Re:The Alien Space of Science
by nasimrahaman_tt on Friday October 23, 2026 @08:12AM
(#50207728)
We haven't done concrete measurements yet, but my intuition is that the quality of Lacuna proposals is a function of density of topics / research directions. Lacuna is most dense around AI topics; for neighboring ones (e.g. bio, physics), I'd join you in tempering expectations.
> I find that often a big cluster of papers around a particular topic, none of which seems to move the needle much, is actually an indication that we need a new approach and writing more and more incremental papers just digs deeper into a local minimum.
Yes, I think this can work. We use a similar idea to categorize what papers have been influential or foundational -- look at the ones that have changed the trajectory (in time) of a research direction significantly.
The one thing I could recommend however is rigging up the mcp (https://github.com/tiptreesystems/lacuna-research-mcp) to your code agent and trawling the database for ideas worth thinking about.
> I find that often a big cluster of papers around a particular topic, none of which seems to move the needle much, is actually an indication that we need a new approach and writing more and more incremental papers just digs deeper into a local minimum.
Yes, I think this can work. We use a similar idea to categorize what papers have been influential or foundational -- look at the ones that have changed the trajectory (in time) of a research direction significantly.