So, if an academic paper is published in an open journal by an average citizen with an obsession for learning from online sources. So, there are no credentials but a decent work history. A prestigious college downloads the paper. What are the possible reasons?
without further context, i’m not sure you could read much into a single act of downloading
it could be as simple as it contained some keywords for a lit review someone was doing
from there they might eliminate it from their review, choose to cite it favourably, or choose to criticise it.
if the journal has a good reputation, being a comparatively frequently read (downloaded) paper from a periodical could be considered a positive reception.
Futher context. It’s an alternative to the standard model that seems to fit the planke data with two fewer parameters. This would need to be validated by numerous cosmologists, I would suppose. The cosmologists eho downloaded it does publish papers regarding alternatives to DM and DE. Some similarities, but the independent researcher has a vastly different model to the standard. It’s a fresh hypothesis. Not a tweak. By reading the cosmologists papers, I would wager it’s fits his work. The missing structure of it all. Or it’s nothing.