easier to publish papers with them not being subject to rigorous peer review.
NB today one can just post one’s rejected-for-publication, or simply unpublished, article “that upends reality” on the Internet, and many do (e.g. pre-prints on the arXiv are not peer-reviewed though there is supposedly some moderation (legitimate or not) to remove obvious spam or nonsense)
As I understand it, too, it was the 1950’s before a large proportion of the population was expecting to go to university. i would have imagined that the “physics community” particularly for one localized language, was not all that large.(And there was a lot less cross-over to other languages?) Plus, the anecdote says nothing about Einstein’s participation in that physics community during that time.
With a few friends he had met in Bern, he started a small discussion group in 1902, self-mockingly named “The Olympia Academy”, which met regularly to discuss science and philosophy. Sometimes they were joined by Marić who attentively listened but did not participate.[75] Their readings included the works of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, and David Hume, which influenced his scientific and philosophical outlook.
Plus, he’d had a paper published in Annelen in 1900 and had just completed his PhD dissertation in 1905.
So presumably the editors knew him to some extent. There probably were not a lot of German-speaking physics PhD’s compared to today.
This is not remotely true for my field and many others I know of.
As noted, Einstein’s was not viewed as an outsider. He had just gotten a PhD. Many times newly minted PhDs submit parts of their theses for publication. (I got two journal papers and one conference paper out of mine.) There would naturally be an presumption that such submissions have already passed a review by the thesis committee which helps. The journal wouldn’t know or care that Einstein’s situation was any different.
In my field a lot of people work in industry and submit papers, I have refereed several such submissions. The usual standards applied. Since retiring I have had 3 co-authored papers published with no affiliation at all listed for me.
There’s also Open Peer Review, in which the names of the authors and reviewers are known to each other.
I might be misremembering, but I thought German was the leading language of physics papers before the World Wars.
I do know that fluency in written German was a PhD requirement of several physics graduate programs when I was school shopping in the early 1990s.
That was certainly true of chemistry.
I said ideally supposed to be subject to blind review; if it is the usual suspects researching a particular topic, and you are one of them and asked to review a paper before publication, it may not be too tricky to figure out who wrote it, especially if you heard the person talk about it or read the preprint. In any case, none of this applies to the early 20th century, especially in Germany, but the OP did ask about the practicability of publishing mystery papers today (I assume a competent editor would not automatically slip non-spam into the wastebasket, assuming it looks like a novel non-trivial result or application.).
Not necessarily a bad idea, but is it widespread? Then again, I like at least the idea of a blind, disinterested review where the reviewer is not aware whether the author is a friend or a rival, a man or a woman, a Nobel laureate or a graduate student.
I don’t know how widespread it is, just that I’ve seen the occasional article about different types of peer review, as well as critiques of the double-blind review.
However, I’ve also seen articles (sorry, no cite) that suggest blind reviews are being used increasingly for grant applications and also for applications for time on a particular piece of equipment, to eliminate the favouritism that a well-established applicant may get from the decision committee.
Blind applications are also being used for auditions for orchestras. The applicant is shielded from the hiring committee so they only hear the music, and don’t know who the musician is.
And importantly, they don’t know what gender the applicant is. Sexism was rampant in orchestra hiring practices before blind auditions became common in the 1980s. In 1970 the top 5 orchestras in the US had fewer than 5% women. By the late 1990s it was up to 25%.
In physics, peer review generally is single-blind: the reviewer is anonymous, but the author is known to them. If you’re invited to review something, you’re supposed to decline if there’s a possible conflict of interest. In philosophy, on the other hand, peer-review generally seems to be double-blind, with either identity being unknown.
Both systems have their pros and cons—double-blind obviously lessens any influence on the decision on the basis of identity, but it makes it difficult to built on prior work without giving your identity away.
Yes, that’s an issue. I’ve been a blind reviewer for law review articles, and I’ve been able to identify the authors in some cases because of the article’s reference back to their earlier work. One I was able to identify because from the author’s writing style, it was pretty clear that they were francophone writing in English, and that together with the topic let me identify the author.
I tried not to let those identifications have any impact on the assessment.
Also, patent examiners aren’t exactly chumps.
Even now, it is a professional position that requires a considerable amount of education and knowledge in a STEM field. Back then, it would not be a given to get such a position without an advanced degree, even if Einstein himself was personally looking for a bit more of an academic career.