[tnecniv]

Then Bob has failed.

Academic science isn’t just the doing science part but the articulation and presentation of your work to the broader community. If Bob knows this space so well, he should be able to clearly communicate the issue and, ideally, present an easily understandable counter example to the existing theory.

Technical folks undervalue presentation when writing articles and presenting at conferences. The burden of proof is on the presenter, and, unless there’s some incredible demonstration at the end, most researchers won’t have the time or attention to slog through your mess of a paper to decipher it. There’s only so much time in the day and too many papers to read.

In my experience, the best researchers are also the best presenters. I’ve been to great talks out of my domain that I left feeling like I understood the importance of their work despite not understanding the details. I’ve also seen many talks in my field that I thought were awful because the presentation was convoluted or they didn’t motivate the importance of their problem / why their work addressed it