MK wrote:
While searching for "cubeful cubeless skill", I found this "paper"
by some Tilemachos Zoidis in an obscure "pre-print repository":
https://vixra.org/pdf/2409.0106v4.pdf
Vixra is somewhat obscure, but not that obscure. It is "arXiv" spelled
backwards, where the arXiv is the standard preprint server for physics and
mathematics. Although many academics are under the impression that
anything can be posted to the arXiv, that's not true. The arXiv does not
carry out the same level of peer review as scholarly journals do, but if
you're a random person then you can't post to the arXiv unless you get
some sufficiently reputable scholar to "endorse" you. Even then, the arXiv
has a moderation team that reserves the right to reject submissions.
Vixra was founded by people who objected to the arXiv's policy and who
wanted a forum where anybody could post their papers, without having to
find an endorser or satisfy a team of moderators. While their idealism is
understandable, in practice Vixra has become a junk heap of crackpot
papers, interspersed with a few rare gems.
I have not spent more than a few minutes skimming the particular paper in
question, but I would guess that he tried submitting it to the arXiv first
and failed. If that's true, then I can understand why; the paper is not
written in the scholarly style that the arXiv moderators are looking for.
That does not mean that the paper lacks merit. My first instinct, without
studying the paper in detail, is that the paper makes some interesting and
valid observations, but is insufficiently systematic to be accepted for
publication in a mathematics journal.
As for whether *any* backgammon paper has been published in a scholarly
mathematical journal, the answer is yes, although I don't think there have
been many. Among the most famous is the 1975 paper by Keeler and Spencer.
https://bkgm.com/articles/KeelerSpencer/OptimalDoublingInBackgammon/
Tim
