Here I'd like to post a note on a sad story that happened to me with a hope that other researchers would learn and benefit from. On 6/25/2008 I was invited via an e-mail by Professor Firdaus Udwadiato collaborate on a research with regards to Huygens synchronization problem. I was pretty excited to work with an established expert who has 100+ selected publications in the field. Mind you, I completed my Ph.D. degree in 1997 and I am in industry happy with my job. So, this was really for the love of science and continuing learning since I was not and I am not interested to be at academia. I only simply want to continue to work on interesting problems and not worry about tenure, for example. I even went to LA for 10 days in the Summer of 2009 on my own funds to work with the professor in person. Anyway, we started looking into the problem and it turned out to be challenging. We first needed to resolve a sub-problem of longitudinal vibrations of the bar with viscous ends. After some effort a paper started emerging. The first version I wrote is here, one of intermediate ones is here, the last one in my possession is here (with editing comments) and one of many Maple sheets that we used to do this research is here. While I was doing that research with the professor I discovered on my own a completely new methodology to solve that problem. I decided to write it down and submit for publication to Journal of Sound and Vibration in January 2010. However, the intake editor thought this was a simple problem and did not take into the process (the paper remains under review at another journal). I was disappointed. Here I am working on the same problem with the professor and yet an editor thinks that the problem is simple. Naively, I sent to the professor my new methodology paper asking him for advice and how is it possible that our problem was simple and yet we struggle so much with it. To my great surprise, rather that giving me a piece of advice as a senior researcher, the professor took personally on February 23, 2010 my attempt to publish my own methodology independently discovered without him having to do anything with it. He even expected me to apologize as if I was his student and not somebody who got a Ph.D. 13 year earlier. In the hope to save the relationship I even offered that my name be removed from our joint paper, but he felt deeply offended that I didn't think I did anything wrong. To a question whether it would be reasonable for me to take it against him if he decided to investigate some other aspect of the problem with a Ph.D. student at the same time and then attempt to publish it, he just said that he would not communicate with me any more. Realizing that we reached the end of our journey, I then retracted my offer expecting that we would both honor each other's contribution. I did, but sadly, however, this was not the case on his end. Without my knowledge the professor went on to publish our paper in International Journal of Engineering Science with my name removed. You can compare that paper with the versions that I provide here and you'll see what is going on. To my great surprise, on my request to be added as a coauthor, after submitting all the evidence (e-mails and versions of the paper), the editors of the journal and the journal manager directed me to resolve the situation with the corresponding author without wanting to take any action. They said that only the corresponding author can request that a coauthor be added. This was unexpected to me since I provided all the evidence and since Elsevier gives guidelines about "-Authorship of the paper" here. They however never followed the procedure outlined in COPE standard for this situation which they told me they are supposed to follow. They were supposed to ask our institutions to adjucate the matter since the professor and I could not agree. Anyway, in the last hope that injustice be undone, I respectfully asked Professor Firdaus Udwadia on December 1, 2011 to put such a request to the journal manager about adding a coauthor to the paper. I stated that regardless how he (professor) feels about me and whatever injustice I have done to him, I significantly contributed to the paper and that not including me as an author is a breach of ethics and could be viewed as a revenge on his part. I haven't gotten any response so far. I think I never will. With regards to all of this there are some questions that I cannot find answers to. Why would Professor Udwadia after 30 years of successful scientific career behave like this? What does one more or less paper with his sole authorship mean to him? Why would he take on somebody like me, much less known, who cannot endanger him/her in any way? When I was a graduate student my advisor actually encouraged me to go on and develop myself independently as my career was just beginning. I never thought that it should be any other way for a graduate student, and here we are talking about a person (me) who was done with being a graduate student a long time ago. What do I owe to Professor Udwadia and why would he need to punish me? The editor of Chronicle of Higher Education told me that my story is not uncommon. He provided a link to a recent article of theirs here. Anyway, I offered the above facts and my thoughts not to trash the professor (in fact I wish him the best in his pursuit of science), but for the truth about what happened to be known and to possibly benefit any future researchers in making informed decisions about their research.
Two and half years after the incident what can one learn from this? Well, let's take a look at my and professors's output with regards to this non-self-adjoint problem. I have published alltogether 6 papers that directly deal with the nature of this problem and I continue to work on additional topics, while the professor published only one paper; the one from which he removed my name. In the desire to be the only one author on the paper he lost a worthy colaborator, wouldn't you agree? Not much to say, but to quote the great Seneca...
"For greed all nature is too little." Lucius Annaeus Seneca