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Is it worth telling a PhD about his manuscript typos and mathematical mistakes once already published?
In the scope of the first weeks of a postdoctoral position in a company where one has the task to read a thesis manuscript written in this same company, suppose that one finds typographical mistakes (punctuation, grammar and so on). Is it worth it to contact (by email for instance) the thesis manuscript author and/or the professors that supervised the thesis?
Also, the manuscript is already published online, 2 years ago and one of the professor that supervised the thesis was in the Jury of my thesis, just before the postdoc.
Currently, I have only found "language" typos, but what if I found mathematical/logical mistakes, or typos within the equations? Does the answer remain the same?
Maybe this is pointless to tell them because it is already published online anyway?

This person has already graduated?

@user176372, yes he did and the manuscript is available online. My PhD supervisor was part of his thesis Jury.

What sort of ‘company’? Are you talking about a publisher, so you’re editing/proofreading the manuscript for publication? If so, then the author definitely needs to be told, yes.

What would you gain from doing this? What would you expect the student or supervisor to do in response?

What is your understanding of 'worth telling' in this situation? 'Worth' is a value to whom?

@Aruralreader, In this situation, my understanding of "worth" is towards Science. Would Science gain if I spend time noting the typos and eventually some mathematical incorrect notations or mistakes and telling the author.

@JKHA. That's for you to decide.

Personally, I wouldn't contact any of the authors about typos and grammar.
In most cases (talking from an engineering background), unless those mistakes impact the readability or how easy it is to understand, they don't matter.
Don't get me wrong, when one submits any manuscript, they should make as few mistakes as possible and use grammar/spell checkers or other means.
If it was published or accepted, the quality is sufficient to understand it.
If you find a mistake in equations, assumptions, or methods, then you should:

make sure that you haven't misunderstood anything
contact the authors as this is important to get right.

I had a co-PhD student (back in the day), who noticed a major error in an equation within a journal paper. He wrote a paper fixing the error and results. The original authors tried to contest this and it was a big issue in the end.
So, if you find a mistake in a publication that impacts the thesis/result. Contact the author first and do a joint publication correcting it.
But common/obvious typos or grammar mistakes are usually not worth it.

Since the person has graduated: No, it's not worth contacting them. The author is likely aware of their work's strengths and weaknesses. My thesis, f.ex., is one I wouldn't direct anyone to read. It's not bad, but the subsequent papers are significantly higher quality. Unless you think these typos are substantially degrading the transmission of important knowledge that affects you, it's simply not your problem to provide unsolicited advice on.

While it is fine to contact the author about such things, I'd suggest it is improper to write to their supervisor or others about it.
Punctuation and language usage errors are less serious than are errors in the content of the work. The latter may need correction, especially if they affect results.
If an author isn't a native speaker of the language of the thesis, such things are likely to occur and may not be caught in editing. But, informing authors, providing corrections, is fine. Sometimes errata can be published.
But informing third parties, including former supervisors, seems improper to me.

@leonos, yes, of course, and it is difficult to notice one's own errors.

Is it ever worth contacting someone about errors in a finished thesis? If anyone were to find errors in mine, including actually serious ones, bar actual misconduct I don't think I would do anything. I mean, I finished my thesis more than a decade ago, I wouldn't even know how to go about correcting it and what would be the point? It's a thesis, not a paper. Even if I did make a methodological error, unless it is something that should somehow result in my degree being revoked, I don't see an point in correcting a document nobody reads anyway.

@leonos indeed. Several of my PhD colleagues in the UK were German.  They were generally very good at spotting sloppy use of language by us native speakers, especially the sort of thing that's acceptable in informal speech, but out of place in academic writing.

@terdon it was a former colleague who pointed out the off-by-one error in the code in my thesis.  It cancelled out in the way I used it then, but not in every use case (including, funnily enough, some data processing for which I've just picked it up).  That was worth it!

I often read text in Spanish and note sloppy mistakes without being a native speaker.


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When to reply the email of a job offer?
I got an email with a written job offer for a faculty position in the US. A question that I never saw addressed is about the timing of replying to a written offer email.
Should I acknowledge and thank for their email immediately and say that I will consider the details of the offer and then reach out to them again, or should I only reply to them whenever I decide if I accept/decline/ask-to-negotiate the offer?

I guess I'd say that I'm very surprised that nobody called you to give you a verbal offer before the email.

@JonCuster me ttoo, I was expecting a verbal mention of salary so I could negotiate before the written offer was made. This makes me concerned

When I was in this position, I answered the email immediately thanking them for the offer, taking the time to interview me and for the excellent opportunity it would be to work at [university]. I told them that I would review the offer and get back to them soon.
My reasoning is that email is fickle and life is messy. Does silence mean you are thinking about the offer? Does it mean you’re on vacation? You’re in the hospital? Or does it mean the email attachment got stuck in the spam system? I think acknowledgement is the polite thing to do. And I don’t think you lose anything towards bargaining.

Thanks. This was indeed what I ended up doing. I liked your approach and your insight was very much appreciated.

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Is it okay for a co-author to share an unfinished manuscript with others?
I am a PhD student, I recently sent a draft of a paper to six co-authors to get final revisions before submitting to a journal. One of my co-authors responded saying they had sent to manuscript to another colleague to get comments for a section they did not have expertise in.
This seems a bit strange to me, as neither myself or my supervisor gave permission to circulate the draft to others. Is this normal practice? I’m not sure if this new person would also expect to get co-authorship if they provide feedback. Is there anything I should do to address this?

did you check with your supervisor? maybe the person had good relationship with your supervisor and the agreement is implicit?

I removed a few comment-answers; please avoid answering in the comment section.

If you were asking if you as a coauthor should share the manuscript with additional people without permission, I would say absolutely not, but that it's also not a big deal to ask and I'd expect most coauthors to say "sure" unless you're considering sending it to someone they see as a competitor.
However, since you're in the opposite role, I'd suggest not making a big deal of it. If they end up making a contribution that makes them an author, that's fine; most likely a comment on one aspect won't do that, an acknowledgement may be more appropriate. It would have been good form for them to ask your permission first, but most likely their top concern is that you all have a great paper which is good for all of you.

Mostly good answer, but I would strongly disagree with: "If they end up making a contribution that makes them an author, that's fine". If that happens, the situation is much worse than if the co-author only had asked for feedback---it's the whole author group who collectively needs to decide about the inclusion of new authors. To avoid this, the co-author should clearly phrase the expectations about the expected kind of feedback, in a way that avoids potential contributions that could make the person an author.

@lighthousekeeper I think that's a separate issue to address in a separate Q&A, I was just reacting to OP's concern and stating that either way it should be dependent on what they contribute.

It's not really "standard" practice, but it does happen.  My suggestion would be to either leave it alone, or ask the person who passed it along to ask the recipient to please treat it as a confidential document.  This has the added effect of letting the person who passed it to someone else that perhaps they should ask first.

This seems a bit strange to me, as neither myself or my supervisor gave permission to circulate the draft to others.

The default position is of course unpublished work is not circulated outside of the author pool because even though their names may appear at the top of the draft for formatting purposes, they have not yet approved of what the paper says. It's a draft; an internal working document only.

Is this normal practice?

The author/passer absolutely should not have shared the draft with someone outside the pool without everyone's permission.
It was wrong to do so without asking the other authors first.
That said, it does happen. And especially of the author/passer and commenter have a good academic working relationship and are of upstanding character, it's probably a plus.

I’m not sure if this new person would also expect to get co-authorship if they provide feedback.

If the nature of the comments were to help enlighten the author/passer on some specific details (e.g. help me understand x) then possibly nothing needs to happen.
If it was more like the commenter made comments that improved the paper but didn't impact the research, analysis, or conclusions significantly, then generally a short note at the end of the paper acknowledging comments by the commenter is normal, standard and most folks would say, required.
If the comments had some actual significant impact on the research, analysis, or conclusions, then they certainly might be a candidates for authorship.

Is there anything I should do to address this?

I have to agree with the sentiment in other answers and comments, unless there's some problem or objection on your part, don't worry about it, leave it alone, etc.
I would probably not go so far as to tell the author/passer to "...ask the person who passed it along to ask the recipient to please treat it as a confidential document." if the author/passer is established or otherwise someone who would not take kindly to being told what to do. If they are on the other hand also a student or fairly new to the acadamy, then maybe say something...
But rather than "please tell them to keep it confidential" perhaps "may I ask what the nature of their contribution is?" and "I just want to double check, they know it's a first draft, right?" and "since there's a possibility that they might end up in acknowledgements, could I ask who they are?"

Sorry, I have to add this answer because I disagree with the tone of other posts:
"I'd suggest not making a big deal of it."
"It's not really "standard" practice, but it does happen.... leave it alone..."
"don't worry about it, leave it alone, etc."
In my opinion, one should react to it (not over-react of course), because it is not right. Be polite but firm. I suggest to respond to the email, thank for taking care of the manuscript and state that you prefer that decisions to share the manuscript are taken collectively by all authors.
The reason to respond are 1) to prevent new people claiming the co-authorships, 2) avoid repetition of the story.

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When is it appropriate to suggest a nonpreferred reviewer?
I submitted a manuscript to a journal and got desk rejected by the editor who also gave feedback on why the manuscript was rejected. We made changes to address this feedback but after some back and forth with the editor they did not send the paper for additional peer review. My supervisor believes that the paper should have at least been sent out for additional review after we addressed the editors comments. So, after some more changes we are submitting the paper to a new journal.
What is the main purpose of suggesting a nonpreferred reviewer? Would it be inappropriate to suggest the editor who previously rejected the paper as a nonpreferred reviewer even though we have no "conflict of interest" with them?

Seems unlikely that journal editors do much reviewing for other journals, but I could well be wrong since I’ve never been an editor.

Related: Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer, Who should be excluded from reviewing

(1) It's already uncommon to be able to resubmit a desk rejected paper. Most desk rejections are just that, not desk reject and resubmits. (2) By "nonpreferred reviewer" you mean someone that you actively do not want to review, right? The wording could imply someone you are indifferent about. That said, I believe most systems do not ask you the reasons why you would want to exclude someone, so just go ahead and do so.

@StephanKolassa That looks like an answer, not a comment.

@ChristianHennig: ... but thanks to you, I don't need to post it any more! Thank you!

@JonCuster: "Seems unlikely that journal editors do much reviewing for other journals" I'm not sure I follow. Being an editor is usually just one obligation among many others (except maybe for some editors-in-chief). Why would it prevent someone from reviewing for other journals?

@JochenGlueck - it seems to me that being an editor for a journal is already much more work than a reviewer puts in, so volunteering further time to review for other journals is just piling obligation on obligation. Then, and this is a personal feeling, reviewing for another journal raises potential conflicts of interest - should I recommend rejection of this paper and hope it comes to my journal... But I've never been a journal editor.

@JonCuster: In my experience this is not an issue at all. I'm on the editorial board of two journals (for one/two years) and handling a submission is way less work than reviewing it. (But as I said, the work load is certainly much higher for editors-in-chief.) The idea that I could stop reviewing for other journals has never occurred to me. Similarly, the idea that I could, as a reviewer, recommend rejection of a good paper and hope that it is then submitted to a journal I'm involved with, has never occurred to me (and, no offence intended, the idea seems quite far fetched).

@JochenGlueck - perfect, word from someone with experience. Many thanks.

What is the main purpose of suggesting a nonpreferred reviewer?

If you believe there are reasons that certain reviewers may unfairly recommend to reject your work, you could name them as "nonpreferred" reviewers. This may be because of differences in "philosophy" (some people are against a whole direction of research whether well done or not), or because of certain experiences in the past (somebody may hold a grudge against you because you won a position or a grant against them and they may not have taken it well). You may also in a conference already have been unfairly criticised by them. As @StephanKolassa wrote in their comment, however, you will not normally need to give reasons why you nominate anybody.

Would it be inappropriate to suggest the editor who previously rejected the paper as a nonpreferred reviewer even though we have no "conflict of interest" with them?

I wouldn't say it's inappropriate, but chances are I wouldn't do that myself in this situation, unless the editor criticised your work in a really unfair manner and it seems realistic that they may be asked to review (which very often isn't the case).
My reasons are (a) in general I believe it looks better to not make any nomination of a nonpreferred reviewer, because by doing this you already tell editors that there may be people around who may not appreciate your work. This will not of course normally lead to rejection, but it does transport some (if weak) negativity regarding your own work. Also it restricts the editor's scope to find reviewers and may lead to delay in case the nonpreferred reviewer would otherwise have been a suitable candidate (in some cases a fast rejection is better than the process taking ages). Also the editor may in principle know and esteem this person, in which case it wouldn't reflect so well on you to exclude them as reviewer. So in my view there should be really strong reasons to nominate nonpreferred reviewers, otherwise I wouldn't do it (and if so minimise their number, optimally to zero or one if at all possible). Personally if I remember it correctly, I only did that once, for the "philosophical differences" reason mentioned above, and because I knew this person would be seen as a major option to review, and chances were that they would want to stop my work from being published.
(b) A desk rejection is a rejection and not normally meant to be discussed or challenged. The editor very often doesn't have enough time to write down all their reasons in detail, so it may not be the case that what you think you have addressed indeed addresses all reasons the editor had to reject your paper. In any case they may have so much to do that as a matter of principle papers rejected once are not considered again. The editor knows that there are other journals, so if you can improve your paper based on the editor's comments, you can well submit somewhere else. This means that what the editor did is normal editor's behaviour. It doesn't mean, in my view, that you were treated or assessed unfairly here  (of course I cannot have any idea whether their original arguments were fair, or what went on in later exchanges, which may imply a reason to "nonprefer" this person, but see above).

Can you clarify your (b)? The OP states that they are submitting to a new journal, so its not like they are asking for resubmission to a journal that has already rejected them. Do you mean that you don't think the editor necessarily doesn't like the paper just because they rejected it, and therefore shouldn't be excluded?

@IanSudbery I believe that the editor of the first journal behaved in a normal way that doesn't constitute any evidence that they would assess the paper unfairly if being a reviewer. Of course it could arguably be likely that they'd recommend to reject it, but I wouldn't take this as a given (of course we don't know the details of the earlier exchange, but they could well be OK with accepting this in another journal that they perceive as lower level). As said in (a) I wouldn't nominate as nonpreferred somebody just because there is a chance they may recommend to reject.


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How to write a Ph.D. thesis Introduction chapter?
I am in the process of writing my Ph.D. thesis and struggling with the introduction chapter, what to cover, and what not. This is a technical thesis. The broad area is molecular simulation in statistical mechanics.
There are lots of tips available on the Internet, but those are very general often. I have found a few theses also searching on Google. All those tips and theses vary in style and content and it is difficult to decide which one to follow. Please provide tips on how can I write a good introduction chapter with high academic standards.
EDIT: After reading your valuable input, I am adding here a few more points. (Thanks everybody). Your comments on these points are highly appreciated.

I have seen theses where people include background theories. On this matter, I have read that the theory should not be something that others know. Now, this is difficult to predict what to include as background theory, and what not. I have seen people include theories that are widely available in textbooks.

Chapter 2 is dedicated to the literature review. It is also important to briefly mention the background and relevant research works. Here I have found people are giving a little elaborate technical detail.

The answer could depend on whether this is a monograph thesis or a sandwich thesis.

Have you written the rest of the thesis already?  In my experience it's much easier to write the introduction properly once you know exactly what it is the introduction to.

Yes, except introduction and literature review all other chapters I have already written. Those are not in final shape yet. Incorporating changes suggested by my advisor.

Maybe it is a good idea to take a look at the PhD of others from your laboratory to see what are the expectations from your supervisor and the school, in format, depth, content etc. One counterargument can be that if the topic is too close, you unintentionally will mimic it too much.

My thesis, which does happen to be in the area you are writing about, took a somewhat different approach for the introductory chapter:

Motivations—why is this particular problem important
Related efforts—in what context was the work done
A short summary of the main development of the thesis (without a formal hypothesis statement)
An outline of the remainder of the thesis

The following chapter, which was also an "introductory" chapter, but more of a "preliminaries" chapter, defines all the major concepts, tools, and ideas used in the remainder of the thesis (which were derived from my published papers, and therefore somewhat briefer than what is needed for a thesis).

I second aeismail’s answer (and like him, I work in the very same field as you!)…

In my opinion, all the other answers omit a very important purpose of the Introduction: You should introduce not only the thesis but the results of other people in the Introduction.
A good introduction cites quite a handful of works by other people. Basically, a reader, after reading the Introduction, should have a good idea as to what the thesis is going to be about, and in what wider concept of science it fits, and this cannot be done without citing other people. This shows that you are not doing some rubbish that nobody is interested in.

My listing of "related efforts" can encompass that purpose, as relevant work influencing the thesis is discussed. However, the actual results may not necessarily go in an introductory chapter, but a "preliminaries" chapter that follows (as was the case in my thesis).

@aeismail (speaking of math) It depends whether you really use them or you just recall them. But I agree, there's a thin boundary, and it's a matter of habit where you put these. Still, if you don't have it elsewhere, to the Introduction it goes;)

The introduction of a thesis is a good place to give a bird’s eye view of the problem you face, its importance, relevance to major challenges in the field, and possible applications (including in related fields). You can very briefly explain what others have done to approach it, but I would definitely not include there a full review of the literature. You want the introduction to give the readers (and demonstrate to your committee) that you have a high-level understanding of the context and problem at hand.
Then, you can include a section giving a full review of the state of the art in the field (i.e., what others have done so far) later in the manuscript, either as its own chapter or as part of a “methods” chapter that is structured as such:

Methods
    1. Foundations of molecular simulation
    2. State-of-the-art for your specific problem
    3. Methods you have developed

An introduction is a funnel into your work, be it a paper or a thesis. The basic idea is to start by providing the wider scope within which your work resides. You then focus in on your part of the field or research question through a few steps.
The wider perspective of the beginning should also be the perspective in which you will later put your own results, to show how they feed back into some more general perspective. This part should allow the reader to focus in on relevant research and obtain a firm background of the current knowledge in the field. Once you have established the background you should identify for the reader the gap of knowledge which you have tackled. you then finish off by stating your plan for solving the problem so that your choices of methods etc. can be seen from the perspective of knowns and remaining problems to be solved. We can summarize the text as

Background
Gap
Your approach to a solution

Writing a thesis and a paper can mean this approach can be accomplished in several ways. In a research paper, all of this usually goes into a single heading "Introduction". When you write a thesis the introduction may be many pages long and it is not uncommon to either have the list above as subheadings under the introduction or to outline this part slightly differently.
When you have a lengthy introduction, you may start out by having a chapter called introduction, which does what has been outlined above but cuts out the background details and only summarizes what is known and identifies gaps, almost like a summary of the whole introduction. You then follow up with a detailed background in a separate chapter and likewise for identifying gaps and providing the outline of your research.
The point is that there are many ways to format or partition an introduction but the general idea is still there regardless of what form of publication you are writing: research paper or thesis.

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How can software piracy in academia be reduced/eliminated?
Software piracy is obviously illegal as well as being wrong for a variety of reasons. However, from my experience it is extremely common to see pirated software being used by research students. This appears to be implicitly condoned/encouraged by some academic staff.
Usually software piracy is done by an individual for their own use. In academia it is being done with implicit consent by the organisation and for the purposes of conducting research which may end up with commercial applications, or be built upon by others.
How can software piracy in academia be reduced/eliminated?

This does rather read like you would like to participate in a discussion about ... piracy. I'm not even sure what your last question means.

@EnergyNumbers, thank you for your comment. I have re-written/simplified the question so that it is more direct.

@EnergyNumbers I also don't feel it is any more an invitation for discussion than most other questions here. For example http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57107/fear-of-someone-having-the-same-idea-and-doing-the-research-before-you-do  doesn't even contain a question...

Please elaborate how this question is specific to academia.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it discuss an issue which is not specific to academia.

@DmitrySavostyanov In my view there must be a difference in how to address someone pirating software at home, such as a video games, etc for their own use vs. at a university when the resulting research is published and built upon by others. Please close the question if it is off topic. But I believe it is a valid question which is applicable to academia.

too broad and opinion-based...

You would have a better chance of success if you asked the Sun not to shine.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not related to academia

Actually, part of this is by design.
Software companies turn a blind eye to students and faculty pirating their software, so the students learn how to use their program. Once they go on to companies, they will request to use what they know best, and the companies will pay the hefty fees.
How can we avoid this? The best solution is at the root: replace all commercial software by open source versions, when this alternative has a comparable level of quality. This has two costs that would have to be weighted before doing the switch:

The instructors would need to learn another software, that is perhaps not what they are using for their research.
If the industry standard is a commercial software, the students will have to learn it, preferably when still at university.

On the other hand, sometimes the open source version is superior to the commercial version. For example, I think the Scipy ecosystem is much better than MATLAB except for a few niches. So, when MATLAB users do the exercise of evaluating the quality of Scipy for their applications, they may discover that making the switch in both teaching and research is, perhaps, a good move.
This switch should be encouraged even more for introductory classes, where none of the advanced features come into play, and classes where the software is only used marginally (limited to, for example, one or two practical sessions). Once students have knowledge of the free alternatives, they would have alternative resources before pirating.
(Disclaimer: I personally dislike MATLAB quite a lot, but I know of many people from many fields that are making the switch, and of no one that is doing it back. YMMV.)
Another front is in the software companies themselves. My university provides some commercial licenses for free for us staff. But the list of instructions to install and launch some of the programs is as long as my arm, and quite often (judging from the emails the IT department sends), unreliable. So, even though people can get a legal version for free, the pirated version may prove to be easier and more reliable; so I wouldn't be surprised if several people had chosen that option.

Julia is also a nice alternative to MATLAB.

While I am not flat out disagreeing with your answer, as we have all heard that before.  However, I have never seen a company say this.  So if there is no evidence of this answer being true, than can it be true?

@Keltari: Did you consider the fact that MathWorks gives MATLAB away to students for approximately 2% of the commercial price?  It's done exactly " so the students learn how to use their program. Once they go on to companies, they will request to use what they know best, and the companies will pay the hefty fees." as this answer says.  Piracy is minimized by making the price so low that there's no reason not to have  a student license.

Since this is an open-ended question: a possible solution would be changing the copyright laws to redefine all educational use as "fair use" exempt from copyright restrictions.
Do not change the behavior (which is perfectly ethically acceptable, in my view); change the laws that define it as illegal.

What is educational use?

@emory Is this a trick question? My first attempt at a definition would be "the use by students, teachers, and researchers in a university, school or  degree-granting institution, for purpose of instruction or scientific research whose main output is producing peer-reviewed publications". But don't judge the merits of this proposal by this first definition attempt, which may be improved. The US law, for instance, already includes the notion of "educational use", so it is a problem that has already been attacked and solved.

@FedericoPoloni So if Trump Hotel wants to use a software they need to pay licensing fees, but if Trump University wants to use the same software they don't.  If I were Trump, I'd have Trump Hotel pay Trump University to do "research".

@FedericoPoloni I do not like this idea.  Often, I license the software I write with GPL3.  Universities (and everyone else) are free to use this software without paying licensing fees, but that was my choice.  This proposal reduces my choice.  Using software against license is not ethical.

@emory Your "Trump university" example is exactly why I asked you not to use my first attempt at a definition to judge the proposal. :) A good definition can eliminate edge cases, but the fact that edge cases exist should not be used to shoot down my proposal. Besides that, if Trump University produces good quality research and the results are published for everyone to read and use, what is the harm?

@emory Your proposal reduces everyone else's choice as a user, instead.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The main cause of this behavior is the premise that "for educational purposes" makes certain acts acceptable, in the eyes of the perpetrators. Universities may negotiate deals with software vendors, but the terms may not be favorable enough, or they might be for the wrong brand: or, they have unclear or unseen terms of use (such as requiring the software to be uninstalled when the person leaves the university – but that is buried in a EULA that most people don't actually read). There are really only two solutions. One is that universities will just have to bite the bullet and pay for the millions of dollars worth of software that staff and students feel they need; the other is for individuals to realize that "But it's for educational purposes" is not a passkey entitling you to all electronic content out there.

The best would probably be for educational institutions - and for all government (all levels) - to switch to open-source software, which preferably used only open standards and file-formats.  This would allow competition between providers, and not lock institutions into proprietary programs (often with yearly license fees) "for ever".  The Government should also spend money funding developing of open-source software - perhaps developed at Colleges.
But I guess you were more asking how software-companies can collect what students owe them, than how the industry could be improved... As for big software houses, they could always try to lower their prices and/or have cheaper software available for students - under separate license agreements and/or through the schools.
It's not that I don't understand developing high-quality software can't be expensive, but when you keep re-packaging software that was mostly developed 20+ years ago (only with a bit of added functions and the occasional face-lift), and still charge $1000-$10000 for something that had earned back it's development 10 years ago, then you're just being greedy.
Capitalism is about free and open competition - not monopolies, patents and locking customers into something sub-par for eternity.  Sadly with locked file-formats and such, competition gets inhibited.

Richard Stallman creator of the GPL Free Software License and the GNU project has talked about this moral dilemma:

...If you use a program without freedom 2 then you end up in a moral dilemma. If someone says “Hey, great software Can I get a copy?”. In this case you should choose lesser of two evils, which is to violate the license and give your friend a copy. Being the lesser evil doesn’t mean it’s good though. When you’ve fully studied this dilemma what should you do? Option 1: don’t have any friends! That what the proprietary debs would have you do. Option 2: don’t have that software in the first place so you don’t end up in the dilemma in the first place...

For me that is the solution, don't use propietary software in class, I teach all my courses using Free Software.
The biggest reason why this doesn't change is because many teachers use proprietary tools. i.e. They wouldn't like to change their Power Point presentatons or Word documents to Libre Office. Or stop using Matlab and use Octave. Because the effort to adapt is deemed too big of an inconvenience.
And as students and PHD students become teachers themselves the cycle is perpetuated.
However more and more things are changing the push for Open Access, Open Science and reproducible research is motivating more and more to use software that you can distribute.

Piracy is not eliminated because in academia people usually have a lot of freedom, so I guess the prevalence of piracy is more or less the same as in the general population.
In the end it's the same with all piracy: if you make paying an easy, affordable option, people will do it. Nobody is going to pay full price for Adobe CS because they make 2 posters and 5 figures per year. And apparently my university isn't paying full price, otherwise not all students and staff would have the full suite all the time. So this works (and at their first jobs all the students will ask for Adobe stuff).
Other licenses besides "full" ones also help. I have one program I use maybe 5 times per week, but every time only 5-10 minutes. We only have licenses for 5-10% of the staff, if too many people have started the program you have to wait a few minutes but this rarely happens. But companies have to allow this system.
Switching to open source was also suggested: while this works for certain types of programs, it's not always possible / desirable. Even if the software is available, there might not be sufficient documentation, people might need a lot of training to switch or specific required functionality is missing.

The answer is obvious.  Make a confidential report to the Business Software Alliance.  The BSA will investigate your university and if they receive a monetary settlement will pay you a reward.
After a university gets whacked by the BSA stick, they will find ways to reduce or eliminate software piracy (if they had not done so before).

So the answer is be a "snitch", betray your university, classmates and professors so that the BSA can make some money?
A more productive approach is to teach classmates and students to use Free as In Freedom Software.
And if no Free alternative exist, then to make a contribution and develop it.

Why do you owe your university, classmates, and professors confidentiality in this matter? However, I agree that Free software is to be preferred.

PS I didn't down vote you... I disagree with your opinion.
but I didn't downvote...

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Conferences without proceedings worthwhile for a PhD student?
As a PhD student there are limited funds available for travel to conferences. Should presenting at conferences with proceedings be prioritised over conferences without proceedings? Are conferences without proceedings considered less prestigious? I'm interested specifically in applied mechanics and materials science conferences.

What is your field?

Applied Mechanics and materials science

I'm not familiar with your area, but I am strongly skeptical that it makes any sense to divide all conferences into two categories, those with proceedings and those without, and to declare based on that one binary bit of information that those in one category are more prestigious and more worth attending than those in the other category.
In other words, as with most things in life, the answer is it depends. Given two conferences you are considering choosing between, I would say look carefully at what topic each conference is about, how close is it to your interests, how good are the networking and learning opportunities you will get there, how attractive is the location, and yes, whether there is an opportunity to publish a proceedings paper; then make a decision.

In my field (CS) conference papers are actually peer-reviewed. And in institutions / departments / groups where money is scarce it can happen that travels are only paid when one gets a publication out of it.

@CrepusculeWithNellie it does not mean that you shouldn't go to conferences without having a paper, it only means that you have to find another way of funding your travel. My own experience is that conferences where I went without papers were the most "productive" for me since I had no stress and time for networking.

In my experience, many PhD students tend to vastly underestimate the value of the networking that happens at conferences.  At this stage in your career, your primary goal in going to conferences is to meet and become friendly with faculty at other institutions who are in your subfield.  These are the people who will be in a position to give you a job after you graduate, and you will be in a much better position if they already know you when your job application arrives.
Of course, giving talks at conferences is also valuable for your CV, but I would say that this is of secondary importance.  Of course, there are some fields (and I don't know specifically about applied mechanics or materials science) in which conference proceedings are the main route to publication, in which case it is vital to make sure that you go to at least enough conferences to publish all of your research.  But you should certainly not limit yourself to conferences at which you will be able to publish.


text:
In which countries is cheating in university exams considered a crime?
In the comments to the question
Methods to track behind cheating on exams using on-line sites?
, Federico Poloni states that cheating is considered a felony in Italy (see
https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:1925-04-19;475).
This seems interesting to me as I had never heard of this. So I am asking: In which (other) countries is cheating in university exams considered a felony (and thus punishable by law)?
Note that I only asking about the existence of such a law, not if it has any implications in practise.
Also note: I am really asking about "classical university exams" and not about plagiarism when writing a thesis.

Note, importantly, that the meaning of felony is determined by local law and varies widely. I doubt that under US law, cheating on university exams could rise to that level. Professional licensing exams might be quite different, of course. Engineering and Medicine have quite strict rules, I'd suppose.

You might want to define the meaning of 'felony' you're using. Based on the linked law (and US usage) you might mean a crime punishable by imprisonment, but in the text you just say "punishable by law", which would apply also to other crimes. And in other law systems and languages felony has more narrow definitions, reflecting its feudal origins.

@Anyon: Does "felony" mean "punishable with imprisonment"? If yes, that's not what I.mean - I rather mean "there is a law against it and the person doing it could be penalized by imprisonment, a fine or.similar".

@Anyon: What would the word for what I mean be?

In the US, "infraction" might be used. Disobeying some traffic rules results in a fine, but not a misdemeanor (minor offense) or felony (major offense).

@user111388 Felonies are serious crimes, see e.g. Wikipedia. 'Crime' seems like a simpler and more appropriate word for what you're after.

There are many corner-cases where the act of cheating results in a felony indirectly. You already excluded plagiarism, which can lead to criminal charges regarding copyright infringement. There is also the possibility to convict someone for fraud, something which requires monetary damages to be involved, e.g. a scholarship that depends on grades. I bet there are quite a few more of these, if one is willing to look.

@mlk: "There is also the possiblity to convict someone for fraud" (when they cheated in an exam): where?

fraud is a crime in many countries.

@mlk Fraud doesn't necessarily require that there be monetary damages. In general, fraud is often defined as receiving something of value as a result of misrepresentation, which the person would not have received without the misrepresentation. Under such a definition, most cheating could be considered fraud. Obviously, it would need to be litigated, and would depend on the specific circumstances, but it's not unreasonable to consider most cheating to be fraud. It could be more clearly so if the person has to sign a statement that the work is their own and that they follow all rules.

Please define what a crime is (in France, it has not the same meaning as in the USA). But in France cheating at exams is definitely able to take you to court and be at least fined, and forbidden of any State related employment (research, police, health, justice, army) for a long time. I tend to believe that in rare cases, you could risk jail. Check on https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

@Makyen You are right, though the legal definition seems to vary between places. E.g. in Germany, as far as I know fraud specifically requires losses as the result of deception, but there might be other jurisdictions, where ill gotten gains are enough.

Could the downvoters please explain?

Are you looking for an exhaustive list?  I don;t really see this question being answered as it stands.

If this question remains open, I recommend creating a Community Wiki answer, wherein a collaborative list of countries that do, as well as potentially a list of countries that do not, is maintained.  This is the same that was done for a similar, popular question on Stack Overflow that, despite eligibility for being closed, was left open by a moderator exception: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list

In the German state North-Rhine-Westphalia cheating in university exams is a contravention (Ordnungswidrigkeit) and can be a crime if the university demanded a declaration in lieu of oath.
In the North-Rine-Westphalian law on universities (Hochschulgesetz) § 63 V says:

(5) Die Hochschulen und die staatlichen Prüfungsämter können von den Prüfungskandidatinnen und Prüfungskandidaten eine Versicherung an Eides Statt verlangen und abnehmen, dass die Prüfungsleistung von ihnen selbständig und ohne unzulässige fremde Hilfe erbracht worden ist. Wer vorsätzlich

gegen eine die Täuschung über Prüfungsleistungen betreffende Regelung einer Hochschulprüfungsordnung oder

gegen eine entsprechende Regelung einer staatlichen oder kirchlichen Prüfungsordnung

verstößt, handelt ordnungswidrig. Die Ordnungswidrigkeit kann mit einer Geldbuße bis zu 50 000 Euro geahndet werden. Die Hochschulen können das Nähere in einer Ordnung regeln. Zuständige Verwaltungsbehörde für die Verfolgung und Ahndung von Ordnungswidrigkeiten nach Satz 2 Nummer 1 ist die Kanzlerin oder der Kanzler sowie nach Satz 2 Nummer 2 das staatliche Prüfungsamt. Im Falle eines mehrfachen oder sonstigen schwerwiegenden Täuschungsversuches kann der Prüfling zudem exmatrikuliert werden.

So it is a contravention finable with up to 50 000 € to intentionally violate the examination regulations on cheating (sentence 2 f.). The details can be ruled by regulations of the universities. I have never heard of someone fined under this rule, but this does not mean it never takes place.
Additionally the univiersities can demand a declaration in lieu of oath that the examined took the exam without forbidden foreign help (sentence 1). This only applies to foreign help, not to "cheat sheets" and similar. Giving a false declaration in lieu of oath is a crime under §§ 156, 161 StGB both done intentionally and negligently. Such declarations are requested regularly for Hausarbeiten (papers written by students at home) but not for exams done in university.

Section 156
False declaration in lieu of oath
Whoever falsely makes a declaration in lieu of an oath before an authority which is competent to administer such declarations or falsely testifies whilst referring to such a declaration incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or a fine.
Section 161
Negligent false oath; negligent false declaration in lieu of oath
(1) Whoever commits one of the offences referred to in sections 154 to 156 by negligence incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or a fine.
(2) No penalty is incurred if the offender corrects the false statement in time. The provisions of section 158 (2) and (3) apply accordingly.

By § 159 (in combination with § 30) StGB it is even a crime to try to abet to a false declaration in lieu of an oath punishable with up to 2 years and 3 months at prison or a fine (§§ 30 I s. 2, 49 I n. 2 StGB).

Section 159
Attempt to abet false testimony
Section 30 (1) and section 31 (1) no. 1 and (2) apply accordingly to an attempt to abet false unsworn testimony (section 153) and a false declaration in lieu of an oath (section 156).

There may be similar rules in other federal states of Germany (the rules on universities are made by the states). I looked only for Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg where a declaration in lieu of an oath can only be demanded for PhD thesis and there is no contravention-rule.

I remember signing several of these in that state!

In Italy cheating in a public university can be punished with 3-12 months of imprisonment.
The relevant law is almost one century old, but it is still valid today.
From https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:1925-04-19;475 :

LEGGE 19 aprile 1925, n. 475
Art. 1 Chiunque in esami o concorsi, prescritti o richiesti da autorita' o pubbliche Amministrazioni per il conferimento di lauree o di ogni altro grado o titolo scolastico o accademico, per l'abilitazione all'insegnamento od all'esercizio di una professione, per il rilascio di diplomi o patenti, presenta, come propri, dissertazioni, studi, pubblicazioni, progetti tecnici e, in genere, lavori che siano opera di altri, e' punito con la reclusione da tre mesi ad un anno. La pena della reclusione non puo' essere inferiore a sei mesi qualora l'intento sia conseguito.

My attempt at a translation (excuse the convoluted 1925 Italian syntax).

Law no. 475, April 19 1925.
Article 1: whoever presents as his/her own a study, dissertation, publication, technical project, or, generically, a work that is made by someone else, in an exam or selection, prescribed or requested by authorities or by the public administration to confer degrees or any other sort of academic or school qualifications, or for habilitation to the practice of a profession or to teaching, is to be punished with imprisonment from 3 months up to one year. This penalty cannot be lower than six months when the attempt is successful.

@Titus I haven't heard of any recent cases in the news, but a Google search returned this sentence from 2013 by the highest Italian court (Cassazione), in which a man was condemned for plagiarizing "with minimal changes" his thesis. His degree in medicine was revoked as well. The court commented that this practice was "particularly popular".

In Canada there is a section of the Criminal Code (equivalent to US Federal law; but there are no Provincial "criminal" laws) called "Personation at examination" that deals exactly with this:

404 Every one who falsely, with intent to gain advantage for himself
  or some other person, personates a candidate at a competitive or
  qualifying examination held under the authority of law or in
  connection with a university, college or school or who knowingly
  avails himself of the results of such personation is guilty of an
  offence punishable on summary conviction.

And yes, it's been used: There was a case in 2014 in which a forged identity document was allegedly used to allow a PhD-level student to write an undergrad's exam for hire. This resulted in charges reported as "uttering forged documents" as well as the one above. Note that as the law is worded, both the actor and the willing subject of the "personation" can be charged under the same section.
("Personation" seems to be an archaic form used in law; it's not a widespread Canadianism for "impersonation".)

I wonder why some people upvoted the France answer (which came later) and not this one also.

@user111388 the France answer was edited (bumping it to the top spot with the default "most active" sort option) and this was put on Hot Network Posts. People click on that, read the first answers (whether truly "first" or not), vote, and leave. Completely inflates the votes but no good solution to it.

@LinkBerest: Oh, I did not know that default is "Most active". I have always "Votes".

In France, see the law of December 23, 1901 related to fraud at exams.
You risk 3 years of jail by cheating at exams. Even at the Baccalauréat (end of high school at age of about 18), or competitive exams for entrance at any Grande École  (some of which, including Écoles normales supérieures or École Polytechnique, giving you a civil servant status and pay when studying there; I was very happy to be graduated from ENS Cachan and paid there, with the contractual obligation to serve the State for ten years or else reimburse part of my salary as student & civil servant).
I am not a lawyer, so I don't know how often is that law applicable in practice.
But you certainly forbid yourself from any State related employment (so hospitals, army, police, research, education, law, defense or space industry, or even Airbus ....) if you are condemned for cheating. AFAIK, cheating at Baccalauréat (and been caught) forbids you to go to University for several years, and could be written on your criminal record ("casier judiciaire").
I made nearly all my career at CEA and I would be forbidden to be hired (in 1985) if I ever cheated at exams.
I taught and gave exams at University, and cheating is a very serious thing there. Anyone teaching at university and permitting (on purpose) fraud would have a lot of trouble (similar to some kind of sexual harassment on students).

Here's an official link that is more readable than a law text. Note a distinction between disciplinary sanctions (5 years ban on public exams/university, failure at the exam where you cheated) taken more or less automatically, and criminal sanctions (up to 9000€ fine and three years in prison) which require judicial proceedings and are therefore more rare (I personally know of three fraud cases that got the disciplinary sanctions but were not charged criminally).

@UJM: I guess you are French like I am. Could you then read http://refpersys.org/ and send me by email to basile@starynkevitch.net your opinion

In Australia, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019 is currently being considered by parliament.
In a speech to parliament the Minister for Education explained:

This bill is aimed squarely at providers of cheating services, and not at students who might use such services. Students who cheat remain subject to their institutions' own academic integrity policies, processes and sanctions. Students who cheat are not subject to the penalties this bill creates; only those who help them cheat are at risk.

He goes on to explain it only outlaws commercial cheating, and that the universities preferred to take an "educative approach" to unpaid cheating.
He also states:

Promotion of cheating services to students has become widespread in recent years through on-campus advertising, email and social media. Students are being inundated with targeted promotions for cheating services highlighting their ease of access, minimal cost and low risk of detection, while downplaying the ethical dishonesty involved.
While many aspects of these services and their use are already subject to criminal and civil penalties for various offences such as fraud or misrepresentation, these can be complex and difficult to pursue. They also provide little deterrence as there is no specific law that clearly and simply says the provision of cheating assistance is wrong.

So, commercial cheating is already against the law - perhaps at the state level, rather than the federal level. I suspect the question of whether a new federal law is necessary to make this behaviour prosecutable is as much political as legal.

Little confused why this answer might have got the tick, but that's the problem with list questions.

Why not? All were good the same, so I chose randomly. Not that it would matter much..

Besides explicite laws about cheating, some education organizations also use the concept of affidavits/declarations in lieu of an oath, which have a legally binding state. Especially used in final works like master/diploma works. They are mandatory part of the submission process (for example in Germany).

See my answer written while you posted yours.


text:
Will producing an article rather than a thesis during my MS be an issue for PhD admissions in Europe?
I’m in my second year of a Master’s program in international trade. At my university, there aren’t many supervisors available. Anyway, there’s this professor I approached, but I haven’t officially confirmed my topic with him yet. He didn’t like the work I’ve done so far. That’s not the main issue though. The issue is that this professor doesn’t want a mémoire (thesis); he wants a 20-page article.  I don't know how to write an academic article, but that's okay, it's an opportunity to learn something new.
My concern is whether, when I apply for PhD programs in Europe in the coming years, not having a thesis and only having an article will cause issues with acceptance. I've never heard of anyone doing a master's without completing a thesis. If that’s the case, there’s no point in working with this professor, and I’ll have to look for another supervisor.

Looking from the outside in: the standard research output in economics is an article, not a monograph. Since a PhD program is how you learn how to do research, you need to master the art of writing the default form of research output. This is in your case the article. So having already some experience with that format, is actually a (minor) bonus.
However, I would say that the potential impact is so minor that I would use other considerations to make that decision. For example, your statement that "He didn’t like the work I’ve done so far", would worry me much more than the distinction between article and thesis.

The fact that he didn't like the subject is really stressing me out, especially since he felt the two topics I was trying to combine weren’t related at all. However, we're still in the early stage, where we're just presenting our initial work and getting his feedback so I'm trying again next week. Anyway, thank you so much for your advice!

Agreed. A Master's thesis is a document that typically no-one will ever read except for the people involved in the thesis defense. It is mostly "writing for the sake of writing". An actual published paper, in contrast, is something that a couple of people might actually read. It's actual science that actual has some impact, however small.

It's also easy to convert an article into a thesis by reformatting it, adding an intro and conclusion, and retaining details that got cut out for space in the article. See sandwich thesis/stapler thesis.

My concern is whether, when I apply for PhD programs in Europe in the coming years, not having a thesis and only having an article will cause issues with acceptance. I've never heard of anyone doing a master's without completing a thesis.

I find it unlikely to be an issue. Any reasonably international doctoral program will have rules that account for a certain degree of variability of what different things mean in different countries. If anything, universities in Europe are more aware of structural differences between different higher education systems than universities elsewhere, as even within Europe every country has their own, sometimes entirely different, rules and conventions.
As an example, here in Sweden, admission to the doctoral school of the computer science department at Chalmers "only" requires a second-cycle degree that is sufficiently related to the subject you are planning to study. If not obvious, determination of whether your degree counts as "second-cycle" and "sufficiently related" falls to the head of the doctoral school and your potential examiner in collaboration with your supervisor. Technicalities such as whether your final report was a thesis or an article would be very unlikely to influence this assessment.


text:
How can a student stop/report conversations with a professor that make her uncomfortable, while avoiding negative consequences for the student?
I am a female undergraduate taking classes from two professors, Prof. A and Prof. B, in the same department. I have some concerns about Prof. A.
First, Professor A has been trying to involve me in his attempts to get Professor B fired. I have never had a problem with Prof. B.

He asked me to bcc him on all my e-mails to Prof. B, in case Prof. B does not pass me in his class. He says he can defend me to the dean but needs documentation to prove I asked for help during the semester.
He asked me to write a detailed outline to him about Professor B and all of the things he has not done correctly in my class and then sign it and include my name, the company I work for and my job title. He wants to turn it in to the department chair to have Prof. B fired. He told me that Prof. B was supposed to have been placed on a performance improvement plan, but the school has gone through 4 chancellors so Prof. B did not receive any disciplinary action.

I am also uncomfortable with other conversations I have had with Professor A:

Another time, he asked me to look at an invitation his wife created for a fall fundraiser for the school. Both he and his wife want my opinion. I work in corporate America, but never did fundraising. He asked for my cell phone number to give it to his wife. I didn't think anything of it and gave it to him. He texted me in the classroom so I would have his number. I thought it was very strange. I have stalled the meeting because I am busy with school and work. Plus it seems weird to me.
He also gave me his business card that his wife made him in case I want to contact him outside of school. Apparently, he is a musician when not teaching during the week.
He waits until after class to have these conversations.
He told me he records all conversations on his phone when he speaks with the administration to use it against them in case the administration tries to get rid of him. I think it is unprofessional and unethical to say any of this to a student.

The semester is half over with and I only want to pass the class and never speak to Professor A again. I have not committed to anything because he creeps me out! I feel like he should be reported to someone, but I don't want anything negative coming back to me. Can someone please help me with what I should do?

This sounds like an instance of mental health problems on the part of the Professor A...
Probably it is simplest to behave "incomprehendingly", to just be unresponsive, disengaged, listless, and generally not react at all to the machinations of the person.
It is unfortunate, but does happen, than people (apart from gender issues) get caught up as "dupes" or "accomplices" in the schemes of mentally ill people who've managed (despite their problems) to get into situations where they have considerable power over others.
While in principle one can file grievances and/or hire lawyers (e.g., in the U.S.), this is often a path that has great costs, psychological, personal time, and one's reputation (even if one "wins").
So, as often is the case, again, if it is feasible, "playing dumb", being unreactive, and just letting the drama pass you by, is probably the most desirable/happiest approach.
(No, "justice" is not served ideally-well by this approach, but it may be served as well as can be...)

From what you report, it doesn't sound like it's your fault. You are very unfortunate to encounter such a situation.
There are some really strange people out there, but they are rare, though, as you found out, they exist. There is a reason why we avoid "zombified" people on the street - but, of course, in your situation, they have already built up a link to you.
Try to present yourself as bland; listless; uninteresting for Prof. A. Chances are Prof. B knows A's spleens already and doesn't care much about them, but you should not end as a punching ball between them.
One more point - between the lines I read that he is male and you are female? If so, there may be other unsavoury ideas brewing here. You are very right to tread carefully here, but at least the motives may be a bit more transparent in this case. It will be more difficult to try get out of Prof. A's focus, but if he ever should make a pass, at least a university should have proper mechanisms in place to deal with this, these days.

Added as response (rather than just as comment) as per OP's request, as it seems to have worked.

A may very well be right about B, but he is very wrong about enlisting your help.
Either B is tight with the head of department/school, or B is regarded as a lost cause they do as little about as possible. In either case, A is right to be fed up with the situation, but he should either put up with it or leave, only to find that every other academic department on this planet is equally poorly (one might even say: corruptly) led.
None of this is your concern and it may be negatively impacting your ability to study.
And yes, you are justified in believing that a firm rebuttal of his insistence might affect your grade.
I propose a little subterfuge: get a friend to phone you whenever A accosts you (or arrange to be called right about that time after class). Say sorry I have to take it, act shocked, shout sorry I gotta run and run.

Another option is to ask one or more friends to form a study group that meets IMMEDIATELY after each class you have with Prof. A. Hurry out as soon as class finishes. If he tries to stop you for an after-class conversation "Sorry, I've got to run - my study group is waiting for me.".

"may very well be right about B" - A records phone conversations with admin and tells this to a student, enlists students for political fights and fundraisers (without good reason), tries to have the student contact them after hours on flimsy excuses. I take my chances to say, whatever flaws B may have (who doesn't?), I would not believe a single word that A says about B; not even suggest there is anything seriously wrong with B without evidence that is not filtered through A. Such "benefit of doubt" is how machiavellistic or psychotic people get irreversible rumours into circulation.


text:
Why does research on the busy beaver function get funded?
I saw this video about the busy beaver function and looked at the applications section of the Wikipedia article about the busy beaver function.
I concluded that there is zero practical or even theoretical value in searching these numbers S(n) : n > 5. Now in the video the person says, that people are using supercomputers to calculate S(5). Now I assume using supercomputers is expensive and so somebody is obviously funding this research.
Am I too narrow minded to see the value of funding such research and there is actual value to it or what other reasons are there to fund such endeavors? I assume most academic research is funded by taxes and so it should bring some value to society. While there might be some intellectual value in having such knowledge, does the cost justify it?
PS: Probably this question is too broad/opinion based, but I didn't know on what SE site it would fit best or how to improve it to make it less opinion based, feel free to edit.
EDIT: The economic question is partially solved, by supercomputers being much cheaper than I thought so that argument falls flat. Still could somebody give me a hint on what the value of such research is?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Somewhat related to the question "What's the point?" and Busy Beaver/_Computable numbers: http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html - fascinating tour of this area.

Can I reject the premise? I'd love to see a grant number here, showing that funding is actually spent on this problem. Most mathematics research is done on the professor's own time, without any funding at all. Even if a supercomputer is used, they can 'nice' this compute time down so that 'more important' problems are given priority, making the marginal cost of the compute essentially zero.

Fascinating read @Stilez .

Extremely likely, this concrete example is useless. So is any other concrete example. However, there are many of these examples, and we do not know which handful of them will be useful.
Some ancient people wasted time on research in number theory, some of which ended up being practically useful. Some studied motion of stars in detail far exceeding calendaring and navigational needs. This also proved useful.
Many, many studies also led to dead-ends. At the time, one could not tell which of them would.

+1. A fun story: British mathematician G. H. Hardy famously wrote in 1940 in his essay A Mathematician's Apology, "No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years." Within 5 years, number theory had been used to crack the Engima cipher (today it forms the foundation of public-key cryptography) and the theory of relatively was used to develop atomic weapons. Today's pointless research is tomorrow's textbook knowledge.

I seem to recall I read a long time ago that Hardy, in the early 1900s, was involved in a discussion where he proposed to eliminate groups from the math curriculum as they were not very useful.

@tonysdg Atomic weapons were developed using quantum theory, not relativity. Relativity is required for the GPS system, and I guess that has military applications?

@jpmc26 it's original purpose is military. Indeed, If you have a US military GPS receiver, you'll get much higher precision and high-altitude coordinates.

Thank you for mentioning that many many studies also led to dead-ends. For some reason they get so much much less attention than the few that did turn out useful that we tend to forget these dead-end studies were there in the first place!

@OrangeDog The law was changed under Bill Clinton to afford both civilian and military GPS the same level of accuracy. This was called Selective Availability and the civilian GPS signal was intentionally degraded.

@David It's complicated. Just because the law was changed doesn't mean your consumer device doesn't apply any limits at all.

@OrangeDog: But those limits are more likely due to cost & practicality than "they'll put you in jail for that".

@jamesqf no, they're entirely artificial. It would be cheaper (require less engineering) to not have them.

@jpmc26: If I'm reading this Wikipedia page correctly, the idea of mass-energy equivalence arose from Einstein's paper on special relativity. This is directly applicable to nuclear weaponry. But I think you're 100% correct in that general relativity didn't necessarily carry practical value until much later (with the rise of the technologies you mentioned).

@MartinArgerami: I believe it was specifically Lie Groups and Lie Algebras; as no-one had even an inkling at the time of how those could possibly ever be useful. Now they are essential 1st year post-grad physics

@jpmc What part of nuclear fission or atomic bomb development in general requires quantum mechanics?

@Voo All of it? Quantum physics came to be mostly because the classical physics based models of atoms and subatomic particles had severe problems predicting our experimental results.

@tonysdg: Mass-energy equivalence is exactly as applicable to chemical explosives as it is to nuclear ones; the mass loss is just more noticeable in nuclear reactions, because so much more energy is released.

Relativity is actually not needed for GPS. Knowledge of relativity is useful, but even without knowledge of it you could build a GPS system, figure out that there are huge discrepancies to the theory, and remove them mathematically without understanding relativity at all.

@tonysdg: To be honest, literally the only such example I've heard of regarding 'abstract' math (and one that everyone brings up, because it's the only one they seem to know) is cryptography. Would be nice if you could give unrelated examples.

@Mehrdad -- From MathOverflow: something I know little about called CAD (not computer-aided drawing, it seems), formal verification of software (a huge area of research in CS right now), and more. But even if crypto was the only application that ever came out of number theory, its importance to the modern world truly can't be understated -- it underpins every (secured) interaction you have on the internet.

@gnasher729: I only have very cursory knowledge about how GPS works, but I think figuring out these discrepancies in a systematic way would pretty much amount to rediscovering (a large part of) relativity. Unless you are content with your GPS only telling you which part of a continent you are in. See https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/1065/95808

@tonysdg I think you're misreading the article. The article states that the energy released from radioactivity "comes from the powerful nuclear forces involved." Basically, it comes from breaking a very strong nuclear bond. This has some analogy to an exothermic chemical reaction, where the bonds are reformulated and energy is released. An atomic bomb uses a high energy collision to break some initial nuclei, which releases more particles with enough energy to break other nuclei, and so on. Energy-mass equivalence applies to fusion where some particles disappear, but that came much later.

The busy beaver function is an important artifact of computability theory- in particular it's known to (asymptotically) grow faster than any computable function. Intuitively this means that it is a "harder" sequence to compute than all computable sequences.
Thus, it gives rise to a new kind of proof by exhaustion. Suppose you were to write a Turing machine program P to test all possible special cases of a proof (potentially an infinite number of cases). If the program finds a problem with the proof, then it will halt. Otherwise, it will run forever. By the definition of the busy beaver machine, if the Turing machine P halts, then it will halt sooner than the busy beaver machine with the equivalent number of states. Thus, all we have to do to prove our theorem is to run our program for the specified number of steps, and if it doesn't halt before our busy beaver machine then we're guaranteed that it will never halt, and indeed there can be no contradictions of any special case to our proof.
Using this fact isn't feasible on current computer hardware, but that's rarely been a roadblock to this kind of research. If our concept of computer hardware or software were revolutionized and such a task could be completed then this would be a systematic approach to proving or disproving many outstanding questions in many fields. One of the purposes of this kind of research is to spur new questions, not to provide new answers.
When it comes to computing S(5) in particular, the challenge is a basic research challenge. Pure research is about solving problems that have never been solved, it's not about having some great application. Nobody has  yet devised a way to compute S(5), and since this sequence is not computable it's possible that there is no way to effectively compute this number. Being able to compute it, or to give a reason why it can't be computed, would probably be a publishable result- both are hard, and neither have been done before.
As a practical exercise it's a good application of computability theory and a counterpoint to the halting problem. The halting problem shows us that there is no single algorithm that can tell us whether any arbitrary program halts, but it's often possible to tell whether a specific program will halt. The analysis of S(3) and S(4) required in-depth analysis by experts to determine whether certain Turing machines with 3 and 4 states actually halted or not. That's not really possible with S(5), so tackling this problem requires asking other questions like "what classes of programs can we determine whether they halt or not?".
To see this more clearly, try this blog post by MIT's Scott Aaronson. A student of his proved that the 8000th busy beaver number is unknowable by standard set theory. Mathematics and logic cannot compute this number, even given unlimited time and space. Here's a very obvious and very deep question that nobody can answer: Why is it the case that we can know S(1), S(2), S(3), and S(4) relatively easily, we can't say whether we can know S(5), and we can say for certain that we can't know S(8000)? If you could tell us the answer to that you'd have the attention of a whole lot of smart people. Endeavoring to do the hard work of computing S(5) is a step in understanding this.
Is S(8000) the first such element in this sequence that is unknowable? If not, what's the smallest element?
Two notes: I'm not a theorist, so all of this is my interpretation. Take it with a grain of salt. Second, a better venue for this question would be the Computer Science stack exchange. They love this stuff over there.

Generally interesting response, but it should not contain an evaluation of the asker's mind. I do get irritated every time when somebody asks what the value of a seemingly irrelevant (but scientifically very interesting) question is, but it would never occur to me to judge their attitude, and do my best in taking the question as legitimate.

@CaptainEmacs, the asker does use exactly the rheotical question "am I too narrow minded" in his question, which David flagged in his answer by saying "in your words".

@KraZug True, but still, I think it is better not to use the askers' own words against them. Again, I like the general answer, with very useful and interesting links, that's why taking this personal evaluation off (even if it seems sanctioned by OP) it would make it even better.

@CaptainEmacs Sure, valid points.

@KraZug The problem lies in the anwer of "yes". The answer to "am I too narrow minded" in this case is not "yes", it is "no". Narrow-minded means "Having restricted or rigid views, and being unreceptive to new ideas." and the very fact the OP is asking this question shows that they are receptive to new ideas and thus are not narrow-minded.

Would you mind including a brief explanation of what it means for S(8000) to be unknowable by standard set theory? I tried reading the article but it's a bit over my head.

@Ovi It has been proven that the halting problem is undecidable for arbitrary Turing machines. However, if we know S(k) then the halting problem for k-state Turing machines is decidable. Since S(k) is the maximum number of transitions a k-state machine can make, we can decide whether any arbitrary k-state machine will halt by simply running for S(k) steps and seeing whether it halts. If it does not halt within that many transitions, then it will never halt.

@Ovi So ask yourself, is it possible to know the value S(k) for all k? It cannot be. If we knew S(k) for all k, then we would have a decidable algorithm for the halting problem. However, we know that this cannot exist. Thus, some values of S(k) must be uncomputable. In particular, the paper shows that S(8000) is uncomputable by constructing a 7,918-state Turing machine whose behavior is undecideable under standard set theory. (You can extend 7,918 to 8000 states by adding dummy states.)

@Ovi The paper is here: http://www.scottaaronson.com/busybeaver.pdf

"Mathematics and logic cannot compute this number, even given unlimited time and space."
This needs to be qualified. What should be said is that ZFC cannot compute this number. Other theories can.

Let me give a guess, which might not be accurate for this case but which has a more general range.
If one tries to compute S(5) by brute force, that is probably not more interesting (but much longer) than solving any given Sudoku by brute force with a computer. But the point of such a question is precisely that, being difficult, if one hopes to answer it one needs to try being smart. One needs to find smart ways to be able to skip as much computations as possible compared to a brute force approach. In this process, one will probably learn something about the involved objects (e.g. Turing machines) and understand them better. One will also have to be smart with the details of the implementation, with the multi-threading, etc.

We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. (JFK 1962)

I don't think you can solve S(5) using only brute force as such. Computing S(5) involves showing that some Turing machines never halt. To say that the brute force approach to showing that a Turing machine never halts takes "much longer" is a bit of an understatement ;)

Research like this tends to open doors. You never ever know what discoveries will be built on them in future. Many, many crucial modern discoveries come from research that didn't seem to have any practical use at the time.
So  funding it has really practical benefits, over and above those due to "gaining pure knowledge" - especially if you target which to fund or explore based on what it might relate to. It's like an investor investing in start-ups. Not every idea goes anywhere (yet) but given support, a proportion will... and a few will become worlds-changers.
Radio waves are a good example of a discovery thought to be completely useless for practical purposes - look up what Hertz though of their practical uses. Could he have foreseen a world of radio media in every pocket, radio emergency teams and work crews coordinating, mobile phones, satnav, radar, microwave ovens, remote space missions and exploratory cameras, Google Earth, and WiFi, would he have thought this?
Ditto quantum theory - surely discussing the arcane ideas of not just atoms but quarks and smaller particles, not to mention assuming that they can do weird things like exist and not exist in different places or one place at the same time, is a useless hypothetical debate about atoms and hypothetical smaller sub-particles too small to be relevant to everyday life, if anything is. Fast forward 50 years - the semiconductor. Supermagnets. Superconductors. MRI scanners in hospitals. Your smartphone. Undersea cables. The laser. CD/DVD/Bluray. The internet. Almost every computing device and optical cable in widespread use today. Anything else that uses (or needs to take into account) quantum tunnelling and other weird behaviours.
Ditto the odd crackling of silk rubbed on amber (electricity), the seemingly random number sequences generated by elliptic forms and modular entities (the Modularity Theorem and Fermat), tables of logarithms and trigonometric values (tabulated values were used used by pre-computer age mathematicians, and may have seemed pointless to some, but without them would Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others have made all of the discoveries they did?) Mendel spent years crossing peas; a pointless and obsessive waste of effort, until you fast forward to genetics, understanding DNA, gene therapy, disease resistant rice, mitochondrial disease treatment, heredity when it starts to look a bit more significant in human history.
Mathematically, the same holds true. One difference is that you sometimes have to calculate your data rather than just observe it. But the principle is very similar and so is the impact.
It's also quite likely that this is seen by those in the know as an "interesting" problem, one likely to not be entirely a dead end or which is linked somehow to other intractable problems.

«Could he have foreseen »  wireless telegraphy should have been an obvious idea, and others thought so.  radar might have occured to a futurist as a possibility, since Maxwell's equations were already agreeing with measurements on the speed of such waves and the eclipse timing of Jupiter’s moons showed that transit time can be significant.  So ask Verne, not Hertz, what the future might do with it.

"Might" has always been a province of futurists and writers. But this question looks more at what might be termed hard pragmatists. It should have been, but hindsight helps to distinguish fantasy from possibility. At the time, Hertz was probably more typical even if he didn't have to be.

I completely agree with the mathematicians and physicists in the audience who have pointed out that pure math has in the past sometimes led to important practical advances. While this happens very rarely, it’s utterly impossible to know which will be the rare gem ahead of time so you have to fund lots of ultimately-useless (or, more accurately, useless-so-far) research if you want to have a chance to find said gems. As an engineer, I am familiar with a lot of those past gems, and would not be able to do my job at all if they hadn’t happened. I certainly have neither the skillset nor the temperament to have found those discoveries myself!
That said, as an engineer, there is another aspect to consider: building supercomputers is hard. The simple engineering practice of building the computer to do this may lead to improvements and discoveries itself, and even if it doesn’t, funding this engineering means you have that many more people with that much more experience doing things. This is important, and very, very frequently overlooked.
A recent question on Aviation Stack Exchange asked why modern military aircraft take so long to produce compared the military aircraft of decades past (after all, those aircraft also had to break new ground and solve extremely difficult challenges, using much more basic tools, and the difference in time is nearly an order of magnitude). There are, of course, many reasons, but this answer in particular stood out to me by emphasizing the importance of having a highly-experienced engineering workforce:

Experienced engineers back then had worked on a dozen new designs (or more), so they had developed a gut feeling how to design the next one. Today, one can be lucky to have brought a single one into the air within a lifetime.

That answerer recounts how he had actually lobbied his company to do a quick, cheap design just to give the engineers more practice and more experience doing a real-world design, that having better engineers would be worth the cost of an entirely artificial exercise (it should come as no surprise that this project did not get green-lit).
Does the fact that a few more people have built one more supercomputer equal the cost of them doing so? I don’t know—but it’s a non-negligible thing, and should be considered in the cost–benefit analysis. Particularly from the perspective of a nation—having skilled engineers is such an obvious advantage to a nation that I suspect very few would object to the general concept of taxes going towards having better engineers.

Very interesting point and as you said often overlooked. I haven't thought about that but it makes sense.

By definition, science is not about having value.
Science is about accumulating and organizing knowledge.
This applies not only to the busy beaver problem, but also to the digits of Pi, the digits of the Euler's number, the string theory in physics, and the sex life of Amphicoelias fragillimus.

Even if a theoretical problem has no applications (yet), the techniques developed to tackle it and the knowledge acquired along the way can be immensely valuable and potentially useful even in seemingly unrelated areas. One can look to the history of mathematics for examples of this.
Aside from this, I'm going to add a potential application of tackling the busy beaver problem: Solomonoff induction. In short, Solomonoff induction is a theory of general inductive inference based on weighing hypotheses according to the size of Turing machines that produce them. Theoretical formalisms for artificial general intelligence like AIXI are based on it.
Tackling the busy beaver problem is also relevant to areas like inductive programming (automatically constructing computer programs) and automated theorem proving, since it involves proving properties (e.g. halting or non-halting) of arbitrary computer programs. See Computer Runtimes and the Length of Proofs, for example.

To extend the answers with another perspective: the fundamental question that theory of computability asks is "what kind of functions are computable, given some simple, sensible assumptions and given models of machines that could be instantiated in the physical universe?" (I mean, "instantiated" in theory, with some practical caveats, of course.)
So one way how to look at the theories of computability and computational complexity is to view them as being about some fundamental properties of the world. Why are some functions computable and some are not, given the standard model of physics? What is computable in the lifetime of the universe and what is not? What makes quantum computers possible, and what are their ultimate limits? What kind of computers could we expect if physics were slightly different? What kind of assumptions one needs to make for hyper-computation to be possible?
It is therefore possible that these theories aim to uncover something as deep and fundamental as theoretical physics. Under this analogy, investigation of whether the Busy Beaver function with argument "5" is computable could be compared with a single specific experiment about the properties of some esoteric particle. It gives a little bit of insight in some fundamental nature of things.

The Busy Beaver problem/game has provided a very tangible application in its contribution to deciding the halting time of a very large set of small Turing machines that, in turn, are used to calculate an empirical distribution as an approximation to the so-called Universal Distribution that allows the estimation of the algorithmic probability of a string (that is the probability to produce a string with a random computer program whose executable bits are the result of e.g. tossing a coin).
Such distribution has been called miraculous in the past (Google The miraculous universal distribution). This is because of its theoretical properties as the most powerful general purpose predictor. In the work of the Algorithmic Group and the Algorithmic Dynamics Lab that I co-lead together with the help and contribution of several brilliant researchers, the Busy Beaver has contributed to produce these numerical approximations of algorithmic probability and has made impact in areas such as animal and human cognition, graph complexity, evolutionary biology, artificial life, and molecular biology. Here a few pointers (only 2 with URLs because Academia does not let me add more links, the others you can Google):

Algorithmically probable mutations reproduce aspects of evolution
such as convergence rate, genetic memory, modularity, diversity
explosions, and mass extinction
Human Behavioral Complexity Peaks at Age 25 (there was a lot of hype in the media about it, and there is a video in YouTube explaining the results in a very simple, kind of oversimplified, fashion)
Methods of Information Theory and Algorithmic Complexity for Network
Biology Correlation of Automorphism Group Size and Topological
Properties with Program-size Complexity Evaluations of Graphs and
Complex Networks

In turn, that research has triggered theoreticians to update their work too! e.g. this paper:

A probabilistic anytime algorithm for the halting problem

Among many others, including a Physica A article on graph complexity and a Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology paper on applications to molecular biology and genetic networks.
This is because the Busy Beaver is deeply related to concepts in Algorithmic Information Theory such as the Chaitin Omega number and the so-called Solomonoff's-Levin's distribution (see the Scholarpedia article).
So, all the way from a completely theoretical 'game' to real-world applications in the context of the most pressing problems of science!

I am amazed every day what great answers are posted on se. Thank you very much for your time and this amazing anwser, I will definitely check out the links.

Complex number theory projects often get approved because they might possibly have some cryptographic benefit. Much work has been done on one-way functions and calculations that require considerable computer resources. An concrete example is modulus of a prime exponent in a finite field used in RSA public key cryptography.
Also, much of the research in cryptography is classified. There might be a reason this project was approved that is known only to the researchers and the people approving the project.

Some research might open up unforeseeable opportunities in its sister fields. Implementation of extremely efficient busy beaver systems (as it is quite time consuming) might have implications in some other important simulations. I am not saying busy beaver problem has no value, but others has pointed those out quite well.
This type of cross benefit occurs in open source systems as well. I remember explicitly that the research that is done on Linux to improve battery life of Android devices has led to a substantial cost savings on supercomputers running on Linux as their major cost is electricity.

Why would anyone downvote this? It answers the question, does not repeat anything that is said and it is absolutely true.

I think this is a good answer... but/and I suspect that some people just downvote when they're in a cranky mood.