Peer Review as a Standard

We submit the work to independent experts whose job is to find its flaws, and we treat their objections as information, not attacks.

Outside experts, by design

Internal review catches ordinary mistakes; peer review tests whether the work survives contact with independent experts who have no stake in the answer. We seek that scrutiny deliberately, through publication and deposit, because a result that only its authors believe is not yet a result the world should act on.

What peer review adds

A qualified outsider brings different assumptions, different failure intuitions, and no attachment to our conclusions. They will question a closure we took for granted, an extrapolation we grew comfortable with, or a gate we may have understated. Each of those questions is worth more than agreement, because agreement teaches nothing.

How we respond to criticism

• Take the objection literally and check whether it is right.
• If it is right, fix the analysis and re-freeze, with the change logged.
• If it is wrong, explain why in terms the critic can check, not by appeal to authority.
• Never dismiss an objection because it is inconvenient.

Peer review is not a stamp we collect; it is a process we invite. Publishing the burner gates plainly -- the overstressed plug coil, the regime beyond any device, the fuel-supply and availability shortfalls -- is partly an invitation for reviewers to check whether we got even the bad news right. We would rather be corrected in public than be wrong in private. We treat the arrival of a serious objection not as a setback but as the process working, because the only thing worse than being told we are wrong is being wrong and never told.