8) If the question is in a field X, but the question was posed by people not in field X. This is a good sign.
Note that this sometimes happens in math where people will pose a question in one area of math and not realize that it is really equivalent to or related to some question in another branch of math.
Interesting, I’ll try to watch out for this in the future. One problem is that in current science the canonical “field” is breaking down, as everything is getting computational and uses lots of similar methods. But people who use legit cross disciplinary approaches do often have useful new contributions.
8) If the question is in a field X, but the question was posed by people not in field X. This is a good sign.
Note that this sometimes happens in math where people will pose a question in one area of math and not realize that it is really equivalent to or related to some question in another branch of math.
Another one for mathematics:
People have asked this question before and created thorough answers, but you add one to the dimension (or rank or genus or...) and see what happens!
Interesting, I’ll try to watch out for this in the future. One problem is that in current science the canonical “field” is breaking down, as everything is getting computational and uses lots of similar methods. But people who use legit cross disciplinary approaches do often have useful new contributions.