Sociology of Physics: comment and indices [Archive]

marcus

May24-09, 01:16 PM

Theoretical physics presents what I think is potentially an interesting bunch of sociology-of-science case studies and examples.

There is one guy (a string PhD named Ozzy Zapata) who is blogging specifically about this, has some fascinating comment:
http://spinningthesuperweb.blogspot.com/

There was also a kind of groundbreaking talk by Roger Penrose in 2006 called
Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in Physical Theory
The video is online and the slides are downloadable too, at Berkeley's Mathematical Sciences Research Institute:
http://www.msri.org/communications/vmath/VMathVideosSpecial/VideoSpecialInfo/3005/show_video

Basically Penrose and Zapata both discuss how intellectual fashions such as string theory function as expert fads. Penrose does this in an entertaining and illuminating manner, with a lot of hand-drawn cartoons.

Although Zapata got his PhD in string theory I am apprehensively curious about what his postdoc job prospects are, given the nature his comments. The guy is a kind of Feyer(brand)abend. Maybe he will move into the Philosophy of Science, or maybe there is a Sociology of Science research field opening up.
Here is one of his essays on the arxiv:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1439

I keep track of how things are going with various objective indices (publication rates, citation counts by category, popular book salesranks) as well as subjective impressions.

Here are a couple of indices to watch.
The drop-off in citations to recent string papers:
2002: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2002/annual.shtml
Recent (1998-2002) string papers in top 30 of the 2002 citations ranking: 11
2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
Recent (2004-2008) string papers in top 30 of the 2008 citations ranking: 0

The idea is that every year the Spires database lists the papers most highly cited in that year, and one can look to see how many recent (published in the past five years) string papers made the top 30. Eleven of the 30 papers cited most often in 2002 were recent (1998-2002) string publications. Cites are a measure of how important/valuable research appears to the researchers themselves. Eleven out of thirty is a good showing. This measure of value or importance (as seen by the experts themselves) has dropped off.

People still have to write papers, regardless of how useful the results are, so there has not been such a marked decline in the gross publication rate.
However there may have been some slight decline. Here's publications (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first four months of three successive years:
2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=04&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=04&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=04&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
1881, 1769, 1452 (preliminary numbers, publications with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, heterotic, or compactification)

Here too is one possible window on the popularized physics (or wide-audience) book market:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/227399/

Chaos' lil bro Order

May27-09, 04:35 PM

Interesting marc,

So you gauge the popularity of a niche of science based on how many of its papers are in the top citations list. This could be a good indicator of whether the niche (string theory) is gaining peer acceptance or losing it.

I must say there are some criticisms readily available of this technique's accuracy, as I'm sure you are well aware. It would be interesting to see a behavioral psychologists analysis of this technique. One results skewing effect would be the tendency of peers to cite papers written by physics 'celebrities', like Penrose, Wolfram, etc. This looks good for their own paper when they've quoted a top gun, and it adds credence to their paper. The less popular the niche is, the less cites it will naturally garner. String Theory has been relatively stale in the last 5 years and many physicists wonder if its reached an experimental impass, which means it is losing favor, even amongst some theoretical physicists. This could clearly effect citations, but it does nothing to prove whether the underlying theories in string theory are true or false.

So while you citation rankings, is a decent indicator of what papers are important, it may also be just as good an indicator of what niches are popular.

Theoretical physics presents what I think is potentially an interesting bunch of sociology-of-science case studies and examples.

There is one guy (a string PhD named Ozzy Zapata) who is blogging specifically about this, has some fascinating comment:
http://spinningthesuperweb.blogspot.com/

There was also a kind of groundbreaking talk by Roger Penrose in 2006 called
Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in Physical Theory
The video is online and the slides are downloadable too, at Berkeley's Mathematical Sciences Research Institute:
http://www.msri.org/communications/vmath/VMathVideosSpecial/VideoSpecialInfo/3005/show_video

Basically Penrose and Zapata both discuss how intellectual fashions such as string theory function as expert fads. Penrose does this in an entertaining and illuminating manner, with a lot of hand-drawn cartoons.

Although Zapata got his PhD in string theory I am apprehensively curious about what his postdoc job prospects are, given the nature his comments. The guy is a kind of Feyer(brand)abend. Maybe he will move into the Philosophy of Science, or maybe there is a Sociology of Science research field opening up.
Here is one of his essays on the arxiv:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1439

I keep track of how things are going with various objective indices (publication rates, citation counts by category, popular book salesranks) as well as subjective impressions.

Here are a couple of indices to watch.
The drop-off in citations to recent string papers:
2002: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2002/annual.shtml
Recent (1998-2002) string papers in top 30 of the 2002 citations ranking: 11
2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
Recent (2004-2008) string papers in top 30 of the 2008 citations ranking: 0

The idea is that every year the Spires database lists the papers most highly cited in that year, and one can look to see how many recent (published in the past five years) string papers made the top 30. Eleven of the 30 papers cited most often in 2002 were recent (1998-2002) string publications. Cites are a measure of how important/valuable research appears to the researchers themselves. Eleven out of thirty is a good showing. This measure of value or importance (as seen by the experts themselves) has dropped off.

People still have to write papers, regardless of how useful the results are, so there has not been such a marked decline in the gross publication rate.
However there may have been some slight decline. Here's publications (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first four months of three successive years:
2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=04&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=04&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=04&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
1881, 1769, 1452 (preliminary numbers, publications with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, heterotic, or compactification)

Here too is one possible window on the popularized physics (or wide-audience) book market:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/227399/

marcus

May30-09, 10:13 PM

It is still early but we can get an idea of how string publication looks for the first five months of 2009, by comparison with the first five months of previous years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=05&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=05&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=05&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2307, 2225, 1715 (as of May 30, expected to increase with late entries)
Six keywords were used (superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic.)

As of noon Pacific, May 31 the sales rank ratio for Smolin's book was 0.678. This compares its sales performance with that of the five most popular stringy books averaged to provide a benchmark for comparison. Trouble's amazon-wide salesrank was 6204 and the stringy average was 4206.2

marcus

Jun1-09, 03:18 PM

As of noon June 1 the successive publication numbers were 2307, 2225, 1727.
As expected the last number (for 2009) is still building up some with late May entries, though my guess is that it will end up showing a downtrend.

The usual salesrank ratio for Trouble with Physics was 0.583. I intend to take a three-day average (31st, 1st, 2nd) to smooth out some of the random fluctuation. Gokul suggested this some time back and it makes very good sense. TwP came on the market in September 2006. Here, to give some perspective on the present numbers, is its salesrank history, sampling the first of each month.

EDIT:
The three-day average for 1 June is finished.
31 May 0.678
1 June 0.583
2 June 0.934

average salesrank ratio around 1 June = 0.732

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7

It seems to be performing rather steadily (against the string benchmark). Recent numbers don't suggest any pronounced upswing or downturn.

Trouble salesrank was 6544
Stringy top five were 1905, 2596, 3810, 8011, 14244, averaging 6113.2

marcus

Jun8-09, 03:39 PM

At noon 8 June, Smolin's Trouble with Physics ranked on par with the stringy topfive average.

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
...
8 June 1.0

Trouble salesrank was 7182
Stringy top five were 1876, 2211, 2631, 4934, 25393 averaging 7409.0

String research publication the first five months of 2009, by comparison with the first five months of previous years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=05&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=05&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=05&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2307, 2225, 1886 as of 8 June, expected to increase with late entries.
Six keywords were used (superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic.)

marcus

Jun27-09, 07:06 PM

We can begin to gauge the stringy publication rate for the first six months, compared with other years:

For the first six months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=06&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=06&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=06&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

So far the publication for the first half of 2007, 2008, and 2009 are 2657, 2526, 2194 continuing a slight downtrend. The 2009 number can be expected to increase (the month isn't even over and it takes Harvard abstracts people some time to catch up.)

========

I hadn't checked the salesrank of Smolin's Trouble with Physics for some weeks and happened to do so today 27 June. It ranked on par with the stringy topfive average.

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
...
8 June 1.0
...
27 June 1.0 (1 pm instead of usual noon reading)

marcus

Jun30-09, 03:27 PM

To track the stringy publication rate for the first six months, compared with other years, 6 keywords are used (superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, AdS/CFT, and heterotic).

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=06&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=06&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=06&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

So far the string publication numbers for the first half of 2007, 2008, and 2009 are 2657, 2526, 2230 continuing a slight downtrend. The 2009 number can be expected to increase somewhat as the Harvard abstracts people catch up with their cataloging.

=======

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
...
30 June 0.628
1 July 1.366

I aim to make a 3-day average around July 1, to get rid of some random fluctuation. Today June 30 at noon TwP salesrank was 8959 and the five most popular stringy books (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3846, 3965, 4485, 6584, 9247 for an average of 5625.4.
EDIT: At noon on July 1 TwP rank was 4515 and stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 2868, 4041, 4823, 5808, 13287 averaging 6165.4 making the ratio 1.366.

marcus

Jul2-09, 01:28 PM

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
...
30 June 0.628
1 July 1.366
2 July 3.782

I aim to make a 3-day average around July 1, to get rid of some random fluctuation. Today June 30 at noon TwP salesrank was 8959 and the five most popular stringy books (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3846, 3965, 4485, 6584, 9247 for an average of 5625.4 making the ratio 0.628.
EDIT: At noon on July 1 TwP rank was 4515 and stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 2868, 4041, 4823, 5808, 13287 averaging 6165.4 making the ratio 1.366.
EDIT: At noon on July 2, TwP rank was 1545 and stringy top five (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) ranked 3324, 3545, 5531, 6662, 10155 averaging 5843 making the ratio 3.782.
The average ratio for the three days (our smoothed value for the first of the month) is therefore 1.93 and I retabulate as usual:

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

The TwP index has been behaving in an unusual way recently. Afternoon and evening of 1 July it spent a lot of time in the 4-5 range. Also for part of the morning of 2 July, although it was down around 3.8 right at noon (pacific) my regular time to record. At 1:00 PM it was back up at 5.2.
Smolin has not made any public appearances or been on broadcast media lately (radio TV) as far as I know. However he did have a piece in a professional physicist magazine back in the first half of June. (The Institute of Physics--IOP--online Physics World) It could be readers with more of a science education buying the book that caused this spike. Or some other event that I'm not aware of. Here is the June issue Physics World link:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/39306
His article is interesting and has a catchy title The Unique Universe.
It was picked up by a science/technology blog called X-Journals which commented favorably in a post titled "Forget the So-Called Multiverse: One Universe is Enough".
http://x-journals.com/2009/lee-smolin-forget-the-so-called-multiverse-one-universe-is-enough/
It could be the string landscape/multiverse idea has gotten into bad odor---enough science people may dislike it that by coming out against it, Smolin cause a jump in his booksales. I noticed a simultaneous jump in sales of the hardcover edition as well as the paperback.

At any rate for whatever reason Trouble with Physics has been recently selling around 4 or 5 times better than the stringy topfive average I use for comparison.
I checked several more times on 2 July. The ratio at 1 PM was 5.16, at 4 PM it was 5.34, at 5 PM it was 5.48, and at 9 PM it was 5.81.

At 11 PM on 2 July the ratio was 8.14. Trouble with Physics was doing 8 times better than the stringy topfive average Ive been using as benchmark for several years. It's odd. TwP rank was 852 and the top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 2539, 3817, 7414, 8335, 12575 for an average of 6936.0.

marcus

Jul3-09, 03:44 PM

Something just happened which greatly increased sales of TwP. I'm not sure what it is yet. Here's a table of noon readings. Those for the first of each month are smoothed by averaging over a 3-day window.

The Trouble with Physics (came out September 2006)

1 October 0.4 (2008)
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11

The TwP index was in the 4-6 range for much of 2 July though briefly down below 4 at noon that day. At 1:00 PM it was back up over 5 and it stayed there for the rest of the day, being over 8 at 11 PM. I checked several times on 2 July. The ratio at 1 PM was 5.16, at 4 PM it was 5.34, at 5 PM it was 5.48, at 9 PM it was 5.81, at 11 PM on 2 July the ratio was 8.14.

Smolin has not made any public appearances or been on broadcast media lately (radio TV) as far as I know, but did publish an interesting piece in the June issue Physics World:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/39306
It was picked up by a science/technology blog called X-Journals which commented favorably in a post titled "Forget the So-Called Multiverse: One Universe is Enough".
http://x-journals.com/2009/lee-smolin-forget-the-so-called-multiverse-one-universe-is-enough/
Other than this, what could have caused a jump in Smolin booksales?

At any rate at noon 3 July Trouble with Physics was doing 5.88 times better than the stringy topfive average Ive been using as benchmark for several years. TwP rank was 1003 and the top five ( fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, idiot guide) ranked 2944, 3605, 5844, 6093, 1100 for an average of 5898.0.
At noon 4 July TwP was doing 5.11 better than benchmark. TwP ranked 1034 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, idiot guide) ranked 2774, 3527, 5715, 6526, 7858, for an average of 5280.0.

Haven't seen this kind of thing since the first 3 weeks or so after the paperback edition came out in 2007. It's quite strange.

===================
VandeCarr, I just saw your post #10 and will reply here because the time-limit has not run out and I can still edit this post. I believe there is a great latitude of stringy models of physics, you get a different physics, a different vacuum, for each way you pick to compactify or roll up the extra dimensions.
So there are many versions of physics leading to no unique prediction that would falsify the string approach. There is, in effect, a String Landscape.
The term was popularized in a 2003 paper by Leonard Susskind, one of the fathers of string. You may know about all this already. Individual versions undoubtably do make testable predictions.

I don't know of any version which actually reproduces what actually is known (the Standard Model) and in addition predicts some new phenomena at available energies which would make it testable. Someone else may hopefully correct me on this if I'm wrong. You could also start a thread in the Beyond Standard forum and ask that very question!

SW VandeCarr

Jul3-09, 08:53 PM

I'm not sure, but I think this question is appropriate to this thread. Are there any "stringy" theories that make testable predictions that cannot be predicted and tested under the Standard Model?

marcus

Jul5-09, 01:48 PM

Just checked at 10AM this morning (5 July) and the Smolin book was doing more than 10 times better than the topfive stringy average. I don't know why this remarkable surge in sales has happened.

Could it be a "Twitter" phenomenon? I don't follow Twitter and some of these other web network things, Digg etc. I've heard of them but I don't how they work or what their potential is. All I know is that in the standard media (radio TV blogs discussion-boards) nothing much has happened that could explain this. Can you suggest something?

A few little things, I mentioned some already:
Smolin has a new book written with Robert Unger which is in preparation. It will delve into the nature of physical law and how the laws could have evolved the way they are, and argue that time is realer than we have been thinking based on vintage 1915 General Relativity. And that conventional string landscape multiverse notions are ready for the discard pile. I think that's the message. They have come up with new arguments. You get an early taste of this in The Unique Universe which he just published in Physics World. The book is probably about a year off (guess: latter part of 2010) but Smolin always prepares the ground. He did that with Trouble with Physics, began magazining a year or so before the book itself appeared. I think Robert Unger is very smart and the new book may have an impact.

The annual string conference just concluded---Strings 2009 in Rome. It was lackluster. They got Witten to talk (he did not participate in Strings 2008) so that was a plus. But he chose not to talk about string--talked about all sorts of other interesting physics instead. So far the conference talks are not on line and little has been heard about it. Strings conference used to have a lot of media hoopla---interviews and science writers reportage etc.

Could the surge in Smolin book sales be related to a sense of let-down, or even flop?
But who is paying attention? What's the audience and the bookmarket we are talking about?
This morning TwP was number 499 in amazon book sales as a whole. That is competing against diet books and trash novels and who-dunnits and celebrity as-told-to memoirs. How did it get to be #499 in storewide sales?

If anybody has a clue, please post. Even if a very tenuous idea.
==============
Hi VandeCarr, I responded to you on the tail of my previous post, yesterday noon.
If anyone wants the salesrank details. at 10 AM today pacific time 5 July, Smolin's standing was 477 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, idiot guide) ranked 1760, 2657, 4068, 6490, 11640 for an benchmark average of 5323.0, making the ratio 10.67
At 12 noon Smolin's rank was even higher: 352, while the stringy top five (the same titles as at 10AM) were at 1283, 2086, 5119, 5628, 14222 for an average of 5667.6 making the ratio 16.10.

I have never seen such a high noon reading, even for a short spike.

====================
Fra! Nice to see you. I am glad you are interested in this kind of sideline index or gauge too. Sociology can reveal and raise questions I think. Good to include that kind of information in the mix. I will go look up numbers from last summer. As I recall, just from memory, last summer was around 0.4 - 0.6 similar to April May June of this year, but I will retrieve the record.

Fra

Jul5-09, 02:10 PM

Could the surge in Smolin book sales be related to a sense of let-down, or even flop?
But who is paying attention? What's the audience and the bookmarket we are talking about?
This morning TwP was number 499 in amazon book sales as a whole. That is competing against diet books and trash novels and who-dunnits and celebrity as-told-to memoirs. How did it get to be #499 in storewide sales?

If anybody has a clue, please post. Even if a very tenuous idea.

Interesting rise indeed. I really don't have much of a serious clue but maybe the global crisis slightly setting people back and forcing them to reconsider what they are doing. Maybe the crisis makes look upon all the established structures with doubt and critisism, not only in society but also in science. since it becomes more clear that in times of limited resources, some extra thought may be needed and we can not afford to invest in the wrong questions.

Perhaps the critics, and questioning of - how have all the investments in ST made us more fit? - is even more relevent in the crisis days when it becomes more obvious that time and money is limited. We have to question how be choose to invest every single dollar. Ultimately it's self-preservation.

In think that type of reasoning is more likely to appear during bad times.

How was the pattern last summer? ie. could there be some summer/vacation phenomenon?

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul5-09, 02:50 PM

How was the pattern last summer? ie. could there be some summer/vacation phenomenon?

/Fredrik

Fra, here is the record back from when the paperback edition came out (September 2007)
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1986028#post1986028
You can see that the ratio was high in September October November which is understandable because there were a lot of book reviews and science writers discussing the book the year before when the hardcover came out (September 2006) and then later all that controversy. So then when the inexpensive paperback came out in September 2007 the sales shot up for a couple of months. That I think is understandable.

But then by Summer 2008, which you asked about, the sales were down.
There was not much of a summer reading effect. I thought I saw a little mild rush around May June when students graduate from highschool and college and their relatives buy them science-books as a graduation gift. And perhaps summer reading is included there too.
But by July August it was slack, like 0.4 and 0.5.

I think your economic crunch idea is interesting. I think it could work both ways---in very bad times people might go for escape literature, like Brian Greene and Lord of the Rings.
Fantasy, to take your mind off the bleak reality.
But it could also drive people to be more critical. And Smolin's book is critical. It says Why are we spending our science money so badly? Why are we putting all our brains in one basket? Why this bad and improvident strategy? What is wrong with the science establishment that makes it act out of touch with reality? What is the root of the Trouble.

Maybe the concept of trouble is a key lever. When there is trouble in a system (like banking or string) people want to know what is the reason. They were relying on it to work as usual, how could it unexpectedly go off the railroad tracks?

It's a thought. I don't say I am convinced by what you say. Right now I am eager to get any possible clue or suggestion. Because this surge in sales has no clear identifiable trigger that I know of.

I will copy the record from that other post and add on the later months:
1 September 6.4 (2007)
1 October 6.5
1 November 5.2
1 December 2.4
1 January 1.5 (2008)
1 February 1.3
1 March 0.4
1 April 0.6
1 May 1.0
1 June 1.0
1 July 0.5
1 August 0.4
1 September 0.8
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10

BTW it is pretty clear the European science establishment is more on the tracks than the US one. Did you look at the Planck Scale conference that just ended. I mean the website where there are online PDF files of the talks. This was a successful conference. New findings brought in by various different tribes converging from various different directions with their offerings to the great Sky Mother :biggrin: or whatever. Really first rate conference. Nothing like it in the US this year. That shows the ESF leadership quality. (the European Science Foundation) they have a little modest clarity of vision compared with the US NSF (national sci. found)

SW VandeCarr

Jul5-09, 03:40 PM

===================
VandeCarr, Individual versions undoubtably do make testable predictions.

Thanks marcus. You've answered by question.

marcus

Jul6-09, 12:47 AM

Thanks marcus. You've answered by question.
You are welcome! Actually you took part of what I said out of context, so let me continue quoting what I said back there so as to complete the idea. I think the hard part must be to construct a model that has no disagreement with what is already known.

I don't know of any version which...reproduces what...is known (the Standard Model) and in addition predicts some new phenomena at available energies which would make it testable...

To continue recording the noon readings for this interesting spike in sales of Smolin's book:
2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81

Trouble with Physics was number one on the Amazon list of physics books (ahead of Hawking, Greene, whoever). At noon on 6 July it ranked 395 and the string topfive average was 6286.2, making the ratio 15.81.
The five most popular string books that day (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 1507, 1782, 5330, 7309, 15503.

Fra

Jul6-09, 01:26 AM

like Brian Greene and Lord of the Rings.
Fantasy, to take your mind off the bleak reality.

Hehe funny to put them in the same scentence - Lord of the Strings

In the Landscape where the Shadows lie.
One String to rule them all, One String to find them,
One String to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Landscape where the Shadows lie.

/Fredrik

Fra

Jul6-09, 01:39 AM

Yes, there are probably other causes I have not clue about.

Fantasy, to take your mind off the bleak reality.
But it could also drive people to be more critical.

I like to think there is a common motivation for what you call criticism and fantasy.

Somehow the disappointment of reality, or current paradigms, is what motivates looking for an alternative reality. This is in effect a form of critics. I don't think going to your fantasy and imagination, necessarily means letting go of ALL rationality.

After all, in the evolutionary perspective, there is a good rationality in diversity.

So I think considering ALL fantasies are actually rational. But the rationality also requires that we do not put all eggs in one random fantasy. Each fantasy will be considered, but in proportion to it's potential and constrained by resources we have to invest. Somewhere I think the feedback mechanism from investments to securing that we're on the right track went beserk. Perhaps it does take a crisis to open our eyes. Look at the unconstrained bonus system. It took a crisis to convince the masses that this is doubtful.

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul7-09, 04:45 PM

To continue recording this strange unexplained blip in TwP performance.
Noon pacific time, Smolin book's amazon salesrank performance ratio to stringy topfive average as benchmark for comparison:

1 September 6.4 (2007)
1 October 6.5
1 November 5.2
1 December 2.4
1 January 1.5 (2008)
1 February 1.3
1 March 0.4
1 April 0.6
1 May 1.0
1 June 1.0
1 July 0.5
1 August 0.4
1 September 0.8
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98

At noon pacific on 8 July TwP ranked 1144 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, idiot guide) ranked 2843, 4467, 5189, 5340, 16380 for an average of 6843.8 making the ratio 5.98

marcus

Jul7-09, 05:37 PM

I like to think there is a common motivation for what you call criticism and fantasy.

That true! And it's a fairly deep insight. I think in the United States it has been difficult to do social criticism because of a widespread fatuous complacency---an unquestioned conviction that our society is so good it should be the model for democracy all over the world. Bush-heads and Palin-drones think this. Maybe now that belief is not so widespread but in the 40s and 50s there was a pious creed that America was special, a land of freedom and fairness etc etc etc., example to the world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very patriotic and always read the Declaration of Independence out loud on the 4th of July. Or encourage the young people to do it. I'm proud of some things about my country. But there has been excessive self-satisfaction.

And so because of this deafness to explicit social crit, I think that some of the energy of social criticism was channeled into SCIENCE FICTION. Which often, in the 1950s anyway, would really be exploring alternate forms of social and political organization. The imaginative exploration of technology was actually masking what was really going on in the genre. It was not science fantasy, it was social fantasy.
The invention of social alternatives was so to say enabled by the technological alternatives.

But we are not talking about American Exceptionalism, we are talking about String Exceptionalism: "The Only Game In Town".

marcus

Jul9-09, 03:17 PM

At this point I have to say the sudden July 2 rise in Smolin book's sales is looking less like a random unexplained blip and more like something significant. Could be a shift in the physicbook market reflecting a possible shift in public perception.
The spike in sales is too persistent to dismiss.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87

At noon pacific on 9 July TwP ranked 1216 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, warped, hyperspace) ranked 2139, 3234. 5971, 9577, 12984 for an average of 6781 making the ratio 5.58.

At noon 10 July TwP was 1730 and string top five (hyperspace, fabric, elegant, parallel, idiot guide) were 3461, 3565, 3615, 11301, 11547 for average of 6697.8.

I wonder how much longer this will last.

John Creighto

Jul9-09, 04:05 PM

At this point I have to say the sudden July 2 rise in Smolin book's sales is looking less like a random unexplained blip and more like something significant. Could be a shift in the physicbook market reflecting a possible shift in public perception.
The spike in sales is too persistent to dismiss.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58

At noon pacific on 9 July TwP ranked 1216 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, warped, hyperspace) ranked 2139, 3234. 5971, 9577, 12984 for an average of 6781 making the ratio 5.58.

I wonder how much longer this will last.

It will stop when enough of the market as read it. I thought about buying it before. The title sounded interesting. It is certainly a unique title. I don't see how if I bought the book it would say anything about my confidence in any particular paradigm in physics.

marcus

Jul11-09, 09:15 PM

It will stop when enough of the market as read it. Of course---I definitely agree! And one question is what is "enough" and when will that be, that "enough" is reached.

To give you perspective, the book came out in September 2006 and has had excellent sales for a good bit of that time, for the first 3-4 months but also including starting September 2007 when the paperback edition went on sale.

Most other stringrelated books that came out around or after September 2006 have disappeared, dropped out of sight. This one is still occasionally high up there. Why? What keeps fueling interest?

I thought about buying it before. The title sounded interesting. It is certainly a unique title. I don't see how if I bought the book it would say anything about my confidence in any particular paradigm in physics.

Like you, I don't see how it would relate to your confidence. If I were confident in some model then probably I would not be so interested in the quest for a quantum theory of geometry. I look at the leading approaches (dynamic triangulations, asymptotic safety, loop, spinfoam...) as steps along the way, gradual advances, work in progress.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67 (11:31 AM, had to be out at noon)

At noon pacific on 9 July TwP ranked 1216 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, warped, hyperspace) ranked 2139, 3234. 5971, 9577, 12984 for an average of 6781 making the ratio 5.58.

At noon 10 July TwP was 1730 and string top five (hyperspace, fabric, elegant, parallel, idiot guide) were 3461, 3565, 3615, 11301, 11547 for average of 6697.8.

At noon 11 July TwP was 1831 and the current stringy top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, idiot guide) ranked 1970, 4497, 5879, 6399, 8016 for an average of 5352.2. In other words judging by salesrank the Smolin book was doing about 3 times better than the string topfive average that we use for benchmark.

Had to be out at noon on 12 July so took reading at 11:31 AM, Smolin 1973 and the benchmark (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, blackholewar) 2250, 3255, 3884, 7139, 9842 for average 5274.0 and ratio 2.67.

I still haven't learned of anything having been done to advertise or publicize the book, so the sudden spurt of sales, to levels like September-November 2007, is unexplained.
Anyone see anything or hear anything that could explain? The fact that the Strings 2009 conference in Rome was such a bust? Any straws in the wind?

Fra

Jul12-09, 06:32 AM

I don't see how if I bought the book it would say anything about my confidence in any particular paradigm in physics.

I think different people may read the book for different reasons. I've read Smolins 3 books, trouble with physics, 3 roads to QG, and the life of the cosmos and my reason for reading it is that wanted to learn about smolins reasoning. In particular his quest for new logic and evolving law.

The critique against string theory was not my reason for reading it. I somehow share alot of his views, and did so before hearing the name Smolin.

Maybe to some people, his books could be an eye opener. If so, why not. In particular might this apply to people who make decisions about funding.

However having read all 3 of his books, there is a decent amount of redundandy and overlap between the three books, and I think 3 roards was possily the best one, but maybe it's because that's the one i read first.

I think the message is clear in smolins books. The primary goal is NOT to just bash string theory and be done with it, it is to try to open the readers eyes and widern their reasoning in the quest for a better understanding that will benefit all of us. The note on string theory, is just (as I read it at least) an illustration that the past strategy has been moderately successful, further increasing the motivation for truly new and creative ideas. Maybe part of the diffuculty of the problems, isn't just that the problem is hard, it may be partly thay we're stuck in an old mode of analysing the problem. The way we ask questions in order to defined the problem may be part of the problem.

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul12-09, 02:23 PM

I think different people may read the book for different reasons. I've read Smolins 3 books, trouble with physics, 3 roads to QG, and the life of the cosmos and my reason for reading it is that wanted to learn about smolins reasoning. In particular his quest for new logic and evolving law...
/Fredrik

Fra, perceptive comment and interesting point of view on Smolin's books!
You might be interested in the FQXi Azores conference which just finished. They may be putting up some video and/or pdf on the talks.
home:
http://www.fqxi.org/conference/home
sample list of questions considered at the previous FQXi conference:
http://www.fqxi.org/conference/questions
Sabine's blog report on it:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/07/fqxi-on-azores.html
Lee Smolin was of course one of the participants (on scientific advisory board of FQXi, along with Frank Wilczek as I recall) and since the questions they home in on are often fairly deep ones it should be interesting to learn what he had to say, if they do post notes or video from the discussion.

Fra

Jul13-09, 01:42 AM

Thanks for those links Marcus! I noticed the talks aren't up yet, but hopefully they will be.

/Fredrik

Fra

Jul13-09, 05:20 AM

sample list of questions considered at the previous FQXi conference:
http://www.fqxi.org/conference/questions

Almost needless to say, they are listing excellent deep and highly motivated questions.

Just to quote a few from that list...

"
- Are there reasons to believe that standard QM is insufficient?
- Can we apply QM to the entire universe?
- How much information is really there in a quantum state?
- an one define probabilities in an eternally inflating spacetime?
- Is nature fundamentally analog or digital (continuous or discrete)?
- Is nature completely mathematical?
- What is dark energy?
"
Questions so good, that NOT insisting on asking them is to be considered as speculative in the sense of the ostrich putting his head in the sand. In that sense, "speculating" about these questions is rather LESS "speculative" in the sense or risk assessment. How far DARE we walk before we ask ourselves wether we got the direction right?

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul13-09, 03:10 PM

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67
13 July 6.42

At noon pacific on 13 July TwP ranked 1036 and the stringy top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, idiotguide, hyperspace) ranked 2677, 3873, 7634, 9522, 9538 for an average of 6648.8 making the ratio 6.42.

So judging by salesranks, the Smolin book was doing about six times better than the five most popular string-oriented books.
================

Fra, your last post is incisive. How I read it is that sometimes in physics people can waste their time by lacking philosophical smarts and depth.
Sometimes you have to analyze your concepts and if you don't, and if you just "shut up and calculate" or "shut up and accelerate" more and more particles, you run into cul de sac sterile deadend and waste everybody's time. So the "speculative" shoe is on the other foot, I think you are saying. It is NOT thinking about the meaning of the concepts that then becomes the careless and wasteful gamble, the speculation.
And that is really what Smolin is all about. The ideas he comes up with can be wrong sometimes and he's not afraid of that, but right or wrong, he is not shallow. He doesn't simply follow whatever herd of cattle or flock of sheep. The TwP book is interesting partly because of that.
Almost needless to say, they are listing excellent deep and highly motivated questions.

Just to quote a few from that list...

"
- Are there reasons to believe that standard QM is insufficient?
- Can we apply QM to the entire universe?
- How much information is really there in a quantum state?
- an one define probabilities in an eternally inflating spacetime?
- Is nature fundamentally analog or digital (continuous or discrete)?
- Is nature completely mathematical?
- What is dark energy?
"
Questions so good, that NOT insisting on asking them is to be considered as speculative in the sense of the ostrich putting his head in the sand. In that sense, "speculating" about these questions is rather LESS "speculative" in the sense or risk assessment. How far DARE we walk before we ask ourselves wether we got the direction right?

/Fredrik

But Smolin's next book, that he is writing with Robert Unger about time and the evolution of the laws of physics should actually be more philosophically interesting. The FQXi question "Can we apply QM to the entire universe?" Could have been taken right out of the Smolin-Unger book. The answer is probably No, we cannot, because we are not an outside observer performing repeated universe experiments.

John Creighto

Jul13-09, 08:32 PM

So judging by salesranks, the Smolin book was doing about six times better than the five most popular string-oriented books.
================

I'm still thinking "So". If two books cover topic A and one book covers topic B then the fact that the book which covers topic B is more popular then the two books that cover topic A says nothing about weather topic B is more popular then topic A. Also if a lot has been written about one topic and little of merit has been written about the second topic then of course the first book written about the second topic is going to show a surge in popularity at first.

Shouldn't there be a much better measure of public opinion then book sales or tweets for that matter. It reminds me of people who try to gauge danger by how much they hear about something on the news when in fact the more you hear something on the news the less common an occurrence it is.

Fra

Jul14-09, 08:17 AM

Fra, your last post is incisive. How I read it is that sometimes in physics people can waste their time by lacking philosophical smarts and depth.
Sometimes you have to analyze your concepts and if you don't, and if you just "shut up and calculate" or "shut up and accelerate" more and more particles, you run into cul de sac sterile deadend and waste everybody's time. So the "speculative" shoe is on the other foot, I think you are saying. It is NOT thinking about the meaning of the concepts that then becomes the careless and wasteful gamble, the speculation.

While it might not be right to claim that a specific someone body is wasting THEIR time from their point of view (it's somehow part of the evolutionary game, that each player has not other choice but to play THEIR game and gamble with their own existence and also has to rat their OWN risk, this I the inside-view perspective, it applies to the scientific process and (my personal conjecture) also to physical processes) - but what you rephrase is precisely what I'm saying!
But Smolin's next book, that he is writing with Robert Unger about time and the evolution of the laws of physics should actually be more philosophically interesting. The FQXi question "Can we apply QM to the entire universe?" Could have been taken right out of the Smolin-Unger book. The answer is probably No, we cannot, because we are not an outside observer performing repeated universe experiments.
Yes, I very much look forward to that book. Some of thoese ideas are already present, if perhaps less elaborated in smolins other books. At least I see it when I read his books.

So far the talk from perimeter on the reality of law, where he mentions his collaboration with unger, where he tries to make a philosophical argument against the notion of timeless law is probably a good indicator of what to expect from the book. I have listened to that talk several times because I had it with me on a trip last year on a mp3 player and it was the only thing I had to listen to. And I think at least to judge from that talk, there are still many open wires even for smolin. In particular on the objection of some that wether replacing timeless law, would again need a timeless metalaw or now. On this point his reasoning was not very clear. I hope that in the book he is more explicit and may come with ideas on howto formalise this, I think it can be done.

So I think his questioning of the notion of timless law, and replacing the ensemble or completely unphysical statistics of IMHO silly "multiverses" with instead the idea of ONE evolving universe is in the right direction. Also, this fairly deep suggestions has implications for the notion of the reality of physical law and our undertanding of science as a process. The scientific process almost becomes one with the physical processes. Just in my taste.

If I had to mention from the top of my head one person I'm aware of from media that insists on a change, smolins ideas are one of the top most interesting.

It's true that some of these ideas shake many of the foundations of science, especially the new notion of evolving law, but all circustances motivating questioning in this direction give me more confidence than weak argument that there is nothing wrong with the old logic judged on past success. there is also a good reason for this, which smolin explains when talking about how closed subsystems is a different story than an open environment. The logic that works for closed subsystems does not work for open environments.

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul14-09, 03:36 PM

marcus

Jul14-09, 09:24 PM

If two books cover topic A and one book covers topic B then the fact that the book which covers topic B is more popular then the two books that cover topic A says nothing about weather topic B is more popular then topic A...

Yes definitely. What interests me is how this index changes over time. I have kept track of it since September 2006. Doing a reading at or around the first of the month, always at noon pacific so as to avoid any accidental "cherrypicking"

For much of 2008 the index was down around 0.5 and 0.6. Also for much of 2009. And now it is up, often over 2 or 3.

This is a big change. Does it signal a longterm shift in the way the physics-fans in the general public are thinking? Or is it just a brief temporary spike? And if it is purely temporary, why did it happen now?

I think the public is capable of being fooled by science hype. Indeed it probably has been fooled quite a bit including by media specials (eg even with Hawking, Brian Greene,...) that you'd hope would be solid and not misleading. So you can't take booksales as an indicator of what is valid research or good science policy. It could even sometimes be a contrary indicator!

I don't need to keep track of wideaudience booksales to tell me what is valid science and what isn't. Neither do you. We have other ways---our critical faculties, citation counts, reading informed inside opinion.

What indices like this can tell us is about public perceptions and especially alert us to change---shifts in perception.

Smolin's book essentially advocates a more inclusive, broad front of attack on the quantum geometry/gravity problem. Not just string, but also spinfoam, causal sets, dynamic triangulations, loop quantum gravity...
And the book gives the reasons why you need to allow for string being a dead-end. A fundamental weakness in the string approach. No approach can you say from the outset that it is right. Every approach can turn out to be flawed some way, and it may turn out to be possible to work around the flaw or it may NOT. So the mature strategy is to develop along a variety of paths and support several research lines.

Well in 2006 there was a serious problem of overconcentration on string with an entrenched establishment protecting its own prestige, especially in the US.
Now that monopoly has broken somewhat in Europe, and the Europeans are being rewarded by exciting advances along the non-string lines. Most recently the socalled Asymptotic Safe approach that nobelist Steven Weinberg talked about at Cern (July 7) just this past week. But actually a lot of nonstring QG research action.
So the situation that Smolin assessed in the book has proven to be in some sense self-correcting. It is as if at least the European Scientific Establishment paid attention to what Smolin was saying. Or knew it already. So more funding HAS gone into the nonstring lines that Smolin was talking about, and also allied approaches that he didnt even mention.
Now it remains for the USA scientific establishment (DOE research, NSF, national science foundation,...) to get the message.
Smolin's book can be a helpful PART of this shift in perception and policy, but it can't do the job all by itself.

Still, I think it is an interesting index and I am waiting to see where it goes next.

BTW Smolin's next book (about Time and the Laws of Physics) is likely to be very controversial. In its day TwP was considered a dark horse and not likely to be as persistent and influential as it seems now to be. The new one could be like that too.

marcus

Jul14-09, 09:34 PM

Fra, on reflection I have nothing to add to your post #29. I concur completely with what you say there. (including about the open wires :biggrin:) details still to be filled in. missing connections that still have to be made.

Good idea to make an MP3 of a lecture that you can then take on a train trip.
In case anyone wants to copy your example I will post links to smolin perimeter lectures.
Here is one:
http://pirsa.org/08100049/

15 July 2.37
At noon, the regular time, Trouble ranked 2566 and the stringy benchmark was 6081.4 making the ratio 2.37.

marcus

Jul16-09, 03:12 PM

Kaboom! The big sales spike is over and TwP is back in the normal range. The unexplained excursion lasted just over 2 weeks.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67
13 July 6.42
14 July 4.88
15 July 2.37
16 July 0.81

At noon pacific on 16 July TwP ranked 5350 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, blackhole, parallel, hyperspace) ranked 2079, 3252, 4395, 4413, 7516 for an average of 4331.0 making the ratio 0.81.

John Creighto

Jul16-09, 04:16 PM

Well in 2006 there was a serious problem of overconcentration on string with an entrenched establishment protecting its own prestige, especially in the US.
Now that monopoly has broken somewhat in Europe, and the Europeans are being rewarded by exciting advances along the non-string lines. Most recently the socalled Asymptotic Safe approach that nobelist Steven Weinberg talked about at Cern (July 7) just this past week. But actually a lot of nonstring QG research action.

So the situation that Smolin assessed in the book has proven to be in some sense self-correcting. It is as if at least the European Scientific Establishment paid attention to what Smolin was saying. Or knew it already. So more funding HAS gone into the nonstring lines that Smolin was talking about, and also allied approaches that he didnt even mention.
Now it remains for the USA scientific establishment (DOE research, NSF, national science foundation,...) to get the message.

I think in any field of research governments should avoid picking winners as much as possible. I'm curious as to why there were would be a disproportionate amount of research in string theory because in my mind the only justification would be if there were key predictions to test that required a large amount of research dollars to test. Otherwise, I think they should let the academics decide on their own which fields of research are most relevant for them to pursue. Perhaps funding preference could be given to people who write papers which are highly referenced and read.

Fra

Jul17-09, 01:06 AM

marcus

Jul17-09, 03:28 PM

Fra, Amazon does not provide figures on the numbers of copies sold. They only give a sales rank. The book that sells the most copies is #1, the next most copies sold gets rank #2.
Also publishers tend to be reticent about actual numbers sold. So all we have to go on are the ranks. I calculate the ratios myself because the rank of a physics book is hard to interpret, I like to know the rank compared with something.

So for example the ratio at noon today was 1.67. Trouble was doing a bit more than one and a half times better than the stringy benchmark I compare with. The way it works is this:
At noon TwP rank was 2907.
The five most popular stringy books today were elegant, fabric, parallel, idiot guide, hyperspace and their ranks were 2620, 2871, 4090, 5257, 9431.
This makes an average of 4853.8. One just adds up the five ranks and divides by 5.
So the average stringy rank, for books in the top five, was 4853.8.
Smolin's rank of 2907 was 1.67 times better than that. That is the ratio 4853.8/2907.

So I record this for today:
17 July 1.67

Another example was the ratio for 6 July, as described here:
...
To continue recording the noon readings for this interesting spike in sales of Smolin's book:
2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81

Trouble with Physics was number one on the Amazon list of physics books (ahead of Hawking, Greene, whoever). At noon on 6 July it ranked 395 and the string topfive average was 6286.2, making the ratio 15.81.
The five most popular string books that day (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 1507, 1782, 5330, 7309, 15503.

On that day the most popular string books (and their ranks) were Brian Greene's Fabric (#1507) and Elegant (#1782), Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds (#5330) and Hyperspace (#7309) and Lisa Randall's Warped Passages (#15503). Among the top five, the average salesrank was 6286.2. The Smolin book's salesrank was 15.81 times better than this stringy benchmark. Since that day it happened to be #395 among all books that Amazon sells.

The point of such an index is that it should be quick to calculate, and one should calculate it consistently always the same way. And one then watches it over time. Only the change over time, if there is any change, can mean something. By itself one cannot say what the number means.
The stringy benchmark to some extent measures the size of the problem (the over-hyping and over-selling of string to the public) and so the ratio has a connection with how well Smolin's initiative is doing relative to the size of the mountainous problem it addresses. But there is no rigorous meaning---one can learn what it means only by watching it over time and seeing what it correlates with. Like any other numerical indicator that one tracks.

marcus

Jul18-09, 04:37 PM

A couple of days ago I thought the spike was over and it was back to normal (like 0.5 - 0.7) but that hasn't happened yet actually. Trouble is still doing somewhat better than par.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67
13 July 6.42
14 July 4.88
15 July 2.37
16 July 0.81
17 July 1.67
18 July 2.76
19 July 1.50

At noon pacific on 19 July, Trouble was 4081 and the most popular stringies (elegant, parallel, blackhole, fabric, hyperspace) were 3403, 5943, 6152, 7098, 8108 for an average of 6140.8 making the ratio 1.50.

Fra

Jul21-09, 02:49 AM

Thanks. I was just curious if the explanation could have been a random fluctuation. A random fluctuation as an explanation would be more plausiable the lower the total # of books is.

The larger # of individual books it is, the more remarkable is it.

So maybe one explanation could have been: A drop in totals sales# of all books (due to bad times?) + fluctuations which are bound to come in the small n limit :)

/Fredrik

marcus

Jul21-09, 04:54 PM

The main cause of turbulence just this past week, that I have seen, is the appearance of "Kindle" e-book versions of all these titles. Amazon is listing e-book ranks (from the "Kindle store") mixed into the physics bestseller list, which is quite confusing. e-book ranks are calculated on a different basis. I suspect that Kindle store sales (of the e-books) is small compared with total sales of ordinary books, so for the time being I am ignoring the Kindle versions of the titles. TwP now has a kindle version and it is doing quite well in the ranks, which surprises me. I thought that it would be mostly children and young people who buy the e-books, and I don't think of them as the main market for TwP. The appeal is that you get the book instantly, by wire, and also it is cheaper.
In any case, in doing these numbers I am focusing only on real books, and ignoring e-books.

Also there was a jump in sales of the Susskind black hole book (not really about string but I include it in calculating the stringy topfive because of some string-inspired stuff in chapters near the end.) This jump in sales came immediately after an article by Susskind appeared in Physics World. This makes it more believable that Smolin's spike in sales was at least partly caused by his having an article in Physics World (with some follow-on comment) a couple of weeks earlier. It was the magnitude of the spike that strikes me as unusual, not the timing.

Trouble is still doing somewhat better than par.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67
13 July 6.42
14 July 4.88
15 July 2.37
16 July 0.81
17 July 1.67
18 July 2.76
19 July 1.50
20 July 1.19
21 July 1.30
22 July 1.39

At noon pacific on 21 July, Trouble was 3750 and the most popular stringies (blackhole, elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace) were 2071, 2121, 5145, 6722, 8284 for an average of 4868.6 making the ratio 1.30.

At noon pacific on 22 July, Trouble was 3055 and the most popular stringies (fabric, blackhole, elegant, parallel, hyperspace) were 2778, 3161, 3491, 3637, 8223, for an average of 4258.0 making the ratio 1.39.

marcus

Jul24-09, 04:14 PM

Something made the Smolin book sales pick up in late June/early July. There was an unexplained two-week spike in sales during the first half of July, which is now over. But the salesrank is still better than par, and better than in the first half of this year. I'm wondering if this indicates anything for the long term.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
...
19 July 1.50
20 July 1.19
21 July 1.30
22 July 1.39
23 July 1.79
24 July 1.09
25 July 0.53

At noon pacific on 23 July, Trouble was 2190 and the most popular stringies (elegant, blackhole, fabric, parallel, hyperspace) were 1701, 2234, 2379, 4976, 8333 for an average of 3924.6 making the ratio 1.79.

At noon pacific on 24 July, Trouble was 3848 and the most popular stringies (elegant, hyperspace, fabric, blackhole, parallel) were 2257, 3600, 4369, 4648, 6013 for an average of 4176.8 making the ratio 1.09.

On the 25th Trouble ranked 6714 compared with a stringy topfive average of 3564.2 making the ratio 0.53, more like what was typical during the first half of the year.

=====================
EDIT TO REPLY TO NEXT POST
Hi Views,
Since I can still edit this, I will save a post and reply to yours here. You asked what are my thoughts. I think the Kachru et al paper you refer to would not have had anything to do with the increase in sales of Smolin's book, The Trouble with Physics, during July.

ViewsofMars

Jul25-09, 10:40 AM

Something made the Smolin book sales pick up in late June/early July.

Marcus, it might have peeked due to this publication:

Work supported in part by US Department of Energy contract DE-AC02-76SF00515
Published in Annu. Rev. Nuc. Part. Sci
June 2009

MPP-2009-15
UPR-1205-T
SLAC-PUB-13531

D-brane Instantons in Type II String Theory

Ralph Blumenhagen1, Mirjam Cvetiˇc2, Shamit Kachru3,4 and Timo Weigand4
1 Max-Planck-Institut f¨ur Physik, F¨ohringer Ring 6,
D-80805 M¨unchen, Germany
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6396, USA
3 Department of Physics, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA 94305, USA
4 SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University,
Menlo Park, CA 94309, USA

Abstract
We review recent progress in determining the effects of D-brane instantons
in N = 1 supersymmetric compactifications of Type II string theory to four
dimensions. We describe the abstract D-brane instanton calculus for holomorphic couplings such as the superpotential, the gauge kinetic function
and higher fermionic F-terms. This includes a discussion of multi-instanton
effects and the implications of background fluxes for the instanton sector.
Our presentation also highlights, but is not restricted to the computation
of D-brane instanton effects in quiver gauge theories on D-branes at singularities. We then summarize the concrete consequences of stringy D-brane instantons for the construction of semi-realistic models of particle physics or SUSY-breaking in compact and non-compact geometries.

[68 pages – Please read.]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/getdoc/slac-pub-13531.pdf

I was especially interested in CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK (p. 56 - 58). What are your thoughts about it?

ViewsofMars

Jul25-09, 05:12 PM

=====================
EDIT TO REPLY TO NEXT POST
Hi Views,
Since I can still edit this, I will save a post and reply to yours here. You asked what are my thoughts. I think the Kachru et al paper you refer to would not have had anything to do with the increase in sales of Smolin's book, The Trouble with Physics, during July.

Hi Marcus. :smile:That's fine.

Getting back to what you stated, "Something made the Smolin book sales pick up in late June/early July." I hope you won't mind me mentioning that I’m still new here so I hope it is ok for me to share with you what I just earlier observed elsewhere on physicsforums. You might consider in the future that because of you the 'increase in sales of Smolin's book' may have resulted when you presented on June 2, 2009 in Physics, Sub-Forums : Beyond the Standard Model, Topic: re: Introduction To Loop Quantum Gravity (page 11):

“This wide audience article by Smolin in PhysicsWorld (June 2, 2009) could turn out to be influential. It is part of the development of Unimodular Relativity (UR) in conjuctions with evolutionary cosmology (the conjectured evolutionary basis for the laws of physics).
It's a very readable article, called The Unique Universe."

and this quote of yours too may have had an effect on sales:
That true! And it's a fairly deep insight. I think in the United States it has been difficult to do social criticism because of a widespread fatuous complacency---an unquestioned conviction that our society is so good it should be the model for democracy all over the world. Bush-heads and Palin-drones think this. Maybe now that belief is not so widespread but in the 40s and 50s there was a pious creed that America was special, a land of freedom and fairness etc etc etc., example to the world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very patriotic and always read the Declaration of Independence out loud on the 4th of July. Or encourage the young people to do it. I'm proud of some things about my country. But there has been excessive self-satisfaction.

And so because of this deafness to explicit social crit, I think that some of the energy of social criticism was channeled into SCIENCE FICTION. Which often, in the 1950s anyway, would really be exploring alternate forms of social and political organization. The imaginative exploration of technology was actually masking what was really going on in the genre. It was not science fantasy, it was social fantasy. The invention of social alternatives was so to say enabled by the technological alternatives.

But we are not talking about American Exceptionalism, we are talking about String Exceptionalism: "The Only Game In Town".

Marcus, I'd appreciate a response as I earlier asked of you on the the Kachru et al paper, D-brane Instantons in Type II String Theory that was supported in part by US Department of Energy. :smile: I'd like your input on it. Comments please. Thank you in advance for your consideration. I do think it is important for the public to realize that research is important. And, I'm most definately a big fan of the BIG BANG! (A round of applause for George Smoot!)

marcus

Jul26-09, 03:23 PM

marcus

Jul28-09, 03:21 PM

ViewsofMars

Jul29-09, 08:16 PM

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
...
19 July 1.50
20 July 1.19
21 July 1.30
22 July 1.39
23 July 1.79
24 July 1.09
25 July 0.53
26 July 0.76
27 July 1.11

At noon pacific on 26 July, Trouble was 4686 and the most popular stringies (blackhole, elegant, fabric, idiotguide, parallel) were 1245, 2383, 4435, 5016, 5090 for an average of 3633.8 making the ratio 0.76.

At noon pacific on 27 July, Trouble was 3631 and the most popular stringies (blackhole, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel) were 2617, 3653, 3915, 4027, 5976, for an average of 4037.6 making the ratio 1.11.

I'd like a link (url) that I can review from Amazon where you are obtaining those figures. :smile:

That's a curious thought. I rather doubt that anything we say here in SocialSci forum significantly influences the mass science book market or any other sector of the world at large.

I'm sure of the readership on physicsforums, and what you write on physicsforums is noted on peoples' blogs.

You sound like you see your role as getting a message across to the general public. What I'm interested in is accurately tracking what is going on. I'm interested in how some indices behave---and in trying to follow and understand certain trends.

You mean about George Smoot. Yup! He is a nobel prize winner. Top notch physicist.

I guess there is a secondary idea here also that public support for scientific research will be more solid and effective in the long run if the public is well-informed. If the public knows the truth about what is happening in physics research (not just the hype as per discovery channel and gee whiz science specials.) But that is a secondary consideration. First of all I want some objective comprehension for myself, of what is going on.

Yes, I agree with you 'that public support for scientific research will be more solid and effective in the long run if the public is well-informed'. And, maybe I can be of help to you in a sociological sense. Here is an excerpt of an article, Cosmology's Golden Age, from CERN ( International Journal of High-Energy Physics) Courier dated Jun 8, 2009 that was written by George F Smoot, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:

The situation in cosmology is rife with opportunities. There are well defined but fundamental questions to be answered and new observations arriving to guide us in this quest. We should learn much more about inflation from the observations that we can anticipate over the next few years. Likewise we can hope to learn about the true nature of dark matter from laboratory and new accelerator experiments that are underway or soon to be operating, as at the LHC. We hope to learn more about possible extra dimensions through observations.

We continue to seek and encourage new ideas and concepts for understanding the universe. These concepts and ideas must pass muster – like a camel going through the eye of a needle – in agreeing with the multitude of precise observations and thereby yield an effective version of our now-working cosmological model. This is the key point of modern cosmology, which is fully flowering and truly exciting. It is the natural consequence and culmination of the path that Galileo started us on four centuries ago.
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/39163

I don't think a book should be the only indicator for future research as my example previously noted above. Funding is important.

Regarding strings, under Smoot Astrophysics Group Personnel (1) is Scientist Jodi Lamoureux-Christiansen. On her homepage (2) under RESEARCH INTERESTS, please note Cosmic Strings (3):
“CMB results rule out topological defects as the primary source of structure in the universe. They may only be a low-level source of structure. Their importance, however, has recently been recognized in theoretical work on hybrid inflation, D-Brane inflation and SUSY GUTS which all favor cosmic string formation. The discovery of Cosmic Strings would solve another dark theoretical mystery by putting a physical face to the yet another component of the universe.”
And please do review in Astrophysics (4):
Title: Search for Cosmic Strings in the GOODS Survey
Authors: J.L. Christiansen, E. Albin, K.A. James, J. Goldman, D. Maruyama, G.F. Smoot
(Submitted on 29 Feb 2008 (v1), last revised 24 May 2008 (this version, v2))
1. http://aether.lbl.gov/people.html
2. http://atom.physics.calpoly.edu/~jodi/
3. http://atom.physics.calpoly.edu/~jodi/strings.html
http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0027v2
4. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0803/0803.0027v2.pdf
###

Marcus, ever heard of Blue Ocean Strategy?:biggrin: Look, I'm creating a new market space by using a teaching module within your space along with providing you and our audience what I consider to be important feedback. Your topic "Sociology of Physics:comment and indices" isn't meant to reflect only *your* feedback without critique. It wouldn't be a democracy if I weren't allowed to comment. Also, at times, less certainty yields better decisions. :smile:

I should mention that I'm enjoying our exchanges. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.

marcus

Jul30-09, 03:29 PM

Getting close to the first of August. For compactness, I only save smoothed first-of-month readings.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
...
30 July 0.90
31 July 0.44

At noon pacific on 30 July, Trouble was 4736 and the five most popular stringies (fabric, elegant, hyperspace, parallel, blackhole) were 3418, 3651, 3804, 4623, 5714 for an average of 4242.0 making the ratio 0.90. I intend to smooth with a 5 day average around the first of the month. Take readings on the 30, 31, 1, 2, and 3 of August, which will average out some of the random fluctuation.
===================

In my previous post I introduced another index which we can track. First of all there's this:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=k+spin%2Cfoam+or+%28dk+quantum+gravity+ and+dk+loop+space%29+and+date+%3E+2006&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
This is Loop/Spinfoam research published since 2006 (i.e. 2007-present) ranked by cites.
As of 28 July there are 251 papers listed, and the citecounts for the top ten run from 65 down to 25. Both publication rate and citations matter.

And here it is restricted to [2007, 2008]. The search finds 196 papers in the Spires data base.
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2006+and+da te+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Loop/Spinfoam publication rate (entries in the Spires database for two-year intervals)

[2003 2004] 126
[2005 2006] 136
[2007 2008] 196

A similar check shows string research publication declining over the past three years, and that citations to string papers have declined from highs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The research mix may be finding a new balance.
Various things suggest this and maybe I should also mention some anecdotal evidence tending to confirm it.

marcus

Aug1-09, 03:09 PM

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
...
30 July 0.90
31 July 0.44
1 August 0.51
2 August 0.81
3 August ?

One more noon reading to take, for an average around 1 August.
At noon pacific on 2 August Trouble ranked 5824 and the stringy top five (blackhole, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel) ranked 2715, 3797, 4024, 6387, 6555, for an average of 4695.6 making the ratio 0.81.

marcus

Aug3-09, 03:18 PM

The noon readings around 1 August turned out to be:
30 July 0.90
31 July 0.44
1 August 0.51
2 August 0.81
3 August 0.53

So the final average, giving the smoothed figure for 1 August is 0.64

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
...

As far as I can see the most remarkable thing about Trouble sales long term is how steady the book's rank is holding. It came out in September of 2006 and so far shows no sign of going away. In case anyone is curious at noon pacific on 3 August Trouble ranked 9242 and the stringy top five (hyperspace, elegant, fabric, blackhole, parallel) ranked 2879, 3554, 3557, 5474, 8961, for an average of 4885.0 making the ratio 0.64.
===============================
Another index to keep track of is the:

Loop/Spinfoam publication rate

[2003 2004] 126
[2005 2006] 136
[2007 2008] 196

To check these figures use this Spires keyword search and adjust the dates accordingly---here the dates are set to give research output from [2007 2008]:

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2006+and+da te+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

==============
Another is a string publication index using keywords "superstring, M-theory, AdS/CFT, brane, compactification, heterotic" to search the Harvard archive.
Here are the results as of 3 August, for the first 6 months of three consecutive years:

2007: 2669
2008: 2597
2009: 2418

The links used are:
2007
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=06&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=06&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=06&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

marcus

Aug9-09, 05:12 PM

Checking in on Smolin's book.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
...
8 August 0.89
9 August 1.49
10 August 0.39
...

At noon pacific 9 August, Trouble ranked 4129 and the five most popular string books (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, blackhole) ranked 2446, 3289, 3902, 5033, 16039 for an average of 6141.8, making the ratio 1.49.

I would say that although public interest and perception is a factor, there are some more important sociological indicators of changes in the fundamental physics research picture. Loop and allied research publication rate going up (see earlier post) and string publication lapsing. More researchers getting into nonstring QG and QC (the application of quantum gravity to cosmology). Exodus of smart people from string.

One can see a major shift in focus in the work of leaders like Hermann Nicolai, Petr Horava, Edward Witten, Steve Gidding, Juan Maldacena, Arkani-Hamed. Physicists show recognizable herd behavior, so what the leaders do is imporrtant.

Besides this exodus or shift in focus there has this summer been a remarkable run of conferences which combine Loop-and-allied speakers with String and ex-String folks. There is apparently more interest and openness on the part of the String and ex-String community---more desire to listen and discuss.
To mention a few:

Planck Scale (Wroclaw, June)
Marcel Twelve (Paris, July)
FQXi IV (Azores, July)
Emergent Gravity (Vancouver, August)
Ellisfest (Cape Town, August)
AsymSafe (Perimeter, November)

Another indicator of a change in the mental climate was Steven Weinberg's 7 July talk at CERN. (Basic message: string not the only game in town, SW currently chooses to work on an alternative, undercutting string motivation.) Five years ago Weinberg was an influential and staunch supporter: string as "our one best hope" of unification. No longer.

atyy

Aug12-09, 12:08 AM

Emergent Gravity (Vancouver, August)

Vidal: Entanglement, symmetries, and the simulation of strongly interacting systems on a lattice, AND its (VERY CLOSE) relation to spin networks: A Tensor Network (TN) exploits the structure of entanglement in strongly interacting systems on a lattice to provide an efficient representation of its ground state. TN algorithms are becoming increasingly popular, thanks to its ability to simulate systems that cannot be addressed with quantum Monte Carlo techniques, such as frustrated antiferromagnets and interacting spins on a 2D lattice. In my talk I will explain how, in the presence of a symmetry, a TN reduces to a linear superposition of exponentially many Spin Networks (of the type you like in loop quantum gravity). It follows that TN algorithms can be used to evaluate such linear superpositions efficiently.

Hmmm, are LQG spin networks still alive or have they been replaced by spin foams (sorry, am completely confused on by the whole state of LQG/spinfoams)?

marcus

Aug12-09, 11:40 AM

Hmmm, are LQG spin networks still alive or have they been replaced by spin foams (sorry, am completely confused on by the whole state of LQG/spinfoams)?

They are essentially the same theory. As the theory appears to be coming together, a spinfoam is how a spin network evolves.
So it would be impossible for one to replace the other. Or maybe I should say unnecessary.

Thanks for mentioning the Vidal presentation. Do you have a link?
What you quote here is what it says in the conference program http://www.emergentgravity.org/index.php?main=main_EGIV_programme.php
(in case anyone wants to see source and context---there are a lot of other interesting looking talks)
But what about a link to the corresponding work by Vidal?

marcus

Aug12-09, 12:41 PM

Actually Atyy one of the talks that I think interesting from a sociological point of view, at that Vancouver EG4 conference, is Matt Visser's. He's very influential and not allied to any one approach.

I know it doesn't bear directly on your condensed-matter-related QG perspective but I'll copy the abstract as a kind of sociological straw in the wind. It might catch other people's attention as well:

Visser
Who's afraid of Lorentz symmetry breaking?
"Is Lorentz symmetry truly fundamental? Or is it just an "accidental" low-momentum emergent symmetry? Opinions on this issue have undergone a radical mutation over the last few years. Historically, Lorentz symmetry was considered absolutely fundamental --- not to be trifled with --- but for a number of independent reasons the modern viewpoint is more nuanced. What are the benefits of Lorentz symmetry breaking? What can we do with it? Why should we care?"

Here are some citation numbers to gauge Visser's prominence:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+A+VISSER%2C++M&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Here is a recent paper on "Phenomenologically viable Lorentz-violating quantum gravity"
submitted arxiv April 2009 and already published Physical Review Letters and cited 34 times (!)
http://arXiv.org/abs/0904.4464

Again here is "Quantum gravity without Lorentz invariance"
arxived May 2009 and already has 31 cites
http://arXiv.org/abs/0905.2798

He is talking about the situation where the bending of Lorentz invariance is only perceptible at ultra-high energies. Like TeV gamma photons, I guess.
So in a normal lower-energy regime, ordinary Lorentz invariance emerges. OK he seems to like this. And he is influential. It is sometimes these "loose cannon" senior people that by behaving unpredictably and carrying some weight can get things to happen. I'm not a fan of Visser but I am glad to see the cannon rolling around on the deck.

His co-author here Silke Weinfurtner is an attractive woman who played a prominent role at the Planck Scale conference in Wroclaw in June 2008. I'll have to check out her video lecture from that conference, may have something to do with Matt Visser's presentation at EG4.

atyy

Aug12-09, 01:17 PM

I'm not a fan of Visser but I am glad to see the cannon rolling around on the deck.

His co-author here Silke Weinfurtner is an attractive woman who played a prominent role at the Planck Scale conference in Wroclaw in June 2008. I'll have to check out her video lecture from that conference, may have something to do with Matt Visser's presentation at EG4.

He, he - You are not a fan of Visser, while I'm a fan of Visser and not a fan of LQG (actually, just not a fan of "Trouble with Physics", and I like the tenor of Baez's and Freidel's work). Even more he, he - I suppose since this is sociology of physics you are allowed to mention that Silke Weinfurtner is an attractive woman. I shall have to watch her lecture now. :smile: Another recent surprise for me was that Zheng-Cheng Gu, Wen's collaborator, is a guy - I had assumed he was a lady until I saw his picture on Wen's Azores slides.

Here's a Vidal reference that seems relevant: http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.2393

marcus

Aug12-09, 01:59 PM

These conferences are sociological machines that help define what constitutes a particular field of science and who the authorities are and what directions of research are considered interesting. We can study conferences to get sociological clues. Maybe I will get links to the main QG ones that happened recently. You already have the links, Atyy, but I mean post them here for convenience. How else can you find a video of Silke Weinfurtner in a hurry when you want? Certain isolated key talks are also important landmarks (Rovelli at Strings 2008, Weinberg at CERN 7 July 2009) in part because the video shows audience reaction and response. But I'll leave that for later. Here are some main QG conference links:

Black Holes and Loop Quantum Gravity (Valencia, March)
http://www.uv.es/bhlqg/
Planck Scale (Wroclaw, June)
http://www.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~planckscale/
http://www.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~rdurka/planckscale/index-video.php
Marcel Twelve (Paris, July)
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg12/en/
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg12/en/invited_speakers_details.htm
FQXi IV (Azores, July)
http://www.fqxi.org/conference/talks
Loops 2009 (Beijing, August)
http://www.mighty-security.com/loop/timetable1.htm
Emergent Gravity (Vancouver, August)
http://www.emergentgravity.org/
http://www.emergentgravity.org/index.php?main=main_EGIV_programme.php
Ellisfest (Cape Town, August)
http://www.mth.uct.ac.za/~jeff/Quantum_Gravity/About.html
Corfu QG School (Corfu, September)
http://www.physics.ntua.gr/corfu2009/qg.html
AsymSafe (Perimeter, November)
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Events/Asymptotic_Safety/Asymptotic_Safety_-_30_Years_Later/
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Events/Asymptotic_Safety/Invited_Speakers/
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Events/Asymptotic_Safety/Abstracts/

Silke's Wroclaw video has a bad audio track for the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds. So you have to wait until 3:30 before turning on the sound. Otherwise an annoying echo.
It's just a nice easy intro to Horava Lifschitz (and also the Visser-Weinfurtner modification or extension of it.)

atyy

Aug12-09, 10:48 PM

http://www.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~rdurka/planckscale/index-video.php

Remigiusz Durka links to abstruse goose which I hadn't read in some time. I came across http://abstrusegoose.com/137

marcus

Aug13-09, 04:42 PM

Great satire! I get a kick out of a lot of the Abstruse Goose comics. Thanks for linking to that stringy Xanadu.
I guess the appearance of satire is another aspect of the sociology scene. Please alert us if you see other goodies like that. I think that Peter Shor, a prof at MIT, produced a classic, in the form of an imaginary dialog.
====

String theorists: We've got the Standard Model, and it works great, but it doesn't include gravity, and it doesn't explain lots of other stuff, like why all the elementary particles have the masses they do. We need a new, broader theory.

Nature: Here's a great new theory I can sell you. It combines quantum field theory and gravity, and there's only one adjustable parameter in it, so all you have to do is find the right value of that parameter, and the Standard Model will pop right out.

String theorists: We'll take it.

String theorists (some time later): Wait a minute, Nature, our new theory won't fit into our driveway. String theory has ten dimensions, and our driveway only has four.

Nature: I can sell you a Calabi-Yau manifold. These are really neat gadgets, and they'll fold up string theory into four dimensions, no problem.

String theorists: We'll take one of those as well, please.

Nature: Happy to help.

String theorists (some time later): Wait a minute, Nature, there's too many different ways to fold our Calabi-Yao manifold up. And it keeps trying to come unfolded. And string theory is only compatible with a negative cosmological constant, and we own a positive one.

Nature: No problem. Just let me tie this Calabi-Yao manifold up with some strings and branes, and maybe a little duct tape, and you'll be all set.

String theorists: But our beautiful new theory is so ugly now!

Nature: Ah! But the Anthropic Principle says that all the best theories are ugly.

String theorists: It does?

Nature: It does. And once you make it the fashion to be ugly, you'll ensure that other theories will never beat you in beauty contests.

String theorists: Hooray! Hooray! Look at our beautiful new theory.
===
Shor is amazing:
Shor's algorithm in quantum computing, factoring exponentially faster than any known classical method.
As a kid he took second in International Math Olympiad. Putnam fellow at Caltech. Nevanlinna Prize.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Shor
http://www-math.mit.edu/~shor/

Chaos' lil bro Order

Aug13-09, 07:59 PM

Hey Marcus,

Maybe you could provide a little summary post describing your trend-finding... I think earlier you mentioned string theory was losing favor, based on book sales. Do you have any other running conclusions to share? Its easy for us casual readers than to sift through your masses of data (appreciate your efforts).

marcus

Aug14-09, 12:53 AM

Hey Marcus,
Maybe you could provide a little summary post describing your trend-finding... .

Did that a while back in this thread, Bro. Maybe it's time to elaborate, update. Booksales are the least of it, and the most lagging. The public takes the longest of anyone to become aware. Nevertheless it is a factor and I don't want to ignore it.

I would say that although public interest and perception is a factor, there are some more important sociological indicators of changes in the fundamental physics research picture. Loop and allied research publication rate going up (see earlier post) and string publication lapsing. More researchers getting into nonstring QG and QC (the application of quantum gravity to cosmology). Exodus of smart people from string.

One can see a major shift in focus in the work of leaders like Hermann Nicolai, Petr Horava, Edward Witten, Steve Gidding, Juan Maldacena, Arkani-Hamed. Physicists show recognizable herd behavior, so what the leaders do is important.

Besides this exodus or shift in focus there has this summer been a remarkable run of conferences which combine Loop-and-allied speakers with String and ex-String folks. There is apparently more interest and openness on the part of the String and ex-String community---more desire to listen and discuss.
To mention a few:

Planck Scale (Wroclaw, June)
Marcel Twelve (Paris, July)
FQXi IV (Azores, July)
Emergent Gravity (Vancouver, August)
Ellisfest (Cape Town, August)
AsymSafe (Perimeter, November)

Another indicator of a change in the mental climate was Steven Weinberg's 7 July talk at CERN. (Basic message: string not the only game in town, SW currently chooses to work on an alternative, undercutting string motivation.) Five years ago Weinberg was an influential and staunch supporter: string as "our one best hope" of unification. No longer.

Chaos' lil bro Order

Aug21-09, 05:23 PM

Great summary, especially important to myself was Weinberg's change in favor. Ty sir.

marcus

Aug21-09, 05:27 PM

changeseeker

Aug22-09, 11:22 PM

It's called the "Matthew Effect" (Robert Merton). Those people who are high-status will gain more publications as a result of their status, while the inverse will be true for those of low status.

Interesting marc,

So you gauge the popularity of a niche of science based on how many of its papers are in the top citations list. This could be a good indicator of whether the niche (string theory) is gaining peer acceptance or losing it.

I must say there are some criticisms readily available of this technique's accuracy, as I'm sure you are well aware. It would be interesting to see a behavioral psychologists analysis of this technique. One results skewing effect would be the tendency of peers to cite papers written by physics 'celebrities', like Penrose, Wolfram, etc. This looks good for their own paper when they've quoted a top gun, and it adds credence to their paper. The less popular the niche is, the less cites it will naturally garner. String Theory has been relatively stale in the last 5 years and many physicists wonder if its reached an experimental impass, which means it is losing favor, even amongst some theoretical physicists. This could clearly effect citations, but it does nothing to prove whether the underlying theories in string theory are true or false.

So while you citation rankings, is a decent indicator of what papers are important, it may also be just as good an indicator of what niches are popular.

marcus

Aug24-09, 03:28 PM

You are most welcome, Bro sir! I was glad to get some feedback.
This booksale indicator may be the least important of the lot, but I still keep track of it sporadically---and around the first of every month, so as to have record in case anything interesting happens.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
...
8 August 0.89
9 August 1.49
10 August 0.39
...
21 August 0.67

At noon pacific on 21 August, Trouble ranked 13664 and the five most popular string books (elegant, parallel, fabric, blackhole, hyperspace) averaged 9147.4 making the ratio 0.67.

Bro, if you want a link to the video of Weinberg's 6 July talk, or to the paper that goes with it, let me know.
I shouldn't give the impression of a complete shift of interest among those top people---more a moderation of interest in string and a spreading out. Some are still doing some string papers but their main effort seems marginal or unrelated. Horava has found his own approach to QG now (not stringy). Nicolai's recent research is nonstring---more about making the established QFT work better. These are kind of subtle changes. Weinberg's renewed interest in Asymptotic Safety was more pronouced and noticeable. This came out in the last 12 minutes of his talk.

Smolin's most recent book, The Trouble with Physics, seems to be hanging on to a fairly constant market share, relative to the most popular string reading. It could be that interest in both string apologetics and critique is fading.
In any case at noon on 24 August, Trouble ranked 9831 and the five string books currently most popular (fabric, parallel, blackhole, elegant, hyperspace) averaged 7726.2, making the ratio 0.79
Likewise on 25 August the ratio was 0.77. Trouble 13004 and string topfive average 9997.2.
The stringy top five were fabric, elegant, parallel, blackhole, idiot guide.

marcus

Aug31-09, 03:18 PM

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
...
31 August 0.53
1 September 0.79

At noon pacific on 31 August, Trouble ranked 18585 and the five most popular string books (elegant, fabric, blackhole, parallel, hyperspace) ranked 3576, 6345, 11308, 13652, 13946, averaging 9765.4 for a ratio 0.53.
At noon 1 September, Trouble 11322 and string top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, paperback elegant) 6057, 6823, 7635, 10015, 14147, averaging 8935.4 for a ratio of 0.79

I'll take a 3 day average around the first of the month, to eliminate some random fluctuation.

marcus

Sep1-09, 05:14 PM

Another index we can occasionally check is raw string publication rate, using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

Here are the number of publications for the first seven months of three consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=07&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=07&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=07&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Currently (as of 1 September) the figures are 2986, 2936, 2742.

There may be a slight downtrend but the main thing to note is that the rate is approximately steady. By contrast research publication rates in several nonstring types of quantum gravity are growing.

The average of three ratios around 1 September
31 August 0.53
1 September 0.79
2 September 0.57
came to 0.63
so the record continues as follows:

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
At the moment textbooks dominate the physics book market which pushes popular and general reading into the background. At noon 2 September Smolin's book ranked 22562 and the top five stringy books (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, blackhole) averaged 12807.8, for a ratio of 0.57.

Chaos' lil bro Order

Sep2-09, 07:24 PM

That would great Marcus, I gratiously accept your offer to post the Weinberg lecture video link. He's my favorite cosmologist, ever since I studied his equation and first 3 minute theorum, I've been a fan. Do post!

You are most welcome, Bro sir! I was glad to get some feedback.
This booksale indicator may be the least important of the lot, but I still keep track of it sporadically---and around the first of every month, so as to have record in case anything interesting happens.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
...
8 August 0.89
9 August 1.49
10 August 0.39
...
21 August 0.67

At noon pacific on 21 August, Trouble ranked 13664 and the five most popular string books (elegant, parallel, fabric, blackhole, hyperspace) averaged 9147.4 making the ratio 0.67.

Bro, if you want a link to the video of Weinberg's 7 July talk, or to the paper that goes with it, let me know.
I shouldn't give the impression of a complete shift of interest among those top people---more a moderation of interest in string and a spreading out. Some are still doing some string papers but their main effort seems marginal or unrelated. Horava has found his own approach to QG now (not stringy). Nicolai's recent research is nonstring---more about making the established QFT work better. These are kind of subtle changes. Weinberg's renewed interest in Asymptotic Safety was more pronouced and noticeable. This came out in the last 12 minutes of his talk.

marcus

Sep3-09, 02:04 PM

That would great Marcus, I gratiously accept your offer to post the Weinberg lecture video link. He's my favorite cosmologist, ever since I studied his equation and first 3 minute theorum, I've been a fan. Do post!
Steven Weinberg's 6 July talk, main CERN link:
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=57283
Weinberg video:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1188567/
To save time jump to minute 58, the last 12 minutes.

Last 12 minutes is where he starts talking about his recent research direction (asymptotic safety, making gravity renormalizable and unifiable with something akin to, or not drastically different from, what he calls "good old quantum field theory"). He expresses the opinion that string "might not be how the world is" and "might not be needed" although he doesn't want to discourage string theorists and supports their continuing to do string research if that's what they want to do. It does represent a marked change from how he was talking 4 or 5 years ago.

I recently updated the record of noon first-of-month salesrank readings:

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...

Smolin's book has now been out for 3 years. It came on the market September 2006. Most science books drop out of sight after a couple of years so it is somewhat remarkable how this one has made a place for itself, and retained market share.
I use the average salesrank of the five currently most popular string books as a benchmark for comparison.

marcus

Sep4-09, 10:42 PM

A popular SciFi mag ran a review of Smolin's book in its September 2009 issue.
http://www.analogsf.com/0909/altview_09.shtml

Timewarp. The book came out in September 2006, so why is Analog reviewing it now? Well it's a rave review--the guy really liked it.
Maybe now is as good a time as any.

There it is at the top of the list on their ToC page for the September issue.
http://www.analogsf.com/0909/issue_09.shtml

=====

EDIT: I just learned that the September 2009 issue was delivered by mid-June in Canada, and by around 1 July in parts of the US:
http://www.analogsf.com/aspnet_forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=621
This finally explains the bizarre spike in sales during July. The reviewer clearly spotlighted the book's good points and his readers went out and bought the book in substantial numbers.
I commented on the spike in this 16 July post:
Kaboom! The big sales spike is over and TwP is back in the normal range. The unexplained excursion lasted just over 2 weeks.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with string benchmark:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9

2 July 3.78
3 July 5.88
4 July 5.11
5 July 16.10
6 July 15.81
7 July 7.09
8 July 5.98
9 July 5.58
10 July 3.87
11 July 2.92
12 July 2.67
13 July 6.42
14 July 4.88
15 July 2.37
16 July 0.81

At noon pacific on 16 July TwP ranked 5350 and the stringy top five (elegant, fabric, blackhole, parallel, hyperspace) ranked 2079, 3252, 4395, 4413, 7516 for an average of 4331.0 making the ratio 0.81.

marcus

Sep12-09, 03:15 PM

The raw string publication rate (measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification) continues holding steady, or to show a slight decline.

Here are the number of publications for the first seven months of three consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=07&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=07&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=07&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 12 September the 7-month figures are 2986, 2936, 2745.

I should get some research publication rates in nonstring quantum gravity for comparison.

Today I took a noon reading of the TwP book's amazon salesrank. (The way I'm keeping track, only around the first of the month goes on the record, but we can check now and then at other times.)

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
12 September 0.8
13 September 1.2

The rush on physics textbooks has eased and popular general reading has returned pretty much to normal. At noon 12 September Smolin's book ranked 10424 and the top five stringy books (elegant, parallel, fabric, blackhole, elegant paperback) ranked 3462, 5381, 7969, 12077, 12927, averaging 8363.2 for a ratio of 0.80.

At noon 13 September TwP ranked 8739 and the string top five average rank was 10311.6, for a ratio of 1.18. The five most popular stringy books (elegant, fabric, parallel, blackhole, hyperspace) ranked 5601, 7748, 11451, 12911, 13847.

There's an index I mentioned earlier we could be keeping track of:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=k+spin%2Cfoam+or+%28dk+quantum+gravity+ and+dk+loop+space%29+and+date+%3E+2006&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
This is Loop/Spinfoam research published since 2006 (i.e. 2007-present) ranked by cites.

Here's the same thing but just for 2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Suppose we divide into two-year chunks and check for a trend:
[2003 2004]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2002+and+da te+%3C+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2005 2006]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2004+and+da te+%3C+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2007, 2008]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2006+and+da te+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

126
136
197

marcus

Sep15-09, 03:35 PM

Here's a Spires list of the Loop/Spinfoam research which appeared in 2009 ranked by cites.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

As of 15 September (nearly 3/4 of the way thru the year) the count is 67, so if you add a third of that to get an estimate for the whole year you get 100. I would guess that if publication continues at the current rate we will have 100 or more Loop papers this year. This agrees with what we saw earlier---197 papers for the two-year period [2007, 2008]

[2003 2004]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2002+and+da te+%3C+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2005 2006]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2004+and+da te+%3C+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2007, 2008]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2006+and+da te+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

126
136
197

Here's an update of noon readings of the TwP book's amazon salesrank. (The way I'm keeping track, only around the first of the month goes on the record, but we can check now and then at other times.)

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
12 September 0.8
13 September 1.2
14 September 0.5
15 September 0.8
...

At noon 15 September Smolin's book ranked 11075 and the top five stringy books (parallel, fabric, hyperspace, elegant, elegant paperback) ranked 4323, 6625, 7865, 7900, averaging 8369.4 for a ratio of 0.76.

marcus

Sep19-09, 03:19 PM

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

To correct something I said earlier, as of 19 September (nearly 3/4 of the way thru the year) the count is 67, so if you add a third of that to get an estimate for the whole year you get about 90. I would guess that if publication continues at the current rate we will have 90 papers listed for this year. This is down some 10% from what we saw earlier---197 papers for the two-year period [2007, 2008] an average of nearly 100 per year. But we'll have to see, there may be a bunch posted in the final quarter of 2009 that bring the rate for the year back up.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
12 September 0.8
13 September 1.2
14 September 0.5
15 September 0.8
...
17 September 0.8
18 September 0.8
19 September 0.6
20 September 0.3
...

At noon 19 September Smolin's book ranked 12792 and the top five stringy books (elegant, hyperspace, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 3491, 3976, 4536, 12511, 12687, averaging 7440.2 for a ratio of 0.58.

We have been watching the raw string publication rate (measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification). These links are for the publications appearing in the first eight months of three consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=08&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=08&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=08&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 19 September (really too early to say much) the 8-month figures were 3307, 3303, 2991.
The 7-month figures (by now fairly stable) were 2989, 2942, 2745.

marcus

Sep24-09, 03:15 PM

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Loop/foam publications are currently 70 for the year, not too great. We still have 3 months to go, so it might get up into the 90s. In 2007 and 2008 loop/foam papers averaged close to 100 per year, may be down from that in 2009.

Of course there has been an increase in other kinds of 4D QG, especially Horava but also some other types. So if one could construct a collective measure for all kinds of 4D quantum gravity, it would be showing considerable growth right now.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark fluctuates quite a bit but stays more or less the same.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
...
17 September 0.8
18 September 0.8
19 September 0.6
20 September 0.3
...
23 September 0.7
24 September 0.5

As an illustration, at noon 19 September Smolin's book ranked 12792 and the top five stringy books (elegant, hyperspace, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 3491, 3976, 4536, 12511, 12687, averaging 7440.2 for a ratio of 0.58.

Update on the string publication rate (measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification). These links are for the publications appearing in the first eight months of three consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=08&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=08&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=08&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 24 September the 8-month figures were 3318, 3306, 3080.

marcus

Sep29-09, 03:06 PM

Time to start averaging for the smoothed 1 October index.

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
...
29 September 0.48
30 September 0.36
1 October ?
2 October ?
3 October ?

As an illustration, at noon (pacific time) on 29 September, Smolin's book ranked 14632 and the top five stringy books (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, black hole) ranked 4320, 5472, 5531, 5769, 13871, averaging 6992.6 for a ratio of 0.48.

Surprising physics-sociology poll response:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2321&cpage=1#comment-50462
A poll was conducted of active physics researchers, to which over 1000 individuals responded. A reply rate of around 14%.

Of the respondents, 23% said good press helps funding!

==quote==

“In your experience, how important is it in obtaining funding that your project or research area is well covered in the media?”

Very important/somewhat important: 23.5%

Results of a survey conducted by UCSB survey center in April 2009 among active researchers in physics in North America. The final number of respondents amounted to 1816, which corresponds to response rate of 14.42%.
==endquote==

The blessèd and very nearly canonized Bee Hossenfelder, whose with-it-ness is beyond compare, reports this!

marcus

Oct2-09, 03:15 PM

Ready to do the average for 1 October. (Five noon readings taken around the date, to smooth out some of the random fluctuation.)

Trouble with Physics salesrank compared with the string benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
...
...
29 September 0.48
30 September 0.36
1 October 0.19
2 October 0.60
3 October 0.43

As an illustration, at noon (pacific time) on 29 September, Smolin's book ranked 14632 and the top five stringy books (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, black hole) ranked 4320, 5472, 5531, 5769, 13871, averaging 6992.6 for a ratio of 0.48.

Likewise at noon on 3 October, TwP ranked 12851 and the top five stringies (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 1956, 2528, 3642, 5980, 13313, for an average of 5483.8 making the ratio 0.43.

Taking the mean for the five days around the first of the month gives 0.41. So our updated record is

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4

=============
We have been tracking the string publication rate measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. As of 2 October the 8-month figures (successive years, through the end of August) were 3318, 3306, 3081.

It is not yet time to check the 9-month figures since the 2009 entries for September won't have been completed, but I will set up the links.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=09&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=09&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=09&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

These are for the first 9 months of each year, using keywords superstring, brane, M-theory, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic.

marcus

Oct21-09, 03:53 PM

String publication rate for the first 9 months, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. As of 21 October the 9-month figures (successive years, through the end of September) for 2007, 2008, 2009 were 3656, 3651, 3495.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=09&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=09&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=09&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As a spot check to see how Smolin's book is doing, at noon (pacific time) on 21 October it ranked 11327 and the top five stringy books (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 3820, 4153, 4413, 11620, 14185, averaging 7638.2 for a ratio of 0.67.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
...
...
21 October 0.7

Averaging the figures for the first of each month gives 0.72. Roughly speaking that means that judging by salesranks Trouble with Physics is doing about 70% as good as the average popular string top-fiver. That topfive string salesrank is what I've been using as a benchmark for comparison for several years.
==============

Here is loop/foam publication rate in two-year chunks.

[2003 2004]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2002+and+da te+%3C+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2005 2006]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2004+and+da te+%3C+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

[2007, 2008]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2006+and+da te+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

127, 136, 196

And here's publication for this year so far:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRA VITY+AND+DK+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

as of 21 October, 77

marcus

Oct25-09, 03:31 PM

As noon spot checks to see how Smolin's book is doing,
on 21 October it ranked 11327 and the top five stringy books averaged 7638.2 for a ratio of 0.67.
On 24 October, it ranked 7501 compared with stringy benchmark 4978.4 for a ratio of 0.66.
On 25 October, it ranked 8927 compared with benchmark 8116.2 for a ratio of 0.91.
On 26 October, it ranked 13321 compared with 6271.6 for a ratio of 0.47.

The stringy top five on those four days happened to be
fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, black hole, and then
elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, idiot guide--- then
parallel, fabric, elegant, hyperspace, paperback elegant---and
parallel, hyperspace, fabric, elegant, paperback elegant.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
...
...
21 October 0.7
...
24 October 0.7
25 October 0.9
26 October 0.5
...

Averaging the figures for the first of each month gives 0.72. Roughly speaking that means that judging by salesranks Trouble with Physics is doing about 70% as good as the average string top-fiver. That topfive string salesrank average is what I've been using as a benchmark for comparison for several years.
==============

As of 26 October, string publication rate for the first 9 months, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification, through the end of September for 2007, 2008, 2009
were 3657, 3651, 3501.
Late listings can still raise the last figure, but so far it has not come up as much as I expected.

marcus

Oct27-09, 12:56 PM

The risks associated with letting an academic discipline go "off the rails" and the damage to the discipline itself were highlighted in a post quoted on Brad DeLong's blog. It's so telling that I thought i would copy a portion of it here:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/the-state-of-economics-in-the-2000s-analogized.html
The poster quoted by DeLong (an economist at UC Berkeley) draws analogy between postmodern ("pomo") literary studies and Market-worship econ, referred to here as "freshwater" economics----the Chicago school.

==quote==
I've been watching the freshwater/saltwater economics wars with a kind of horrified fascination -- something like the way I feel on those rare occasions when I watch train wreck TV (Hoarders and the like.) One of the things I keep wondering is: how on earth did this happen? How did large chunk of the economics profession come so completely unmoored that Larry Summers could say "There are idiots", and have that be a useful response to anything? How did it come about that Richard Posner could write this:

The dominant conception of economics today, and one that has guided my own academic work in the economics of law, is that economics is the study of rational choice. People are assumed to make rational decisions across the entire range of human choice, including but not limited to market transactions, by employing a form (usually truncated and informal) of cost-benefit analysis. The older view was that economics is the study of the economy, employing whatever assumptions seem realistic and whatever analytical methods come to hand.

as though economics could just stop being "the study of the economy" using whatever methods seem useful and appropriate?

Plainly there has to be an intellectual explanation for this, which people like Paul Krugman have addressed. But I think there also has to be an explanation in terms of the sociology of academic disciplines. And in that light, it seems to me that if I were a journalist, I'd consider writing a piece comparing freshwater economics to the other major recent case in which an academic discipline went completely off the rails, namely English departments' swing into postmodernism in the '80s and early '90s. Offhand, there seem to be some real similarities, e.g.:

In both cases, the people involved maintained, credibly, that you couldn't really assess the work in question without putting a lot of effort into understanding it.

In both cases, that required mastering difficult stuff. (In econ, all the math and models; in pomo lit stuff, mastering the literally incomprehensible language in which a lot of that stuff was written.)

In both cases, that deterred a lot of people on the outside who were generally puzzled and skeptical, but didn't want to spend years getting into a position in which they could credibly say: yes, this is, in fact, nuts.

So in both cases practitioners were largely insulated from criticism they had to take seriously.

Relatedly, in both cases it took shocks from the outside to expose the problems in this (in the case of English, things like the Sokal hoax; in the case of econ, the near-collapse of the global economy.)

Both cases involved a lot of arrogance, and a generally dismissive attitude towards other approaches. Since, in both cases, practitioners were able to seize significant amounts of control over a discipline before their approach crashed and burned, this did real damage to the disciplines in question (leading to, e.g., large chunks of previous disciplinary history being forgotten.)
...
==endquote==

marcus

Oct31-09, 02:55 AM

I'm trying a better search which explicitly includes loop cosmology. Earlier searches missed loop cosmology papers which didn't happen to be tagged LQG.
Here is loop/foam publication rate in two-year chunks.

[2003 2004]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND +%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29A ND+DATE+%3E+2002+AND+DATE+%3C+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

[2005 2006]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND +%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29A ND+DATE+%3E+2004+AND+DATE+%3C+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

[2007, 2008]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND +%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29A ND+DATE+%3E+2006+AND+DATE+%3C+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
144, 165, 242

And here's publication for this year so far:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND +%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29A ND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
93

Smolin book's performance compared with string top five benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
...
...
31 October 0.59
1 November ?
2 November ?
...
...
To eliminate some random fluctuation I will average three noon readings around 1 November to determine the first-of-month figure.

At noon pacific on 31 October Trouble ranked 10125 and the five most popular string books (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, paperback elegant) ranked 3617, 3704, 6568, 6899, 9089 for an average of 5975.4 making the ratio 0.59.

marcus

Nov1-09, 03:44 PM

Smolin book's performance compared with string top five benchmark

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
...
...
31 October 0.59
1 November 0.30
2 November 0.68
...
...
To eliminate some random fluctuation I will average three noon readings around 1 November to determine the first-of-month figure.

At noon pacific on 31 October Trouble ranked 10125 and the five most popular string books (fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, paperback elegant) ranked 3617, 3704, 6568, 6899, 9089 for an average of 5975.4 making the ratio 0.5902.
At noon 1 November it ranked 14296 and the stringy top five averaged 4302.4 making the ratio 0.3010.
At noon 2 November Trouble ranked 13091 and the stringy top five (fabric, elegant, hyperspace, parallel, paperback elegant) ranked 4607, 4942, 7920, 8098, 18892 for an average of 8891.8 making the ratio 0.6792. Averaging the three ratios around 1 November gives the smoothed figure of 0.523.

Smolin book's performance, updated:

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5

======================

Another popular book related to 4D quantum gravity/cosmology has come on the market---this time in Germany.
In the USA, Knopf has purchased the rights to publish an English version but the translation has not appeared.
What is remarkable is how well the book has been doing. It came out in January 2009, and yesterday (when I came across it for the first time) it was Amazon's #1 in cosmology and #2 in theoretical physics.
The book is Zurück vor den Urknall, by Martin Bojowald, published by Fischer.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
I just checked today and saw it was #4 in theoretical physics and #5 in cosmology.

Knall means bang, and Ur means original or primordial---Urknall is German for big bang. The title means "back before the big bang." Bojowald essentially initiated the field of Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) with his 2001 paper where he applied LQG ideas to the usual cosmology model---which assumes isotropy and homogeneity---and found that the classical singularity did not occur, but was replaced by a bounce.

marcus

Nov6-09, 07:21 PM

Another popular book related to 4D quantum gravity/cosmology has come on the market---this time in Germany.
In the USA, Knopf has purchased the rights to publish an English version but the translation has not appeared.
What is remarkable is how well the book has been doing. It came out in [correction: April] 2009, and yesterday (when I came across it for the first time) it was Amazon's #1 in cosmology and #2 in theoretical physics.
The book is Zurück vor den Urknall, by Martin Bojowald, published by Fischer.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
I just checked today and saw it was #4 in theoretical physics and #5 in cosmology.

Knall means bang, and Ur means original or primordial---Urknall is German for big bang. The title means "back before the big bang." Bojowald essentially initiated the field of Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) with his 2001 paper where he applied LQG ideas to the usual cosmology model---which assumes isotropy and homogeneity---and found that the classical singularity did not occur, but was replaced by a bounce.

On 6 November, when I happened to look, Bojowald's book ranked 7117 and we can use Green's two books Das elegante Universum, and Der Stoff aus dem der Kosmos ist as a benchmark for comparison.

Zurück 7117
Elegante 5509
Stoff 11613
Benchmark average 8561.0
Ratio 1.2

That is, on a basis of salesranks, Bojowald's book was doing slightly better than par. It was better than the arbitrary benchmark by a factor of 1.2.

I'll be interested to see how this book does, in part because it is the first book of its kind. It is the first popular book that focuses on the Loop Quantum Gravity approach to modeling the universe. This approach first appeared in 2001 in a paper by Martin Bojowald (who founded Loop Quantum Cosmology as a research field when he was a 28 year old postdoc at Penn State.)

Other books have touched on Loop and on that theory's application to cosmology---to the extent of a chapter, or a part of a chapter. But no book that I know of has presented the theory as its main focus---and made that a window on quantum cosmology.

In some sense the benchmark I've chosen represents the "size of the problem" which a book like Bojowald's confronts. The public has been sold the idea that string promises a unified fundamental theory of nature. The perennially high salesrank of the two Greene books (now 5-10 years old) is an objective measure of the extent of that persistent illusion. So the benchmark is a simple way to compute and represent the "target". That's one reason I'm interested in seeing how Back before the Big Bang does in relation to it. Another is that it affords a convenient and fairly reliable benchmark just to give meaning to the numbers.

marcus

Nov8-09, 03:58 PM

At noon pacific on 8 November, Bojowald's book (Zurück vor den Urknall) was doing about 90% as good as the stringy benchmark.
Zurück ranked 5198
while Elegante and Stoff ranked 7023 and 2463 for an average of 4743.0, making the ratio 0.9.

I think it is darned respectable. He's basically just a hardhead young physicist, and this is his first book. He's not a salesman word-artist in the same league as Greene. He simply created the current going field of quantum cosmology and is writing about it. I don't expect him to be able to write literary pop-sci, or to compete with Brian Greene. But he's doing OK.
The book is holding up. It stays at around #1 to #5 in the Amazon bestseller categories of Cosmology and of Theoretical Physics, which is where the Greene books have tended to be around #1 or #2 a lot of the time.

Smolin's book is not specifically focused on Loop (which Martin's book is). Smolin's is about the whole range of QG approaches, string and various non-string initiatives, and why it would be smarter to use a mixed strategy (in science research policy) rather than all the eggs in one dubious and over-sold basket.
So the books are quite different. Bojowald is a positive focused science book. Smolin is more a critique and policy overview book.

And Smolin's book is also hanging in there. We are into its third year on the market (first edition September 2006). As of noon pacific 8 November, Trouble ranked 5989 and the string top five (parallel, fabric, hyperspace, elegant, paperback elegant) ranked 3362, 4510, 7501, 8292, 11759, for an average of 7084.8 making the ratio 1.2.
So the Smolin book was actually doing better than the string benchmark, today.

========================

Today, 9 November, I decided to check Bojowald's standing at 6PM Berlin time, that is 9 AM in the morning here (Pacific time is the local time where I live.)
I found that there was another popular string book in the picture---Lisa Randall's Verborgene ("Warped")

The ranks on Deutsch Amazon were:
Zurück 5522

Stoff 3068
Verborgene 7958
Elegante 15739

I now think that in the German market I should take as benchmark the top two stringy books, whatever they happen to be. In the past, except for today, whenever I looked the top two stringies were always the Greene books, Stoff and Elegante---so it amounted to the same thing.
All one needs is some consistent benchmark for comparison that is always defined the same way---then one can see trends, if there are any.

So doing it that way we have the stringy top two benchmark (3068+7958)/2 = 5513.0
and the ratio 5513/5522 = 1.0.
Bojowald performance is right on par with the string benchmark we are using.
We'll see where this goes---I have no guess about it.

marcus

Nov10-09, 04:12 PM

I'm experimenting with keeping track of the salesrank of Zurück vor den Urknall (ZvU) compared with a string benchmark. Based on the Amazon.de rank at 6PM Berlin time. The benchmark I'm currently trying out is the average rank of the 3 most popular string books

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5

Today at 6 PM central europe time, the "back before primal bang" book's performance was only about 50% as good as the benchmark I have chosen for comparison---the average rank of the three stringy books which are currently most popular.
To illustrate, Zurück ranked 20726, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 5616, 8759, 16385 for an average 10253.3 and ratio 0.49.
===============

The Smolin book is surprisingly durable in the USA market. But the index jumps around a lot.
At noon pacific (the usual time to check) on 10 November it ranked 8065 and the top five stringies (fabric, parallel, elegant, hyperspace, paperback elegant) averaged 7559.4 for a ratio of 0.94.
On the other hand at noon on 11 November the ratio was 0.30! Trouble ranked 16820 and the five currently most popular string books (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, paper elegant) 2356, 3811, 5192, 5946, 7521, averaging 4965.2 for a ratio of 0.30. Partly because of this variability, the first-of-month figures recorded here are smoothed---averaged over a window of several days around the date in question. Here is how the book has done so far this year:

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
================
Publications from Spires (keywords spin foam OR group field theory OR loop [quantum gravity or quantum cosmology])
2005:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+field+theory%2 C+group+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY +OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29AND+DATE+%3D+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2006:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+field+theory%2 C+group+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY +OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29AND+DATE+%3D+2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2007:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+field+theory%2 C+group+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY +OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29AND+DATE+%3D+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+field+theory%2 C+group+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY +OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+field+theory%2 C+group+OR+DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY +OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Nov11-09, 05:02 PM

Correction to above post (too late to edit)
2005:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2006:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2007:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

As of 11 November 2009 the numbers of publications in successive years were 40, 82, 121, 129, 108.
To get the list ordered by citation count, use the above links and select citecount sequence from the menu.
The DESY keywords used here are "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

Continuing to keep track of the Bojowald book---the first popular book I know of that is specifically focused on the Loop approach to gravity. Here's the salesrank of Zurück vor den Urknall (ZvU) compared with a string benchmark. Based on the Amazon.de rank at 6PM Berlin time. The benchmark I'm currently trying out is the average rank of the 3 most popular string books

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7

To illustrate, at 6PM central European time on 11 November, Zurück ranked 20726, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 5616, 8759, 16385 for an average 10253.3 and ratio 0.49.

marcus

Nov14-09, 12:18 PM

In terms of "Academic Sociology" we can see non-string QG, especially Loop, getting more established as new centers grow up. Today I got news of a new center at Erlangen. An email from Thomas Thiemann was circulated. Here's an excerpt:

"The successful candidate will be part of the new international centre for quantum gravity at the FAU which is currently in its building up phase. In the close future the centre will host one W3 professor position (chair),
three W2 (associate, tenured) professor positions
and at least three postdoc positions
plus guests, fellows, PhD and diploma students."

[so that means 4 tenured professors, and at least 3 postdocs, one hopes more]

"Altogether, there is space for up to 30 scientists. Current staff includes professors Michael Thies and Thomas Thiemann (chair), Emeriti Frieder Lenz (former chair) and Hartmut Hofmann, postdocs Emanuele Alesci, Enrique Ferandez Borja,
Jonathan Engle and Inaki Garay, as well as Phd and Diploma students."

Thiemann's name should be familiar. Prominent in the Loop research community for some 15 years. Most of that time divided between Perimeter Institute (at Waterloo) and the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI at Potsdam-Golm).

Engle was Ashtekar's PhD student, then postdoc with Rovelli at Marseille, then at the AEI with Thiemann. Alesci is a Rovelli PhD who postdoc'd at Marseille and AEI.

Until recently the AEI was the only center for Loop QG research in Germany. Today's news from Thiemann falls in line with a trend towards proliferation of centers. In France this process occurred earlier. The first center was set up at Marseille, when Rovelli moved there. Now there are researchers at Lyon and Tours, with related work also being done at Montpellier and Saclay.
One can see a similar process occurring in Poland, among other places. Also a proliferation of centers involved in QG research which is not Loop, but somewhat related like CDT (Triangulations QG)

======================

We now have what seems like a pretty good Loop publication index. It uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".
As of 14 November the numbers of publications in successive years were:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 112 (incomplete)

2005:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2006:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2007:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Europe tends to be ahead of the USA in Quantum Gravity so it is not surprising that the first popular book specifically focused on the Loop approach should appear in Europe. Martin Bojowald's Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang", I abbreviate it ZvU). I've been checking its amazon.de rank at 6PM Berlin time. For a comparison I'm using a string benchmark---the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7
...
14 November 0.9

To illustrate, at 6PM central European time on 14 November, Zurück ranked 8253, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 6349, 6867, 8250 for an average 7155.3 and ratio 0.87.

marcus

Nov16-09, 12:22 PM

It looks like our Loop publication index might be a bit down this year from last. But still roughly the same level as 2007 and 2008, keeping the gains made since 2005. The index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".
As of 17 November the numbers of publications in successive years were:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 115

Of course not all the 2009 papers are in, since we still have the remainder of the year to go. In case anyone would like to check out this year's papers, here is the link:

2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

==========
Martin Bojowald's book is still doing pretty well. I check sporadically---take its amazon.de rank at 6PM Berlin time and compare with a string benchmark,the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books.

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang").

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7
...
14 November 0.9
...
16 November 0.3
17 November 1.4

To illustrate, at 6PM central European time on 14 November, Zurück ranked 8253, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 6349, 6867, 8250 for an average 7155.3 and ratio 0.87.

Again, at 6PM central European time on 17 November, Bojowald's book ranked 8808 and the three most popular string books (Stoff, Elegante, Verborgene) ranked 8647, 13307, 14385 for an average of 12133, making the ratio 1.38.
=============

Yesterday I glanced at the noon standing of Smolin's book. It was at 40% of the string benchmark.
First of month figures this year have been:

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
...
...
16 November 0.4

The figure yesterday, 16 November, was not especially good, but not terrible either. The five most popular stringies at noon today were parallel, elegant, hyperspace, fabric, black hole. Average salesrank 6510.0. Trouble with Physics ranked 15,958.

marcus

Nov20-09, 06:01 PM

Updates on a few indices:
Loop publication index is roughly the same level as 2007 and 2008, keeping the gains made since 2005. The index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 119 (as of 21 November)

In case anyone would like to check out this year's papers, here is the link:
2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
The index has not yet registered several papers that came out around the 19th, primarily by Thomas Thiemann's group.
Nor has it registered the Krasnov-Gomez paper that appeared earlier. There can be lag and uncertainty in the classification but on the whole it is excellent and a great help.
==========

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang")
at 6PM Berlin time, compared with the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7
...
14 November 0.9
...
16 November 0.3
17 November 1.4
...
19 November 0.5
20 November 0.4

To illustrate, at 6PM central European time on 17 November, Bojowald's book ranked 8808 and the three most popular string books (Stoff, Elegante, Verborgene) ranked 8647, 13307, 14385 for an average of 12133, making the ratio 1.38.

Again, at 6PM central European time on 19 November, Zurück ranked 13523, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 3616, 7117, 10605 for an average 7112.7 and a ratio of 0.53. In other words Bojowald's book was doing only about half as well as the stringy benchmark (since his rank was about twice the stringy average.)
=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
...
16 November 0.4
...
19 November 0.3
20 November 0.4
21 November 0.5

To illustrate, at noon California time on 20 November, Trouble ranked 23668 and the five most popular stringies (parallel, hyperspace, elegant, fabric, black hole) ranked 5325, 6085, 6275, 6782 for an average of 9717.2 and a ratio of 0.40.
At noon on 21 November, Trouble ranked 12309 and the stringy top five averaged 5698.8, making the ratio 0.46.

marcus

Nov22-09, 03:22 PM

Our Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 121 (as of 22 November)

Here is the link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
The index has not yet registered a few of the papers that came out around the 19th from Thomas Thiemann's group.
==========

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang")
at 6PM Berlin time, compared with the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7
...
14 November 0.9
...
16 November 0.3
17 November 1.4
...
19 November 0.5
20 November 0.4
...
22 November 0.4

To illustrate how the index works, at 6PM central European time on 19 November, Zurück ranked 13523, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 3616, 7117, 10605 for an average 7112.7 and a ratio of 0.53. In other words Bojowald's book was doing about half as well as the stringy benchmark (since its rank was about twice the stringy average.)
=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
...
16 November 0.4
...
19 November 0.3
20 November 0.4
21 November 0.5
22 November 0.6

E.g. at noon California time on 22 November, Trouble ranked 10450 and the five most popular stringies ( elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 3289, 3609, 4731, 7749, 10243 for an average of 5924.2 and a ratio of 0.57.

marcus

Nov26-09, 04:21 PM

Loop publication index using the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 124 (as of 26 November)

Here is the link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=
The index has not yet registered a few Loop papers (e.g. from Thiemann's group) that came out this month. No matter, just an approximate index and we should allow for some imperfection. DESY basically has great librarians :biggrin:.
==========

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang")
at 6PM Berlin time, compared with the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books
This is the first popular wide audience book focused on regular 4D quantum gravity and quantum cosmology (QC). It is cosmology from a non-stringy direction--based on LQC. Will be interesting to see how it does. Came out April 2009.

9 November 1.6
...
11 November 0.5
12 November 0.7
...
14 November 0.9
...
16 November 0.3
17 November 1.4
...
19 November 0.5
20 November 0.4
...
22 November 0.4
...
26 November 1.0 (5 PM Berlin time, since was unable to check at 6PM)

=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

19 November 0.3
20 November 0.4
21 November 0.5
22 November 0.6
...
26 November 0.6 (busy day, had to check at 1PM local instead of noon)

Fra

Nov27-09, 01:41 AM

But the index jumps around a lot. At noon pacific (the usual time to check) on 10 November it ranked 8065 and the top five stringies (fabric, parallel, elegant, hyperspace, paperback elegant) averaged 7559.4 for a ratio of 0.94.

I never ever read any of those books before, but all your posts made me curious, so I actually bought two of Greenes books in order to skim them (I skipped some chapters that seemed too blend). (Elegant and fabric). I'm in the end of fabric atm, and although I had no high expectations, for me the book was worse than I thought. I perceive it as making very speculative suggestions without providing any deep motivation, not even at philosophical or conceptual level. It's main motivator seems to be excitement about mathematical games, which in my world doesn't quite connect to reality in any deeper sense.

Even as a non-string fan, I see some hope in string theory, that could probably be conveyed in a popular form, but nothing of what I had "hoped for" was in thta book.

Anyway, now I at least konw what the "standard" is for Marcus ratings :)

/Fredrik

marcus

Nov27-09, 07:32 PM

...
Anyway, now I at least know what the "standard" is for Marcus ratings :)

/Fredrik

YUK!!! :yuck:

:rofl:

I think the Greene books give teenagers the wrong idea of theoretical physics. The fact that they continue to sell represents the size of the problem. That is why I use the popular string books as a benchmark for comparison.
What I'm wondering about, since I haven't seen the original German edition of Züruck, is the book's popularization style.
From what I've seen of the introduction, it doesn't raise false expectations and it is open and forthright about the limitations of present knowledge. (The title was presumably the publisher's choice--the common practice.) Does Martin Bojowald have some of the Carl Sagan talent---the common touch, the occasional memorable phrase---that makes for a longterm hit, or is his style on the heavy side, say a bit pedantic? That would be all right, I suppose, an honest informative book about an interesting subject doesn't have to have literary flair. But it would sure be nice if it did.

If you ever see Bojowald's book where you can browse it, Fra, I would really like to know your impressions. I assume you have a reading knowledge of German, at least enough to skim a chapter or two and get a sense of how it reads. I'd like to know either way, whether your impression is favorable or unfavorable.

Fra

Nov28-09, 03:52 AM

I think the Greene books give teenagers the wrong idea of theoretical physics.

Yes, I agree. The impression is that the unquestionable future of theoretical physics IS string theory. Expressions like "researchers today think that..." like if it was established consensus in general.

I actually thought the book was going to be better, so it was an interesting read in that sense.

Of course I am quite familiar with this type of reasoning long before I read this book, since an old supervisor of mine was exactly like Greene, telling me to face that if I want a future in theoretical physics as a profession, string theory is my only choice or I should consider an alternative carrier... and so on. But those spells didn't work on me.

I think the Greene books give teenagers the wrong idea of theoretical physics.

For teens, I honestly think the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy beats the crap out of Greens book any day.

What I'm wondering about, since I haven't seen the original German edition of Züruck, is the book's popularization style.
...
If you ever see Bojowald's book where you can browse it, Fra, I would really like to know your impressions. I assume you have a reading knowledge of German

My german is very poor unfortunately even though I've been in german several times, they make the worlds best beer next to belgium :) Sure I know a few phrases, but I studied french in school as third language (due to my own ignorance at the time).

I am actually considering some book for xmas reading, since smolin hasn't finished his yet. I checked amazon and the swedish site I by from but found only the german version?

Do you have the full correct title of the translation? do you have a link? I cna't locate it.

/Fredrik

marcus

Nov28-09, 12:22 PM

Fra, there is so far no English translation on the market!
I saw a notice that the US publisher Alfred Knopf has purchased rights to sell the translation.

But I didn't yet see any news about them getting a translation made, or about going to market with it.

My rough guess is that an English version of Bojowald's book is about 2 years away. One year to make the translation (if they are already working on it) and then one year for editing/revision and production.

Apologies. I didn't mean to give the impression that there was an English version. My only handle on the book is the amazon.de page.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
On this page, incidentally, there is a link to a sample from the introductory chapter. The link is in the "Product information" section about halfway down the page:
"...
Produktinformation
Leseprobe: Jetzt reinlesen [106kb PDF]
..."
The sample, as I recall, is a half-dozen pages more or less.

=======
EDIT
Just so I dont forget, on 29 November 6PM central Europe time, Bojowald book's ratio was 0.78 against the top three stringies.
(Stoff, Verborgene, Elegant ranked 3089, 8101, 9506 for average of 6898.7, Züruck ranked 8836)

Fra

Nov29-09, 11:30 AM

Ah thanks Marcus for the clarification. I must have misunderstood you, I thought you had read the english book but not the german one.

Apologies. I didn't mean to give the impression that there was an English version. My only handle on the book is the amazon.de page.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
On this page, incidentally, there is a link to a sample from the introductory chapter. The link is in the "Product information" section about halfway down the page:
"...
Produktinformation
Leseprobe: Jetzt reinlesen [106kb PDF]
..."
The sample, as I recall, is a half-dozen pages more or less.

Thanks to my dictionary skills beeing better than man language skills, I could skim that sample :) However I wouldn't be able to read an entire book in german without large efforts. Also alot of the subtle messages easily gets lost in translations.

I haven't read more than some random paper of Martin Bojowald but my impression is that he has a the constrained focus of quantum cosmology, whith cosmology referring to "convential cosmology", as opposed to a more abstract "cosmology" which one can imagine where an inside observers is crusiing a hypothesis space that is perhaps expanding and changing shape.

This form of quantum cosmology (wether LQC or something else) is not the area where I feel I have the best grip on things, so I can't even judge what a good conceptualization or popularisation of that would be like. Since my choice of conceptualization does start from this more abstract information theoretic angle.

My impression is that this "conventional quantum cosmology" somehow starts with some IMHO highly questionable assumptions of hilbert spaces and wave functions of the universe.

So my take on quantum cosmology would not be to try to actually do a regular quantum theory of some version of classical GR, my preferences would be to analyse the foundations of QM, and then argue that if you take the inside view seriously (which current theory do not), then an evolving perspective is the natural solution. And this indirectly leads also to a "kind of" cosmological models since it suggest that there is a large scale evolution (where "large" is referenced from an inside observer). ie. the conventional cosmology, and GR in particular, would be a result in this program - not an input. The form of GR, is very suggestive and it's too suggestive for me to not make me think it's a special case of a yet deeper formalism.

This is why, as far as I understand it, Bojowald is taking on a task of elaboration one possibility, and it seems from that exctrated paper that he is honest and raises a warning that most areas of this research is speculative, and that there are deeper aspects of this that are still very open. So in that sense it seems to be honest.

But the very fact that as I suspect, except these sound precautions, the bulk of the book would probably elaborate the implications of one idea. This might from start reject those readers that question his initial foundations. I fully accept the LQC possibility, but I find it so objectionable that the amount of elaborative energy I'm willing to put into that, in competition to other ideas is limited.

In this sense, I think Smolin for comparasion has managed to write a book with wider applicability - too wide maybe, but this is why I am look forward to this next book.

/Fredrik

marcus

Nov29-09, 01:00 PM

I also look forward to seeing Smolin's next book. I think a preferred time for popular physics books to come out is early September. That way you get the college and university students, because they will be buying their textbooks for the Fall semester---and also then the reviews come out in September-November and prepare for the Christmas season buying. My guess is that if we see the Smolin Unger at all within the next 12 months, it will not be until September 2010.

Thanks for taking the trouble to sample the German edition of Züruck vor den Urknall! Eventually I hope to get an idea of the quality of style. Would a translation work in the US market? This is not a question you would want to (or be able to) help me answer.

I have a stereotype of the German market that they are willing to buy and read books that are more serious and academic sounding than what would sell in the US market. So it is possible that this book will do quite well in the German market, but not so well in the US.
This is my stereotype whether right or wrong---I think in the US market a popular science book needs to be in large part entertainment. It has to exploit the devices of personality and anecdote. And it needs to dovetail with the talk-show television format (a device that essentially sells the author's personality as a conversationalist).

=====================

EDIT
Again just so I don't forget at 18 hours Berlin time Bojowald's book was doing 0.67 as good as the stringy benchmark. It ranked 9080 and the top three stringies (Stoff, Verborgene, Elegante) ranked 4526, 5859, 7800 for an average of 6061.7 making the ratio 0.67.

Fra

Nov29-09, 04:54 PM

Hmm... it would be quite interesting to see a distribution profile of what kind of reasons people have for reading these kinds of books.

There is similarly probably a variety of reason for why the authors writes these kinds of "non-text books" if such an expression makes sense (pop-sci, philosophy of science, biographies of important scientists etc).

Your entertainment idea never struck me before, but maybe that's a significant account of buyers? As far as entertainment goes I figure the line between sci-fi and pop-sci is fuzzy, since what's fact and whats fiction is quite irrelevant from the perspecive of entertainment value.

The other domain which I'm more interested in is the philosophy of science, partly history of science, and the logic of reasoning and how a specific choice of reasoning naturally leads to certain frameworks. It is in fact quite interesting that the logic of reasoning is sometimes more exposed when someone tries to convey something in non-mathematical terms, since the final mathematical construct often disguises it's origin. This is the kind of things that makes me read these books.

In text-books the aim is usually not in general to explain and motivate the theory in a context of reasoing. The aim is the as right to the point as possible, describe or teach the reader about what the theory is, says and howto apply it. Sometimes textbooks contains motivational introdoctory chapters, but it's author dependent and sometimes the real reasons aren't exposed.

Often a textbook is like a manual or technica description. A manual tells what the device does and howto operate it, it does not tell you how it's built, or why it was built this or that way - this strips some information out of it, that may be important when building onto it.

This is why I like Smolin's books. He presents questions that forces the reader to re-analyzer previous positions in a healthy way.

/Fredrik

marcus

Nov30-09, 04:04 PM

I'll update the indices we watch, in the case of book sales averaging around the first of each month to eliminate some of the random fluctuation.
Our Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 125 (as of 30 November)

Here is the link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

==========

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang")
at 6PM Berlin time, compared with the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books

29 November 0.78
30 November 0.67
1 December 0.74
2 December ?
3 December ?

To illustrate how the index works, at 6PM central European time on 30 November, Zurück ranked 9080, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, and Elegante) ranked 4526, 5859, 7800 for an average 6061.7 and a ratio of 0.67. In other words Bojowald's book was doing about two thirds as well as the stringy benchmark.
=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
...
30 November 0.56
1 December 0.54
2 December ?

To illustrate, at noon California time on 30 November, Trouble ranked 13570 and the five most popular stringies (hyperspace, elegant, fabric, parallel, black hole) ranked 4054, 4759, 4914, 5811, 18300, for an average of 7567.6 and a ratio of 0.56.

String publication rate for the first 10 months, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. As of 30 November the 10-month figures (successive years, through the end of October) for 2007, 2008, 2009 were 4143, 4071, 4038.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=10&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=10&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=10&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

marcus

Dec2-09, 07:55 PM

Some indices we watch:
Our Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 126 (as of 2 December)

Here is the link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

==========

Salesrank performance of Zurück vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang")
at 6PM Berlin time, compared with the average rank of the 3 currently most popular string books

29 November 0.78
30 November 0.67
1 December 0.74
2 December 0.51
3 December 1.85

The average of these comes out to 0.91

At 6PM central European time on 2 December, Zurück ranked 14811, and the three most popular stringies (which were Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 3174, 7511, 11900 for an average 7528.3 and a ratio of 0.51. Bojowald's book was doing about half as well as the benchmark stringy average.
At 6PM central European time on 3 December, Zurück ranked 4379, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 4033, 7557, 12792 for an average 8120.7 and a ratio of 1.85. In other words Bojowald's book was doing nearly twice as well as the stringy benchmark.

I'll keep the average of these readings around the first as a concise record and start a new chart:

Zurück vor den Urknall, Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark.

1 December 0.9

The book came on the market in April 2009, we'll see how it goes over the next few months.

=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon salesrank performance compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
...
30 November 0.56
1 December 0.54
2 December 0.55
...
(averaged and rounded value 1 December 0.5)

To illustrate, at noon California time on 2 December, Trouble ranked 11209 and the five most popular stringies ( parallel, fabric, elegant, hyperspace, paperback elegant) ranked 3193, 4467, 4822, 5204, 12959, for an average of 6129.0 and a ratio of 0.55.
The smoothed and rounded value for the first of the month is therefore 0.5.

String publication rate for the first 10 months, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. As of 30 November the 10-month figures (successive years, through the end of October) for 2007, 2008, 2009 were 4143, 4071, 4038.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=10&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=10&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=10&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

marcus

Dec6-09, 08:05 PM

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 121
2008 129
2009 128 (as of 6 December)

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

==========

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...

To illustrate how the index is calculated, at 6PM central European time on 3 December, Zurück ranked 4379, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 4033, 7557, 12792 for an average 8120.7 and a ratio of 1.85. In other words Bojowald's book was doing nearly twice as well as the stringy benchmark.

Züruck vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang") is the first popular book concentrating primarily on the Loop approach to modeling the universe.

=============

Trouble with Physcs, Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
...
6 December 0.7
7 December 0.6
...

To illustrate, at noon California time on 2 December, Trouble ranked 11209 and the five most popular stringies ( parallel, fabric, elegant, hyperspace, paperback elegant) ranked 3193, 4467, 4822, 5204, 12959, for an average of 6129.0 and a ratio of 0.55.
========

String publication rate for the first 10 months of each year, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. As of 6 December the 10-month figures (successive years, through the end of October) for 2007, 2008, 2009 were 4143, 4071, 4038.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=10&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=10&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=10&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

marcus

Dec10-09, 01:31 PM

To update a couple of our indices, in the popular book department we have:

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...
9 December 0.9
10 December 0.8

To illustrate how the index is calculated, at 6PM central European time on 9 December, Zurück ranked 5383, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Stoff, Verborgene, Elegante) ranked 3496, 5656, 6126 for an average 5092.7 and a ratio of 0.95. In other words Bojowald's book was doing a bit over 90% as well as the stringy benchmark.

Züruck vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang") is the first popular book concentrating primarily on the Loop approach to modeling the universe.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
It's doing remarkably well, I think. Came out in April 2009, so what we are now seeing is apt to be evidence of sustained interest, not the initial kick-off emphasis resulting from reviews and publisher promotion.
===============
Turning to the academic side---peer-reviewed scientific papers---we have:

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 130 (as of 9 December)

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

==========

marcus

Dec11-09, 03:24 PM

Here are another couple of indices that we keep an eye on and occasionally update.

It's time we set up links to check the string publication rate for the first 11 months.

This is measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. Successive years through the end of November. Figures aren't final.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Trouble with Physics, Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
...
6 December 0.7
7 December 0.6
...
11 December 0.6

To illustrate, at noon Pacific on 11 December, Trouble ranked 8875 and the five most popular stringies ( parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 2142, 2816, 4215, 4449, 14472 for an average of 5618.8 and a ratio of 0.63.
========

marcus

Dec15-09, 11:59 AM

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...
9 December 0.9
10 December 0.8
...
14 December 0.9
15 December 1.0

To illustrate how the index is calculated, at 6PM central European time on 15 December, Zurück ranked 6664, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 2624, 8484, 8750 for an average 6619.3 and a ratio of 0.99. In other words Bojowald's book was performing on par with the stringy top three.
I'm interested in how Züruck vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang") does, because it is the world's first popular book concentrating primarily on the Loop approach to modeling the universe. Nothing comparable has so far appeared in the US market.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 132 (as of 15 December)

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Dec17-09, 12:17 PM

Martin B's book is doing remarkably well! It came out in April 2009, so what we are seeing now is not merely the first rush of sales driven by publicity and reviews in the media when a book first appears. We are already 8 months on in the book's trajectory.

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...
9 December 0.9
10 December 0.8
...
14 December 0.9
15 December 1.0
16 December 1.2
17 December 1.1
18 December 0.7

To illustrate how the index is calculated, at 6PM central European time on 17 December, Zurück ranked 6522, and the three most popular stringies (which happened to be Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 3215, 7681, 11254 for an average 7383.3 and a ratio of 1.13.
Züruck vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang") is the first popular book concentrating primarily on the Loop approach to quantum gravity and the early universe. Since it has shown some potential in the German market, the question arises as to how it might do in English translation (either in the Europe-wide market or in North America.)
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 135 (as of 18 December)

Link for 2008 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

The DESY librarians have recently found a half-dozen more 2008 artices to include in the Loop-related category. So both the 2008 and 2009 numbers have been creeping up. Neither can be considered as final.

marcus

Dec24-09, 12:57 PM

A few indices we keep an eye on and occasionally update.

String publication for the first 11 months of three successive years.
This is measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. Figures aren't final.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 24 December the figures for the three consecutive years were 4588, 4458, 4394.

============

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...
9 December 0.9
10 December 0.8
...
14 December 0.9
15 December 1.0
16 December 1.2
17 December 1.1
18 December 0.7
...
24 December 0.4

Züruck vor den Urknall ("Before the Big Bang") is the first ever book for general audience that focuses on the Loop approach to quantum gravity and the early universe. The benchmark used for comparison is the average of the three currently most popular string titles.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 139 (as of 24 December)

Link for 2008 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Both the 2008 and 2009 numbers have been creeping up. Neither can be considered final.

marcus

Dec28-09, 02:22 PM

We can set up to check the full year figures now, although the one for this year has not stabilized yet.
String publication for the full 12 months of three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification. Figures aren't final.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 29 December the figures for the first 11 months of three consecutive years were 4588, 4458, 4394.
Full year figures (still preliminary) were 5100, 4928, 4571. That last one, for 2009, looks like it can be expected to increase quite a bit, eventually, as the librarians catch up with their yearend work load.

============

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
6 December 0.8
7 December 0.5
...
9 December 0.9
10 December 0.8
...
14 December 0.9
15 December 1.0
16 December 1.2
17 December 1.1
18 December 0.7
...
24 December 0.4
...
28 December 1.3
29 December 0.64

The benchmark used for comparison is the average of the three currently most popular string titles.
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures aren't final.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 141 (as of 29 December)

Link for 2008 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Jan1-10, 12:21 PM

Averaging around the first of the month to smooth out some of the random fluctuation

Züruck vor den Urknall

30 December 0.77
31 December 0.92
1 January 0.44
2 January 0.17
3 January ...

The Trouble with Physics

31 December 0.29
1 January 0.49 (as of noon Pacific, as usual)
2 January ...

As of noon Pacific on 1 January 2010 Trouble ranked 16916 and the top five stringies (parallel, fabric, elegant, hyperspace, warped) ranked 2940, 3694, 5044, 8655, 21312, for an average of 8329.0 and a ratio of 0.49.
Salesrankwise Trouble was doing about half as well as the average topfive stringy.

marcus

Jan2-10, 03:53 PM

Trouble with Physics, Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)

Readings taken at noon Pacific, averaged around the first of the month to reduce random fluctuation.

======================
String publication for three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 3 January 2010, the full year figures (still preliminary) were 5100, 4928, 4579. The last number, for 2009, looks like it can be expected to increase quite a bit as the librarians catch up with their yearend work load.

============

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
...
30 December 0.77
31 December 0.92
1 January 0.44
2 January 0.17
3 January 0.32

The benchmark used for comparison is the average of the three currently most popular string titles. Readings averaged around the first of the month to smooth out random fluctuation. In this case the average is 0.524, which rounds off to 0.5. So, just recording the smoothed first-of-month values we get:

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5

http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures aren't final.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 141 (as of 2 January)

Link for 2008 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Jan6-10, 02:13 PM

Ordinarily at least once a year we check string citations, to detect any trend. For any given year, I focus on recent publications---appearing in the last 5 years---and look at citations occurring in that year. The Spires listing for 2009 could appear any time now, but we don't have it yet. Here for comparison is the listing for 2008, which appeared in January 2009.

I have removed non-string papers and papers which appeared before 2004. We are looking at a five-year window 2004-2008. The original Spires list contained 50 papers, many were string from the 1990s and many of the more recent papers were in non-string areas such as astrophysics. After eliminating non-recent and non-string, four papers remained.

The first number given is the number of citations the article received during 2008.
When the list for 2009 appears we will be able to compare.

193
Gauge symmetry and supersymmetry of multiple M2-branes
By Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins U.), Neil Lambert (King’s Coll. London, Dept. Math).
Published in:Phys.Rev.D77:065008,2008
(arXiv:0711.0955)
[195 Total citations in HEP]

178
Algebraic structures on parallel M2-branes
By Andreas Gustavsson (Goteborg, ITP).
HEP Record
(arXiv:0709.1260)
[181 Total citations in HEP]

174
N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons-matter theories, M2-branes and their gravity duals
By Ofer Aharony (Weizmann Inst.), Oren Bergman (Princeton, Inst. Advanced Study & Technion), Daniel Louis Jafferis (Rutgers U., Piscataway), Juan Maldacena (Pri
nceton, Inst. Advanced Study).
Published in:JHEP 0810:091,2008
(arXiv:0806.1218)
[176 Total citations in HEP]

173
Modeling Multiple M2’s
By Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins U.), Neil Lambert (King’s Coll. London, Dept. Math).
Published in:Phys.Rev.D75:045020,2007
(arXiv:hep-th/0611108)
[184 Total citations in HEP]

This is from the SLAC-Stanford "Symmetry-Breaking" article called
"Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008", dated January 14, 2009.
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

marcus

Jan11-10, 03:16 PM

Updates as of 11 Jan.

Trouble with Physics, Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
...
11 January 0.6

Readings taken at noon Pacific, averaged around the first of the month to reduce random fluctuation.

To illustrate at noon 11 January Smolin ranked 20623 and string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, idiot guide) ranked 3535, 4564, 5541, 21007, 23241, for an average of 11577.6 and a ratio of 0.56. Trouble with Physics was doing a bit over half as well as the five most popular string books.

===========

String publication for three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 11 January 2010, the full year figures (still preliminary) were 5100, 4929, 4584. I would expect the last number, for 2009, to increase as the librarians catch up with their yearend work load---maybe to near 4800. Not sure about this, just that it looks surprisingly low.

============

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5
...
11 January 1.3

http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106

To illustrate, on 11 January at 6 PM Central Europe time, Bojo's book ranked 10805 and the top three stringies in the German market (stoff, elegante, and hardbound elegante) ranked 6718, 6830, 29898, for an average of 14482 and a ratio of 1.34.
So Züruck vor den Urknall was doing somewhat better than the top three stringy average that we're using for a benchmark. It fluctuates around a lot. Came out in April 2009.

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures seem to have stabilized.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 141 (as of 11 January)

Link for 2008 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

=====

"Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008", dated January 14, 2009,
from SLAC-Stanford's Symmetry-Breaking
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

Restricting to recent (past five years: 2004-2008) string papers we see that 4 recent string papers made the topcite 50 list. String citation standing has dropped. In the early 2000s it used to be that more like 12/50 of the top fifty were recent string. And the rankings were often near the top of the 50 list.
This year the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

That was the 2008 list that came out in January of 2009. Now it is one year later. I suppose we may expect a similar list. Top 50 HEP papers for 2009. Hopefully it will come out soon so we can compare and inspect for change.

marcus

Jan18-10, 02:55 PM

marcus

Jan30-10, 01:22 PM

marcus

Jan31-10, 04:00 PM

Zurück

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5
...
...
30 January 1.66
31 January 1.57
1 February 1.06

Trouble

1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3
...
...
30 January 0.31
31 January 0.32
1 February 0.24

To illustrate, at 6PM Berlin time on 1 February Züruck ranked 8875 and the top three stringies (Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 7185, 7393, 13609 for an average of 9395.7 and a ratio of 1.06. The first two stringies are Brian Greene books in translation and Verborgene is Lisa Randall's book. All three have sustained popularity in the German market.
At noon pacific 1 February Trouble ranked 37677 and the top five stringies (parallel, fabric, elegant, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 4127, 5415, 5983, 10443, 18759, for an average of 8945.4 and a ratio of 0.24.

==update on string citation standings==

String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP has dropped. In the early 2000s it used to be that more like 12/50: around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP papers was a recent string one. And it was number 33, rather far down towards the bottom of the top-50 list. The paper in question was cited 222 times.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

marcus

Feb2-10, 03:19 PM

To get the usual averages around the first of the month, for a long term record:

Zurück

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5
(1 February 1.1)
...
...
30 January 1.66
31 January 1.57
1 February 1.06
2 February 0.72
3 February 0.32

5-day average around 1 February equals 1.1

Trouble

1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3
1 February 0.3
...
...
30 January 0.31
31 January 0.32
1 February 0.24
2 February 0.32
3 February 0.36

5-day average around 1 February for Smolin's book came to 0.31. It is the smoothed or average figure that I record for the first of the month.

To illustrate, at 6PM Berlin time on 1 February Züruck ranked 8875 and the top three stringies (Elegante, Stoff, Verborgene) ranked 7185, 7393, 13609 for an average of 9395.7 and a ratio of 1.06. The first two stringies are Brian Greene books in translation and Verborgene is Lisa Randall's book. All three have sustained popularity in the German market.
At noon pacific on 2 February Trouble ranked 30575 and the top five stringies (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 5446, 6634, 7262, 14438, 15760, for an average of 9908.0 and a ratio of 0.32.
At noon pacific on 3 February Trouble ranked 21116 and the top five stringies (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 4475, 5235, 7569, 9953, 11243, for an average of 7695.0 and a ratio of 0.36.

marcus

Feb6-10, 06:42 PM

Updates as of 6 February:
String publication for three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

On 4 February 2010, the successive year figures were 5311, 5181, 5046. Seems to be a slight downward trend.

============

Zurück vor den Urknall Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5 (2010)
1 February 1.1
...

http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
The benchmark used here for comparison is the average salesrank of the three currently most popular string books on the German market. One can see that Züruck, a Loop cosmology book, is doing approximately as well as the top three stringies (typically these are translations of two Brian Greene books and one by Lisa Randall.)

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 143 (as of 4 February 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

=====

"Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008", dated January 14, 2009,
from SLAC-Stanford's Symmetry-Breaking
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP has dropped. In the early 2000s it would often be that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33, two thirds of the way down the list. The paper in question was cited 222 times.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

=================

Trouble with Physics, Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles.

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
...

Readings taken at noon Pacific, averaged around the first of the month to reduce random fluctuation.

marcus

Feb8-10, 04:00 PM

I made a spot check of how those two popular books were doing, today.

Züruck vor den Urknall (back before the big bang) is the first popular book in any language that is entirely (or even primarily) based on the Loop approach, so it is interesting to track how it is doing in the German market.

The Trouble with Physics gives brief descriptions of several non-string approaches quantizing geometry, but it does not adopt any one in particular. The scope is broader. Since we do not know how various approaches will work out, the book is critical of the narrow concentration on string (especially by the research establishment in the Usa)

Zurück Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5 (2010)
1 February 1.1
...
8 February 2.4

http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106 The book came on the market in April 2009.
The benchmark used here for comparison is the average salesrank of the three currently most popular string books on the German market (typically these are translations of two Brian Greene books and one by Lisa Randall.)

On 8 February at 6PM central european time Züruck ranked 8315 and the three most popular stringies (Stoff, Elegante, Verborgene) ranked 13579, 21073, 24027 for an average of 19559.7 and a ratio of 2.4

The Smolin book appeared in September 2006. It stayed near the top of the physics bestseller list for the first two years and is less prominent now, but still selling.

Trouble amazon.com salesrank compared with stringy top-5 benchmark

1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
...
8 February 0.3

At noon pacific, 8 February, Trouble ranked 28293 and the top five stringies (elegant, fabric, parallel, elegant paperback, hyperspace) ranked 3013, 4486, 5263, 13977, 18701, for an average of 9088.0 and a ratio of 0.3

marcus

Feb14-10, 10:48 PM

String publication for three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

On 15 February 2010, the successive year figures were 5309, 5181, 5031. Seems to be a slight downward trend.

============
Here's how string publication looks for the first month of four successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=1&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=1&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=1&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=1&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 15 February the January publication figures were 795, 800, 699, 395
The last can be expected to increase as late arrivals are entered in the database.

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 143 (as of 15 February 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

=====

Here are links to Spires "top-50" listings
for 2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
for 2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

These are reported in articles such as: "Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008",
from SLAC-Stanford's online magazine Symmetry-Breaking
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP list has dropped. In the early 2000s it would often happen that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string papers. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33, two thirds of the way down the list. The paper in question was cited 222 times.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

=================

marcus

Feb26-10, 10:54 PM

String publication for three successive years, measured using the Harvard abstracts database with keywords superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, heterotic, compactification.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 26 February 2010, the successive year figures were 5310, 5181, 5251. Seems to be steady or with a slight downward trend.

============
Here's how string publication looks for the first month of four successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=1&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=1&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=1&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=1&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 26 February the January publication figures were 794, 800, 701, 410
Based on past experience, the recent January figure might be roughly stable by now, but it could increase as late arrivals are entered in the database.

===============

Loop publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 137
2009 146 (as of 26 February 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

===============
on 27 Feb. readings for Züruck (at 6 PM central Europe time) and Trouble (at noon pacific time):
Züruck 0.18 (from a ratio of 5255.0/29062)
Trouble 0.353 (from 8843.0/25034)

The German publisher has announced that a paperback edition for 9 Euro will be forthcoming, so some people are advance-ordering that instead of ordering the hardbound edition for 19 Euro. Or simply waiting. Sales apt to be slack until the paperback edition comes on the market--probably not until September 2010.

marcus

Mar1-10, 03:33 PM

Around the first of the month I track the salesrank of two popular non-string books. I take readings as of 6 PM central European time, for the German book Züruck vor den Urknall, and at noon Pacific for the Usa book Trouble with Physics. As a benchmark for comparison the rank is compared with the 3 most popular stringy books on the German market, or to the 5 most popular on the Usa market. I average around the first of the month to get rid of some of the random fluctuation.

So far the numbers have been

Züruck Trouble
27 February 0.181 0.353
28 February 0.885 0.236
1 March 1.345 0.513
2 March 0.213 0.693
3 March

On 1 March at 6PM Berlin time, Z ranked 13120 and the top three stringies (Stoff, Elegante, Verborgene) ranked 9217, 10409, 33295 for an average of 17640.3 making the ratio 1.345.
On 1 March at noon Pacific T ranked 13958 and the top five stringies (fabric, parallel, elegant, hyperspace, elegant paperback) ranked 3467, 3515, 8085, 9643, 11072 for an average of 7156.4 and ratio 0.513.

The particular interest of Züruck vor den Urknall (Back before the big bang) is that it is the first wide-audience book to appear in any language which is entirely based on Loop quantum geometry rather than string. The author describes what has been learned about how the geometry of the universe evolves in the Loop model.

On 2 March at noon Pacific T ranked 14680 and the top five stringies (fabric, parallel, elegant, little, hyperspace) ranked 4787, 5862, 8269, 15694, 16237 for an average of 10169.8 and a ratio of 0.693.

marcus

Mar3-10, 12:28 PM

Today (3 March) at 6PM Berlin time, the German edition of Smolin's book was number one Theoretical Physics bestseller on the German market and Bojowald's Züruck vor den Urknall was number two.
http://www.amazon.de/gp/bestsellers/books/295042/

==initial items on the bestseller list==
1. Die Zukunft der Physik: Probleme der String-Theorie und wie es weitergeht von Lee Smolin
Preis: EUR 24,95

2. Zurück vor den Urknall: Die ganze Geschichte des Universums von Martin Bojowald
Preis: EUR 19,95

3. Verborgene Universen. Eine Reise in den extradimensionalen Raum von Lisa Randall
Preis: EUR 10,95

4. Das elegante Universum: Superstrings, verborgene Dimensionen und die Suche nach der Weltformel von Brian Greene
Preis: EUR 9,95

5. Grundzüge der Relativitätstheorie von Albert Einstein
Preis: EUR 24,95
...
...
==endquote==

You can see that Smolin and Bojowald are doing OK even though their books are hardbound first editions and cost more than, say, the Brian Greene paperback.

Here are the salesrank ratios around the first of this month.

Züruck Trouble
27 February 0.181 0.353
28 February 0.885 0.236
1 March 1.345 0.513
2 March 0.213 0.693
3 March 1.392 0.376

On 3 March at 6PM Berlin time, Züruck ranked 7337 and the top three stringies (Stoff, Verborgene, Elegante) ranked 5361, 11721, 13547 for an average of 10209.7 making the ratio 1.392.

The particular interest of Züruck vor den Urknall (Back before the big bang) is that it is the first wide-audience book to appear in any language which is entirely based on Loop quantum geometry rather than string. The author describes what has been learned about how the geometry of the universe evolves in the Loop model.

It's 5-day average, which I'll record for the 1 March, to get a smoothed longterm record, is 0.803

Zurück Amazon.de salesrank relative to stringy benchmark at 6PM Berlin time.

1 December 0.9
1 January 0.5 (2010)
1 February 1.1
1 March 0.8

For comparison, here is how Smolin's book has been doing in the Usa market. The average around the first of March was 0.434.

Trouble amazon.com salesrank compared with stringy top-5 benchmark

1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4

marcus

Mar7-10, 11:52 PM

String research publication the first two months of four consecutive years. Keywords superstring, M-theory, AdS/CFT, brane, compactificiation, heterotic:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=2&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=2&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=2&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=2&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 8 March the Jan+Feb figures are 1122, 1129, 1110, 637
The figure for the first two months of 2010 can be expected to increase as late arrivals are added to the database.
========================

Here is the longterm salesrank ratio record for The Trouble with Physics
(Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles)

1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
8 March 0.7

Readings taken at noon Pacific, averaged around the first of the month to reduce random fluctuation.
As a sporadic spot check, at noon on 8 March Trouble ranked 9469 and the top five stringies (fabric, elegant, parallel, little, hyperspace) ranked 3789, 5361, 8317, 8374, 8964 for an average of 6910.0 and a ratio of 0.74.

__________________

marcus

Mar12-10, 03:12 PM

marcus

Mar13-10, 03:21 PM

The Trouble with Physics has a somewhat unusual record. It came out hardbound in 2006 and paperback in 2007, and has not sunk out of sight as rapidly as some similar books. Various new stringy books from around the same time have come out, by talented writers, and sunk into oblivion marketwise. Two (as I recall) by Susskind, one by Randall, and various mass appeal things like "string for dummies" or "complete idiot's guide to..." or "...demystified". Currently there is one by Gubser which romanticizes doing string research by comparing it with rock-climbing, and has a lot about himself and how he likes the mountains and adrenalin etc. Susskind's latest has a lot about himself and his travels and jogging and arguing with Stephen Hawking etc. So I'd say they are doing the right things to sell pop-sci books. But it is not catching on in the market as well as Trouble has. Seemingly not as durable.

I keep expecting Trouble to drop out of sight like the other recent popularizations written by scientists. But here is the recent record of how it's doing, after more than 3 years, compared with the topfive stringy benchmark. (Which I use because it represents, in a sense, the scale of the problem in public perception which Smolin's book addresses.)

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
8 March 0.7
...
11 March 0.7
12 March 0.8
13 March 0.9
14 March 0.5
...

At noon on 13 March, Trouble ranked 6815 and the top five stringies (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, elegant paperback) ranked 4526, 4952, 5717, 7734, 8387 for an average of 6263.2 and a ratio of 0.92.

At noon on 14 March, Trouble ranked 12562 and the top five stringies (parallel, hyperspace, fabric, elegant, little) ranked 3853, 5246, 5862, 8223, 11054 for an average of 6847.6 and a ratio of 0.55.

marcus

Mar18-10, 03:33 PM

"Trouble" salesrank ratio

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
8 March 0.7
...
11 March 0.7
12 March 0.8
13 March 0.9
14 March 0.5
...
18 March 0.6
19 March 0.7

At noon on 18 March, Trouble ranked 16390 and the top five stringies ( parallel, elegant, little, fabric, hyperspace) ranked 5629, 6866, 9298, 11672, 13803 for an average of 9453.6 and a ratio of 0.58.
At noon on 19 March, Trouble ranked 12710 and the top five stringies ( parallel, elegant, hyperspace, fabric, little) ranked 2824, 7498, 7909, 8113, 15141 for an average of 8297.0 and a ratio of 0.653.
=================

Another sociological index we could, I suppose, be watching is simply the salesrank average of the top five stringies. I have been using that as a benchmark (to compare Trouble's salesrank with) for the past few years, since it represents in a sense the size of the problem which Trouble has helped to correct: string overhype.
But that benchmark average may itself have some observable trend.
==================

A further index we could keep track of is attendance at the annual Strings conference.
It has been running at over 400 registered participants at least since 2005, when I started watching. This year, for various reasons, it is down to 193. So about half the usual.
I suppose as string research declines in interest there could be a tendency to hold the conference in humbler venues and that in turn could diminish attendance. Not sure about this, but we can see how it goes.

marcus

Mar25-10, 03:37 PM

String research publication the first two months of four consecutive years. Keywords superstring, M-theory, AdS/CFT, brane, compactificiation, heterotic:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=2&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=2&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=2&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=2&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 25 March the Jan+Feb figures are 1125, 1132, 1117, 789
The figure for the first two months of 2010 should be fairly stable by now, based on past experience--but it seems low and could still increase as late arrivals are added to the database.
========================

"Trouble" salesrank ratio

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
8 March 0.7
...
11 March 0.7
12 March 0.8
13 March 0.9
14 March 0.5
...
18 March 0.6
19 March 0.7
...
22 March 0.6
23 March 0.3
...
25 March 0.6

At noon on 25 March, Trouble ranked 16364 and the top five stringies (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, little) ranked 3250, 4382, 5418, 17430, 21654 for an average of 10426.8 and a ratio of 0.64.

=================

I mentioned we could watch the salesrank average of the top five stringies, which I've been using as a benchmark (to compare Trouble's salesrank with) for the past few years. That benchmark average may itself be slipping. To check for some trend in the stringy topfive average, I looked back to:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1986028#post1986028 November 2008

9 November 3132.8
12 November 3445.8
13 November 3473.8
15 November 3668.2
17 November 3989.8
18 November 4784.6
21 November 3904.6
23 November 3534.6
27 November 3335.6
28 November 3426.4
4 December 3922.8

The ten numbers I happened to find for November 2008 average tp 3669.6

I think you can see that the average salesrank of the five most popular stringies is now roughly twice that.

marcus

Mar25-10, 07:18 PM

It recently occurred to me to keep track of the salesrank average of the five most popular string books (at noon on any given day).
I haven't always recorded that here but I do have these 10 figures for around March 2010

27 February 8843.0
1 March 7156.4
2 March 10169.8
8 March 6910.0
12 March 7981.4
13 March 6263.2
14 March 6847.6
18 March 9453.6
19 March 8297.0
25 March 10426.8

The average (of these salesrank averages) is 8234.9

So in the past year and a half, from November 2008 to around March 2010 the popularity of string books has declined by more than a factor of two according to this measure.
In November 2008 the average salesrank of the stringy top five was about 4000 (more exactly we got 3669.9) and around early March we found it was more than twice that, namely 8234.9.

brainstorm

Mar28-10, 04:34 PM

Interesting rise indeed. I really don't have much of a serious clue but maybe the global crisis slightly setting people back and forcing them to reconsider what they are doing. Maybe the crisis makes look upon all the established structures with doubt and critisism, not only in society but also in science. since it becomes more clear that in times of limited resources, some extra thought may be needed and we can not afford to invest in the wrong questions.

Perhaps the critics, and questioning of - how have all the investments in ST made us more fit? - is even more relevent in the crisis days when it becomes more obvious that time and money is limited. We have to question how be choose to invest every single dollar. Ultimately it's self-preservation.

In think that type of reasoning is more likely to appear during bad times.

How was the pattern last summer? ie. could there be some summer/vacation phenomenon?

/Fredrik

This is an excellent post. I believe you are right that when economic crisis is constructed in one discourse, it spreads to others as a result of cognitive-emotional relations between people and their various distinct discourses.

Let's start by getting one thing straight, though. Choosing how to invest every single dollar is not self-preservation as much as it is hope of preserving economic status and systems that allow people to avoid doing labor that they don't want to do.

In one sense, science is a form of knowledge and it has its own economy of ideas and critique. On the other hand, academia involves organization various life activities of the human individuals practicing science, which is somewhat distinct from the actual practice of science itself.

To simplify some, first consider the lifestyle of some academic scientist you know. What do they own, eat, wear, drive, buy, sell, make, do, use, etc? Now trace the supply chains of any aspect of that lifestyle. When you arrive at some other individual who provides supplies and services for the academic scientist, ask yourself what would happen if that person practiced science.

If you can follow this example, you should be able to see that science can, at least in theory, be practiced by people working in non-academic situations.

Now, imagine all funding to science was eliminated and all scientists currently working in academia had to seek income in non-academic activities. If that was the case, the question is what would the right or wrong questions be to invest in, since economic productivity would be separate from scientific research.

So now you are probably saying, "yes but it's hardly possible to prepare and serve food to customers and clean up after them while doing good scientific research." This is where the relationship between economic crisis and academic investment really emerges.

The operative question is what is sacrificed economically in order for individuals to devote all their working hours to science or other academic endeavors? The answer depends on what each individual is capable of doing besides research and what economic demand pressures are pushing divestment in academia and why?

Cynically, I would say that many people have lost the ability to approach economy as a big picture, if they ever had that ability to start with. All such people know is that the squeeze is on them to generate money for someone else and they want money for themselves so they can spend it to get other people to do and make things for them.

In the bigger picture, though, the truth is that there is no scarcity of resources at all. In fact, prices fall and unemployment rises precisely because of overproduction and surplus. Nevertheless, people continue to want to make more money for reasons such as paying off debt and gaining more purchasing power.

Some people who want to make more money do it by investing in themselves and use their own labor to make goods or services to sell to others. Some of the same people, but also others, try to invest the money they have in others to make more money that way. Other people try to make money by convincing investors that they will be able to multiply their money if they pay them to do it. This is where it starts getting tricky.

Imagine I am in debt or just want to make some money and you are in the same position as me, but you have some money to invest. Neither of us really knows what is needed to produce for the economy, so I decide to come up with an idea for you to invest in, with the hope of making more money for both of us. But what if there is no more money to make?

So this is where the question becomes how far people are willing to go to try to squeeze more money out of the economy when there's none to squeeze. Presumably, every academic job could be eliminated until administrators and personnel emerged with reasons that their work will generate revenues for the institutions.

Then, as long as the revenue-plans aren't working, people are disciplined and fired to stoke the fire of getting them to generate revenues. It makes you wonder why no one comes forth with the big picture of how economy actually works and why it is not possible to make money under certain circumstances and how production and consumption is able to continue despite the economic crisis.

The reason why this big picture doesn't come out, I think, is because no one who sees economics purely in terms of generating more revenues and jobs wants to think about the fact that the revenues and jobs are nothing more than structuring mechanisms for producing the goods and services that are consumed.

If they did, they would realize that money becomes practically unnecessary in a free-market where significant abundance has been reached. Logically, supply-side competition drives prices down to levels so low that consumers and businesses become able to freely explore various production and consumption activities until new forms of scarcity emerge, which create new high prices which form an incentive for competition and production of these products and services.

Of course, this has happened in the form of growth of certain sectors, which are where jobs become available. These are mostly service jobs designed to cater to people who have nothing better to do than leisurely cruise around expending resources and money. If such people would conserve their spending, the amount of service labor to be done would decrease, and there would be more freedom to pursue free scientific activities.

"Great," you say, "why didn't he just say that in the first place?" Well, I'll leave you with the problem of what happens when the scientists and academics who are free from working in service jobs are the ones consuming the goods and services that generate those jobs.

Is it fair for academics to complain about funding-cuts, when the cause of those cuts in the first place is related to the fact that they are spending money on goods and services that require personnel to produce them? Maybe though it's less the will to consumption as it is the will to profit, tax revenues, and jobs/income that is driving the big squeeze, though.

marcus

Mar30-10, 05:13 PM

Time to average the Trouble with Physics
salesrank ratios for a few days around 1 April

At noon Pacific on 30 March Trouble ranked 13201 and the stringy top five averaged
8550.0 for a ratio of 0.65.
At noon on 31 March Trouble ranked 10646 and the stringy top five average was 6351.8
for a ratio of 0.60.

"Trouble" salesrank ratio

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
30 March 0.65
31 March 0.60
1 April ?
2 April ?
3 April?
...

=================

I mentioned we could watch the salesrank average of the top five stringies, which I've been using as a benchmark (to compare Trouble's salesrank with) for the past few years. If public interest in string research has declined then one would expect this number to increase. Salesrank is so to speak a measure of disinterest. (Other things being equal, the higher the rank, the fewer books are being purchased.) Here are some November 2008 data.

9 November 3132.8
12 November 3445.8
13 November 3473.8
15 November 3668.2
17 November 3989.8
18 November 4784.6
21 November 3904.6
23 November 3534.6
27 November 3335.6
28 November 3426.4
4 December 3922.8

The ten numbers I happened to find for November 2008 average out to 3669.6

I haven't always recorded these numbers here but I do happen to have these fairly recent ones from around March 2010

27 February 8843.0
1 March 7156.4
2 March 10169.8
8 March 6910.0
12 March 7981.4
13 March 6263.2
14 March 6847.6
18 March 9453.6
19 March 8297.0
25 March 10426.8
30 March 8550.0
31 March 6351.8

At noon Pacific on 31 March the top five stringies (parallel, warped, little, fabric, elegant) ranked 3138, 5248, 5731, 7812, 9830 for an average of 6351.8
=======================
Another thing we sometimes watch is the string research publication rate. Here's a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first parts of consecutive years, to spot any trend.

Here's how string publication looks for the first three months of each of four successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 31 March, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1664, 1642, 1559, 1023

The figure for the first three months of 2010 can be expected to increase some as March late arrivals are added to the database.

marcus

Apr1-10, 03:18 PM

Well, Lisa Randall appeared on the Charlie Rose show, talking about the LHC startup and giving a huge boost to sales of her braney book, even the hardbound edition, which had almost disappeared from the top 100 physics bestseller list :biggrin:

The stringy top five today were parallel, warped hardbound, warped paperback, little, and fabric. The average rank was 4914.8 compared with 14108 for Smolin's book. So on 1 April the ratio was 0.35.

At noon 2 April Trouble was 22249 and the stringy topfive average was 5584.6 making the ratio 0.25.
The stringy top five were elegant, parallel, hyperspace, warped, and fabric.

marcus

Apr3-10, 01:27 PM

Averaging the Trouble with Physics salesrank ratios for a few days around 1 April

At noon Pacific on 30 March Trouble ranked 13201 and the stringy top five averaged
8550.0 for a ratio of 0.65.
At noon on 31 March Trouble ranked 10646 and the stringy top five average was 6351.8
for a ratio of 0.60.

"Trouble" salesrank ratio

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
...
...
30 March 0.65
31 March 0.60
1 April 0.35
2 April 0.25
3 April 0.47 (11:20 AM)
...

I had to be out at noon, so this 11:20 AM reading was as close as I could get. (Normally for consistency I check the salesranks right at noon Pacific or just after.) On 3 April Trouble ranked 13210 and the five most popular string books that day (elegant, hyperspace, parallel, fabric, little) ranked 3850, 4721, 4873, 5413, 12,452 for an average of 6261.8 and a ratio of 0.474.

The fiveday average ratio for 1 April rounds to 0.5

"Trouble" salesrank ratio

1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
1 April 0.5

marcus

Apr10-10, 04:07 PM

Looking back to September 2007, when the first paperback edition hit the market, The Trouble with Physics has done surprisingly well. Here is its longterm salesrank ratio record, with some recent spot checks.
(Amazon.com salesrank compared with five most popular string titles)...

1 September 6.4 (2007)
1 October 6.5
1 November 5.2
1 December 2.4
1 January 1.5 (2008)
1 February 1.3
1 March 0.4
1 April 0.6
1 May 1.0
1 June 1.0
1 July 0.5
1 August 0.4
1 September 0.8
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.6
1 December 0.6
1 January 0.6 (2009)
1 February 0.7
1 March 0.5
1 April 0.6
1 May 0.6
1 June 0.7
1 July 1.9
1 August 0.6
1 September 0.6
1 October 0.4
1 November 0.5
1 December 0.5
1 January 0.3 (2010)
1 February 0.3
1 March 0.4
1 April 0.5
...
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9

As a sporadic spot check at noon on 10 April Trouble ranked 36994 and the top five stringies (parallel, fabric, warped, elegant, elegant paperback) ranked 5813, 11449, 14860, 15050, 15760 for an average of 12586.4 and a ratio of 0.34
The next day, checking at noon on 11 April Trouble ranked 12112 and the top five stringies (parallel, hyperspace, black hole, fabric, elegant) ranked 5238, 6946, 11608, 13744, 14341 for an average of 10375.4 and a ratio of 0.86

I mentioned we could watch the salesrank average of the top five stringies, which I've been using as a benchmark (to compare Trouble's salesrank with) for the past few years. If public interest in string research has declined then one would expect this number to increase. Salesrank is so to speak a measure of disinterest. (Other things being equal, the higher the rank, the fewer books are being purchased.) Here are some November 2008 data.

9 November 3132.8
12 November 3445.8
13 November 3473.8
15 November 3668.2
17 November 3989.8
18 November 4784.6
21 November 3904.6
23 November 3534.6
27 November 3335.6
28 November 3426.4
4 December 3922.8

The ten numbers I happened to find for November 2008 average out to 3669.6

As a spot check, the same average currently, 10 April 2010, was 12586.4.

10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4

There does seem to have been a marked change in the popularity of string books over the past year and a half.
Before November 2008 the average salesrank of the five most popular stringies was typically under 4000. Commonly somewhere around 3000 or 3500. Such salesranks could come back, but at least for the past year or so they haven't been that good. Now one often sees 6000, 8000, even (as now) 10000. Recent ranks in the "five digits" so to speak.

Another thing we sometimes watch is the string research publication rate. Here's a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first parts of consecutive years, to spot any trend.

Here's how string publication looks for the first three months of each of four successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 11 April, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1664, 1643, 1562, 1242

The figure for the first three months of 2010 seems low and may increase some as March late arrivals are added to the database.

marcus

Apr13-10, 03:36 PM

Trouble salesrank compared with stringy top five
1 April 0.5
...
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9
12 April 0.2
13 April 0.5
14 April 0.4

As a sporadic spot check at noon on 10 April Trouble ranked 36994 and the top five stringies (parallel, fabric, warped, elegant, elegant paperback) ranked 5813, 11449, 14860, 15050, 15760 for an average of 12586.4 and a ratio of 0.34
The next day, checking at noon on 11 April Trouble ranked 12112 and the top five stringies (parallel, hyperspace, black hole, fabric, elegant) ranked 5238, 6946, 11608, 13744, 14341 for an average of 10375.4 and a ratio of 0.86.
At noon 13 April Trouble ranked 16452 and string top five (little, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, elegant) ranked 2728, 5509, 11424, 12093, 12135 for benchmark average 8777.8 and a ratio of 0.53
At noon 14 April, Trouble 27406 and string top five (little, parallel, fabric, elegant, warped) 4953, 7214, 10679, 12771, 14696 for an average of 10062.6 making the ratio 0.37.

The string popularity benchmark (average rank of 5 currently most popular) has become interesting in and of itself. It used to be around 3000-3500 when I was watching earlier, then as of November 2008 it was averaging around 3700. Now it seems to be growing, a possible signal of declining public interest in string books.

10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4
12 April 14077.0
13 April 8777.8
14 April 10062.6

Recent ranks often in the "five digits" so to speak. Breaking new ground in 2010. I've been watching since 2006 and have never seen this high for such extended periods.

Another thing we sometimes watch is the string research publication rate. Here's a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years, to spot any trend.

Here's how string publication looks for the first three months of each of four successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 14 April, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1664, 1643, 1563, 1255

Still waiting for the 2010 figure to get up closer to the previous three years.

marcus

Apr15-10, 01:31 PM

Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures for 2005-2009 seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 147
2010 43 (as of 15 April 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

In the pop-sci category, as of noon 15 April Trouble with Physics ranked 8940 and was actually doing better than the stringy top five average, which was 10267.4, making the average 1.15. The five most popular string books (little, elegant, dummies, fabric, parallel) ranked 5407, 9219, 9787, 13441, 13483.

I'm following the stringy topfive average salesrank which back when there was more public interest in string used to be in the low 3000s---and was 3700 as recently as November 2008. As interest has declined this average salesrank has increased noticeably. Readings taken at noon Pacific:

String topfive salesrank avg.
10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4
12 April 14077.0
13 April 8777.8
14 April 10062.6
15 April 10267.4

Trouble salesrank compared to string benchmark
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9
12 April 0.2
13 April 0.5
14 April 0.4
15 April 1.1

marcus

Apr16-10, 04:25 PM

As of noon 16 April Trouble with Physics ranked 9345 and was again doing better than the stringy top five average, which was 15618.2, making the ratio 1.67. The five most popular string books (parallel, little, hyperspace, elegant paperback, elegant) ranked 6367, 13978, 15406, 19424, 22916.

String topfive salesrank avg.
10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4
12 April 14077.0
13 April 8777.8
14 April 10062.6
15 April 10267.4
16 April 15618.2

Trouble salesrank compared to string benchmark
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9
12 April 0.2
13 April 0.5
14 April 0.4
15 April 1.1
16 April 1.7

marcus

Apr19-10, 03:30 PM

String publication for the first three months of this year still looks low by comparison with past years. But it has come up slightly over the past week as late arrivals are added to the Harvard database.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years, to spot any trend.
As of 20 April, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1664, 1643, 1563, 1270

=====
String pops used to be near the top of the Amazon physics bestseller list. Average salesrank of the five most popular tended to be in the 3000s---the November 2008 average was a respectable 3700. Recently the string books have drifted down the chart to around the 10000s---five figure territory. I don't know whether or not this signals a decline in public readership/interest, a permanent loss of share in the pop-physics market.
String topfive salesrank avg.
10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4
12 April 14077.0
13 April 8777.8
14 April 10062.6
15 April 10267.4
16 April 15618.2
...
18 April 9539.2
19 April 11229.4
20 April 11659.2

Trouble salesrank compared to string benchmark
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9
12 April 0.2
13 April 0.5
14 April 0.4
15 April 1.1
16 April 1.7
...
18 April 0.3
19 April 0.2
20 April 0.5

marcus

Apr23-10, 03:58 PM

Recently the string books drifted down the chart to around the 10000s---five figure territory. I don't know whether or not this signals a permanent decline in public readership/interest, or is just a temporary fluke. Just have to watch and see what happens.

String topfive salesrank avg.
10 April 12586.4
11 April 10375.4
12 April 14077.0
13 April 8777.8
14 April 10062.6
15 April 10267.4
16 April 15618.2
...
18 April 9539.2
19 April 11229.4
20 April 11659.2
21 April 9290.6
22 April 8069.4
23 April 8757.6
24 April 8823.8

Trouble salesrank compared to string benchmark
10 April 0.3
11 April 0.9
12 April 0.2
13 April 0.5
14 April 0.4
15 April 1.1
16 April 1.7
...
18 April 0.3
19 April 0.2
20 April 0.5
21 April 0.5
22 April 0.2
23 April 0.2
24 April 0.5

At noon Pacific on 24 April the top five stringies (parallel, little, hyperspace, fabric, elegant) ranked 6015, 6036, 8021, 11648, 12399 for an average of 8823.8. Trouble ranked 16606 making the ratio 0.53.

marcus

Apr28-10, 04:13 PM

String publication for the first three months of this year should have come up by now, as late arrivals are enteried into the data base. It usually takes an extra month for the numbers to stabilize and it's now the end of April so it should have done so. But the figure still looks low.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years.

As of 29 April, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1670, 1643, 1583, 1316

=====

At noon 28 April Trouble ranked 15906 and the topfive stringies (fabric, hyperspace, parallel, elegant paperback, elegant hard) ranked 4180, 5309, 6932, 8223, 13216 for an average of 7572.0 making the ratio 0.48.

At noon 29 April Trouble ranked 24468 and the topfive stringies (hyperspace, fabric, parallel, elegant paperback, elegant hard) ranked 3287, 4951, 8222, 9023, 9119 for an average of 6920.4 making the ratio 0.28.

marcus

May1-10, 02:08 PM

Time to set up for checking string publication for the first four months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years.

As of 1 May (which is too early to get a stable 2010 number) the Jan+Feb+March+April figures for four successive years were:
2044, 2034, 1914, 1565

=====
On the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks):
Noon 29 April topfive average 6920.4 and trouble 24468 for a ratio of 0.28.
Noon 30 April topfive average 7928.2 and trouble 34183 for a ratio of 0.23.
Noon 1 May topfive average 6964.4 and trouble 30318 for a ratio of 0.23
11AM 2 May topfive average was 6222.8 and trouble 17748 for a ratio of 0.35 (can't check at noon today, 11:04 AM closest I can do)

on 2 May, for example, (graduation presents for youngsters?) the string top five were all Kaku and Greene: hyperspace, parallel, elegant paperback, fabric, elegant, in that order. :-D. More serious books not selling.

marcus

May2-10, 03:29 PM

By good fortune I was home and able to check salesranks at noon today. Had not expected not to be able to. So I can correct the previous post.

Noon 29 April topfive average 6920.4 and trouble 24468 for a ratio of 0.28.
Noon 30 April topfive average 7928.2 and trouble 34183 for a ratio of 0.23.
Noon 1 May topfive average 6964.4 and trouble 30318 for a ratio of 0.23
Noon 2 May topfive average was 6965.4 and trouble 20256 for a ratio of 0.34
Noon 3 May topfive average was 6546.6 and trouble 62031 for a ratio of 0.11

The 5 day average topfive salesrank (around 1 May) is 7065.0.
The 5 day average Trouble salesrank is 34251.2.
The ratio of the two 5-day averages is 0.21

========================
So far the most highly cited LQG paper that has appeared in 2010 is one by Lee Smolin, 47 citations.
Here are the raw numbers of LQG papers in successive years.
Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures for 2005-2009 seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 140
2010 47 (as of 2 May 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these Spires links, then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.

String research publications numbers for the first three months of successive years, as of 2 May:
2007: 1670
2008: 1643
2009: 1583
2010: 1316

At this point the Jan+Feb+March numbers should be stable. Downward trend, apparently.
This is based on a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years.

For the first four months of successive years it is still too early to get a stable 2010 number. As of 2 May, for what it's worth, the Jan+Feb+March+April figures for the same four successive years were: 2044, 2034, 1914, 1565.

marcus

May8-10, 05:44 PM

String publication for the first four months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic). As of 8 May (which is too early to get a stable 2010 number) the Jan+Feb+March+April figures for the four successive years were:
2044, 2034, 1914, 1579

String research publications numbers for the first three months of successive years, as of 8 May:
2007: 1670
2008: 1643
2009: 1583
2010: 1318

So far the most highly cited LQG paper that has appeared in 2010 is one by Lee Smolin, 32 citations.
Here are the raw numbers of LQG papers in successive years.
Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures for 2005-2009 seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 140
2010 53 (as of 8 May 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these Spires links, then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.

=====
On the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks):

Around 1 May:
The 5 day average topfive salesrank was 7065.0.
The 5 day average Trouble salesrank was 34251.2.
The ratio of the two 5-day averages was 0.21

At noon 7 May:
Stringy topfive salesranks averaged 12432.4
Trouble ranked 13212
The ratio was 0.94

At noon 8 May:
Stringy topfive salesranks averaged 8625.6
Trouble ranked 17196
The ratio was 0.50

At noon 9 May:
topfive average 7931.6
trouble 29348
ratio 0.27
===============================
As it happens, I didn't save data for the stringy topfive average for around the first of every month, in the past.
But by chance I recorded samples for three days around the 15th of several past months.

13 November2008 3473.8
15 November2008 3668.2
17 November2008 3989.8

14 July2009 9043.6
15 July2009 6081.4
16 July2009 4331.0

13 March2010 6263.2
14 March2010 6847.6
18 March2010 9453.6

14 April2010 10062.6
15 April2010 10267.4
16 April2010 15618.2

marcus

May12-10, 03:37 PM

String publication for the first four months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic). As of 12 May (which is too early to get a stable 2010 number) the Jan+Feb+March+April figures for the four successive years were:
2044, 2034, 1914, 1580

String research publications numbers for the first three months of successive years, as of 12 May:
2007: 1670
2008: 1643
2009: 1583
2010: 1311

So far the most highly cited LQG paper that has appeared in 2010 is one by Lee Smolin, 32 citations.
Here are the raw numbers of LQG papers in successive years.
Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures for 2005-2009 seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 134
2009 140
2010 55 (as of 12 May 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these Spires links, then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.

=====
On the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks):

Around 1 May:
The 5 day average topfive salesrank was 7065.0.
The 5 day average Trouble salesrank was 34251.2.
The ratio of the two 5-day averages was 0.21

At noon 7 May:
Stringy topfive salesranks averaged 12432.4
Trouble ranked 13212
The ratio was 0.94

At noon 8 May:
Stringy topfive salesranks averaged 8625.6
Trouble ranked 17196
The ratio was 0.50

At noon 9 May:
topfive average 7931.6
trouble 29348
ratio 0.27

Noon 11 May:
topfive 7964.4
trouble 17534
ratio 0.45

Noon 12 May:
topfive 8379.8
trouble 9829
ratio 0.85
===============================
As it happens, I didn't save data for the stringy topfive average for around the first of every month, in the past.
But by chance I recorded samples for three days around the 15th of several past months.

13 November2008 3473.8
15 November2008 3668.2
17 November2008 3989.8

14 July2009 9043.6
15 July2009 6081.4
16 July2009 4331.0

13 March2010 6263.2
14 March2010 6847.6
18 March2010 9453.6

14 April2010 10062.6
15 April2010 10267.4
16 April2010 15618.2

marcus

May14-10, 03:26 PM

In the past I didn't systematically save data on the stringy topfive average (just used it as a temporary benchmark for comparison), but by chance recorded samples for three days around the 15th of several past months. I shall continue this abbreviated record.

13 November2008 3473.8
15 November2008 3668.2
17 November2008 3989.8

14 July2009 9043.6
15 July2009 6081.4
16 July2009 4331.0

13 March2010 6263.2
14 March2010 6847.6
18 March2010 9453.6

14 April2010 10062.6
15 April2010 10267.4
16 April2010 15618.2

14 May2010 9519.6
15 May2010 5428.2
16 May2010 ...?...

To illustrate, at noon on 14 May the five most popular string books (parallel, hyperspace, elegant, fabric, elegant hardbound) ranked 3926, 4001, 5146, 13437, 21088, average 9519.6.

marcus

May16-10, 03:23 PM

14 January2007 4204.0
15 January2007 3497.0
16 January2007 5487.8

14 February2007 3236.0
15 February2007 4050.8
16 February2007 4078.9

13 November2008 3473.8
15 November2008 3668.2
17 November2008 3989.8

14 July2009 9043.6
15 July2009 6081.4
16 July2009 4331.0

13 March2010 6263.2
14 March2010 6847.6
18 March2010 9453.6

14 April2010 10062.6
15 April2010 10267.4
16 April2010 15618.2

14 May2010 9519.6
15 May2010 5428.2
16 May2010 5705.6

Mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five:

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884

marcus

May20-10, 03:19 PM

To keep track of the drop in string citations in the professional literature:

...String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP has dropped. In the early 2000s it would often be that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33, two thirds of the way down the list. The paper in question was cited 222 times.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml
...

The key thing here is how much recent papers were cited during the year in question. This is indicative of the current state of the research program. If one does not restrict to current year citations and to recent (past five years) papers then one gets huge numbers of citations reflecting the string glory years of the 1990s when the program was viewed as the most promising path to unifying physics (if not the only path :biggrin:)
==================

I'm looking for signs that we will see some correlation between the decline of professional interest in stringy unification prospects and a trend in popular book salesranks. For several past months, I've averaged the noon salesranks of the top five string books (whichever were the most popular on a given day) for three days around the 15th of the month.

Mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five:

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884

Out of curiosity I also recorded these recent noon topfive averages:

17 May 9479.6
18 May 8000.4
19 May 6982.0
20 May 8270.6
21 May 7030.2

It would make sense for there to be some slow upward trend: as professionals loose interest in string (as a unification approach) one might expect, after some lag time, for general readership to slack off. This would be reflected in rising salesrank numbers for string books.

Gokul43201

May21-10, 04:49 PM

Not trying at all to throw doubt upon any on the comparisons to date, and I doubt it will make a significant difference to the numbers, but I wonder if a harmonic mean wouldn't be a more meaningful average than the arithmetic mean. After all, the direct metric of popularity is number of books sold, and sales rank varies inversely with this metric.

Of course, it would only hurt to switch methodology mid-stream, so I'm not suggesting you change (or even consider changing) things for this thread...but it might be worth thinking about for any future cataloging from scratch.

marcus

May22-10, 01:11 AM

Thanks for the comment Gokul! Your suggestion of a while back (averaging data around the first of the month, for a smoothed first of month figure) was one I adopted and I think has been helpful.

As you say, just keeping on consistently is the main thing, but I will consider harmonic means "averaging" if I start another thread recording a different series of data.

Hope things are going well.

marcus

May24-10, 03:32 PM

String publication for the first four months of this year should have stabilized by now, as late arrivals were entered into the data base. First here is the picture for the first three months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years.

As of 25 May, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1670, 1643, 1583, 1307

============
Now the figures for the first four months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Again a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the consecutive years. As of 25 May the Jan+Feb+March+April figures were:
2044, 2034, 1914, 1577

=====
On the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks):
Noon 24 May string topfive average 8179.4 (fabric, parallel, elegant, hyperspace, little).
Noon 25 May string topfive average 8467.2 (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, little).
To illustrate, the average was obtained from their respective ranks which happened to be 4634, 5373, 6904, 11978, 13447.

=======

Here are the raw numbers of LQG papers in successive years.
Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space". Figures for 2005-2009 seem nearly stable.

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 143
2010 63 (as of 25 May 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these Spires links, then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.

marcus

Jun1-10, 04:05 PM

Some late arrivals to add in. First here is the string publication picture for the first three months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=3&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=3&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=3&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=3&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first quarter of consecutive years.

As of 2 June, the Jan+Feb+March figures for four successive years were:
1669, 1643, 1584, 1347

============
Similar figures for the first four months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Again a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the consecutive years. As of 2 June the Jan+Feb+March+April totals were:
2043, 2034, 1916, 1720

=====
To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five:

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884

Out of curiosity I also recorded some more recent noon topfive averages:

17 May 9479.6
18 May 8000.4
19 May 6982.0
20 May 8270.6
21 May 7030.2
Noon 24 May string topfive average 8179.4 (fabric, parallel, elegant, hyperspace, little).
Noon 25 May string topfive average 8467.2 (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, little).
To illustrate, the average was obtained from their respective ranks which happened to be 4634, 5373, 6904, 11978, 13447.
Noon 30 May average was 7136.0 (elegant, hyper, parallel, fabric, elegant hard)
Noon 31 May average was 8299.8 (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyper, warped)
Noon 1 June average was 8365.2 (elegant, fabric, hyper, parallel, elegant hard)
Noon 2 June average was 13921.4 (elegant, fabric, hyper, parallel, elegant hard). To illustrate their respective salesranks were 1570, 5443, 11804, 12974, 37816. Incidentally Trouble with Physics salesrank happened to be 14398. I haven't been checking reguarly but it still seems to be hanging in there.

Going back to 2007 and 2008, there does seem to be a slow upward trend in the topfive stringies average salesrank. It would make sense: as professionals loose interest in string (as a unification approach) one might expect, after some lag time, for general readership to slack off. This would be reflected in rising salesrank numbers for string books.

This week Brian Greene hosts the NYC festival of science which he organizes annually, much media hoopla including a visit from Stephen Hawking. Noticeable increase in sales of Greene books.
=======

While I'm at it, I will update the Loop research publication index which uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 142
2010 64 (as of 1 June 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these Spires links, then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.

marcus

Jun8-10, 10:59 PM

Yearly Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 73 (as of 9 June 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these and then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.
=======================

This string publication index does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first four months of consecutive years.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 9 June the Jan+Feb+March+April totals were:
2042, 2033, 1916, 1756
================================
Not all the late arrivals are in, but here's the string publication picture for the first five months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Again a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the consecutive years. As of 9 June, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years: 2489, 2515, 2439, 2029
=====

To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of June, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010...?...

As a spot check, at noon on 9 June the string topfive average rank was 9113.2. The five most popular string books at that time (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, little) ranked 2714, 5092, 5693, 6253, 25814.

marcus

Jun14-10, 03:30 PM

To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of June, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010...?...

As a spot check, at noon on 9 June the string topfive average rank was 9113.2. The five most popular string books at that time (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, little) ranked 2714, 5092, 5693, 6253, 25814.

At noon pacific on 14 June the string topfive (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, little) ranked 2911, 4480, 6765, 13054, 14957 for an average of 8433.4
At noon pacific on 15 June the string topfive (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3379, 4444, 5497, 11176, 15008 for an average of 7900.8

Update on yearly Loop research publication index which uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 76 (as of 14 June 2010)

Year's not yet half over so it's looking like output has nearly doubled since 2006.

marcus

Jun16-10, 03:49 PM

At noon pacific on 14 June the string topfive (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, little) ranked 2911, 4480, 6765, 13054, 14957 for an average of 8433.4

At noon pacific on 15 June the string topfive (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3379, 4444, 5497, 11176, 15008 for an average of 7900.8

At noon pacific on 16 June the string topfive (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) ranked 2619, 6188, 8612, 12086, 34789 for an average of 12858.8

So the mid-month average for June is 9731.

Here is the record of mid-month averages so far:

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010 ...?...

Next readings, to extend this record, planned for July 14, 15, and 16, at the usual time (noon pacific). In my experience the high salesranks we are seeing this year (for the most popular string books) are unprecedented. Could indicate a shift in public perception. Now string not thought as jazzy as, say, 5 years ago. Possibly a different sort of pop-sci physics book (non-string this time) taking over the market.

marcus

Jun18-10, 09:23 PM

Updated publication data.
Yearly Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 79 (as of 19 June 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these and then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.
=======================

This string publication index does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the first four months of consecutive years.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=4&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=4&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=4&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=4&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 18 June the Jan+Feb+March+April totals were:
2042, 2033, 1919, 1782
================================
Not all the late arrivals are in, but here's the string publication picture for the first five months of successive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Again a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic) for the consecutive years. As of 18 June, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years: 2489, 2515, 2442, 2058
=====

To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take the average of noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of July, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010...?...

As a spot check, at noon on 19 June the stringy topfive average was 8558.0, in line with the much higher salesranks we have been seeing this year. The five most popular titles (elegant, fabric, black hole, parallel, hyperspace) ranked 2041, 7733, 8153, 12161, 12702, averaging out to 8558.
This may not seem significant, but I just checked the Amazon.de standing of a German book "Before the Big Bang"
http://www.amazon.de/Zurück-vor-den-Urknall-Geschichte/dp/3100039106
which is the first popular all-LQG book, and it showed up as a leader among the theoretical physics and cosmology bestsellers.

Nr. 1 in Bücher > Fachbücher > Physik & Astronomie > Theoretische Physik
Nr. 4 in Bücher > Fachbücher > Physik & Astronomie > Astronomie & Astrophysik > Kosmologie

The Amazon price is 20 Euro. It came out April 2009 over a year ago, still doing OK saleswise. The paperback edition is scheduled to come out September 2010, in three months. Amazon price 10 Euro (or 9.95 :smile:) and my guess is that it will also do OK. This book applies LQG to cosmology (it is a "Loop quantum cosmology" book, presenting models and arguments for the "big bounce" conjecture.) In the Usa market there has not been an all-LQG book, so far. Only books which covered several different approaches to quantum gravity, including Loop. The new German book is more focused, which is what makes it different.

marcus

Jun25-10, 03:27 PM

Here's a spot check of the noon salesrank average for the stringy top five. At noon on 25 June the five most popular titles (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 2971, 5775, 7732, 13247, 19788, averaging out to 9902.6.
To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take the average of noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of July, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010...?...

As another spot check, at noon 26 June the five most popular stringy books (elegant, fabric, hyperspace, parallel, warped) ranked 3202, 5278, 8967, 10816, 28655 for an average of 11383.6. It seems obvious that there has been a sharp decline in string popularity compared with the way the pop-sci book market looked in 2007 and earlier. This follows the earlier decline in professional interest as shown by the drop in citations to recent string research papers.

================================
Here's the string publication picture for the first five months of successive years.
This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic):

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 26 June, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2489, 2515, 2442, 2060
=====

It is getting to be time to take data for the first six months. Here are the corresponding links:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

With June 2010 incompletely reported, the numbers as of 26 June are 2861, 2841, 2868, 2236.

marcus

Jul3-10, 03:57 PM

Updated Loop QG publication data.
Yearly Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 84 (as of 3 July 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you click on any of these and then select sort by citation count and repeat the display, you will get the most highly cited papers listed first, a handy way to spot ground-breaking or influential papers.
=======================

To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take the average of noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of July, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010...?...

July 3 9402

Here's a spot check of the noon salesrank average for the stringy top five. At noon on 3 July the five most popular titles (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3021, 6011, 9858, 11749, 16373, averaging out to 9402.4.

================================
Here's the string publication picture for the first five months of successive years.
This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic):

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 3 July, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2630, 2638, 2499, 2105
=====
Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

With June 2010 incompletely reported, the numbers as of 3 July are 3002, 2964, 2925, 2352.

marcus

Jul5-10, 04:49 PM

It's helpful to recall the recent precipitous drop in citations of string research papers by string theorists themselves. The loss of professional interest in that type of research can help us understand the falling off of public interest in popular accounts. More precisely there has been a drop-off in the proportion of highly cited recent papers* which are on string topics, something I reported back in mid-Febrary 2010:

Here are links to Spires "top-50" listings
for 2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
for 2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

These are reported in articles such as: "Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008",
from SLAC-Stanford's online magazine Symmetry-Breaking
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP list has dropped. In the early 2000s it would often happen that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string papers. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33, two thirds of the way down the list...

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

*high energy physics (HEP) research papers
========================
The loss of interest which shows up in the popular book market is to some extent correlated, perhaps with a lag of a few years. These are 3-day averages of the top five string books' salesranks, taken right around the 15th of each month:

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010...?...

For consistency, I take the readings at noon Pacific time. Some recent spot checks at noon on various days:

3July 9402
5July 10097
6July 6518

As of 5 July, the string top five (parallel, elegant, hyperspace, fabric, black hole) ranked 5835, 8434, 8675, 13056, 14486 for an average of 10097.2
Noon 6 July string top five (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) 2166, 4263, 4657, 5482, 16020 for an average of 6517.6

To get rid of some of the random fluctuation, the figure that will be recorded for the mid-month July will as usual be an average of three days in the middle of the month. 14, 15, and 16 July.

marcus

Jul12-10, 05:55 PM

String publication picture for the first five months of successive years.
This does a search at Harvard abstracts (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic):

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 12 July, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2626, 2638, 2502, 2088. By now we've allowed enough time for the May late entries and these figures should remain fairly stable.
=====
Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 12 July, with June 2010 incompletely reported, the numbers are 2999, 2964, 2928, 2345.

Loop QG publication data.
Yearly Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 86 (as of 12 July 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

If you select sort by citation count and repeat the display, the most highly cited papers will be listed first.
=======================

To keep track of the popular physics book market (Amazon salesranks) I show here some mid-month salesrank averages for the string top five. I plan to take the average of noon readings on the 14, 15, 16 of July, extending this record.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010...?...

3July 9402

12July 9572

Sample spot checks of the noon salesrank average for the stringy top five. At noon on 3 July the five most popular titles (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3021, 6011, 9858, 11749, 16373, averaging out to 9402.4.
At noon on 12 July the five most popular titles ( parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 3156, 4381, 4687, 13260, 22376, averaging out to 9572.0.

================================

marcus

Jul14-10, 03:41 PM

At noon 14 July the string topfive average salesrank was 6286.2.
Parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, fabric hardbound ranked 3542, 4584, 6468, 6474, 10363.
Unusual surge in sales, compared with what it's been for the past month or so, could be related to a media event like talkshow appearance or airing a TV series.

At noon 15 July the string topfive average salesrank was 10172.2.
elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, black hole: 3352, 4864, 6146, 7961, 28538.

marcus

Jul16-10, 03:15 PM

marcus

Jul21-10, 10:45 PM

I would like to do the same thing as the following, but with LQC as well as with LQG.

To show what I mean, here is Loop QG publication data.
Yearly Loop research publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 90 (as of 21 July 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

========================
Now suppose we want to watch LQC instead (Loop Cosmology). Trying keyword "quantum cosmology, loop space". I will get the links for some consecutive years and see what turns out:

2006: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +AND+DATE%3D2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2007: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +AND+DATE%3D2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +AND+DATE%3D2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2009: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +AND+DATE%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2010: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +AND+DATE%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (incomplete)

2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 32 (as of 21 July)

I happened to check the popular physics book listings at noon today and the string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 5077, 7529, 7912, 8531, 26510, for an average of 11111.8 (22 July)
See the previous post for how this average has behaved in the past (midmonth averages usually from the 14,15,16th of each month).

marcus

Jul25-10, 12:28 PM

Adding another keyword works slightly better at searching for LQC papers. I'm now trying keyword "quantum cosmology, loop space OR (quantum gravity, loop space AND Friedman model)". Here are links for the same consecutive years:

2006: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2007: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2009: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2010: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 34 (as of 25 July)

Here are the same searches, with results ordered by citation count, to show the most cited papers of each year first.

2006: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

2007: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

2009: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

2010: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

marcus

Jul28-10, 03:46 PM

Revised figures from the Harvard abstracts database:

String publication picture for the first five months of successive years.
This does a search (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic):

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 28 July, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2628, 2641, 2531, 2064.
=====
Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 28 July, the numbers through June appear stable and are 3001, 2968, 2957, 2392.

=================
Mid-month averages of pop string books' salesranks.
Ranks, at noon Pacific, of the five most popular books.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010 8461
August...?...

Spot checks of the popular physics book listings at noon on several days:

22 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 5077, 7529, 7912, 8531, 26510, for an average of 11111.8

27 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) ranked 4060, 6242, 6728, 9543, 14614, for an average of 8237.4

28 July, the string top five (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 5111, 5928, 10002, 10034, 15459, for an average of 9306.8

29 July, the string top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3149, 7988, 10807, 14506, 17604, for an average of 10810.8

==========================
Some LQG research publication data:
Yearly Loop gravity publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 92 (as of 28 July 2010)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Similar data from the subfield LQC (Loop Quantum Cosmology). The Loop cosmology index uses Spires database with keywords "quantum cosmology, loop space OR (quantum gravity, loop space AND Friedman model)". Here are links for consecutive years:

2006: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2007: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2009: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2010: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 35 (as of 28 July)
=====================

For future reference, string publication of the first seven months of successive years. Here are corresponding links:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 28 July: 3333, 3338, 3274, (preliminary, not all July is in) 2540

marcus

Jul29-10, 04:55 PM

The issue of citation counts keeps coming up. The precipitous decline in citations (by string theorists themselves to recent papers by their colleagues) is a remarkable indication of the declining value and interest of recent research.
Here are links to Spires "top-50" listings
for 2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
for 2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

These are reported in articles such as: "Top-cited high-energy physics articles during 2008",
from SLAC-Stanford's online magazine Symmetry-Breaking
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/01/14/top-cited-high-energy-physics-articles-during-2008

String citation standing in the Spires top 50 HEP list has dropped. In the early 2000s it would often happen that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string papers. And the rankings of those twelve were often near the top of the 50 list. By recent, I mean papers that appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.

In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount of just under 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks were 37, 44, 48, 49.

In 2009 only one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33, two thirds of the way down the list. The paper in question was cited 222 times.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
Here's the link to Spires topcites listings:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

Continuing some checks of the popular physics book listings at noon of several days. See previous post for comparison with years back before the decline in popular interest:

22 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 5077, 7529, 7912, 8531, 26510, for an average of 11111.8

27 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) ranked 4060, 6242, 6728, 9543, 14614, for an average of 8237.4

28 July, the string top five (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 5111, 5928, 10002, 10034, 15459, for an average of 9306.8

29 July, the string top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3149, 7988, 10807, 14506, 17604, for an average of 10810.8

30 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 4754, 7603, 9231, 13954, 25062, for an average of 12120.8

String publication of the first seven months of successive years. Harvard abstracts database keywords "superstrings, brane, M-theory, compactification, AdS/CFT, heterotic":

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 30 July: 3333, 3338, 3274, (preliminary) 2623
Late entries for July will bring the last figure up somewhat.

marcus

Aug2-10, 08:06 PM

Revised figures from the Harvard abstracts database:

String publication picture for the first five months of successive years.
This does a search (keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic):

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=5&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=5&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=5&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=5&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 2 August, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2628, 2641, 2550, 2089.
=====
Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 2 August, the numbers through June appear stable and are 3001, 2968, 2976, 2424.
======
Here are some figures for the first seven months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 2 August: 3334, 3338, 3293, 2626 (preliminary, not all July is in)

=================
Mid-month averages of pop string books' salesranks.
Ranks, at noon Pacific, of the five most popular books.

January2007 4396
February2007 3789
November2008 3711
July2009 6485
March2010 7521
April2010 11983
May2010 6884
June2010 9731
July2010 8461
August...?...

Spot checks of the popular physics book listings on several days at noon (or when busy, as close as I could make it):

22 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, fabric, hyperspace, black hole) ranked 5077, 7529, 7912, 8531, 26510, for an average of 11111.8

27 July, the string top five (elegant, parallel, hyperspace, fabric, warped) ranked 4060, 6242, 6728, 9543, 14614, for an average of 8237.4

28 July, the string top five (parallel, elegant, fabric, hyperspace, warped) ranked 5111, 5928, 10002, 10034, 15459, for an average of 9306.8

29 July, the string top five (elegant, fabric, parallel, hyperspace, warped) ranked 3149, 7988, 10807, 14506, 17604, for an average of 10810.8

30 July 12120.8
31 July 9999.2
1 August 14482.6
2 August 12011.2
3 August 16426.4

==========================
Some LQG research publication data:
Yearly Loop gravity publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 92 (as of 2 August)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Similar data from the subfield LQC (Loop Quantum Cosmology). The Loop cosmology index uses Spires database with keywords "quantum cosmology, loop space OR (quantum gravity, loop space AND Friedman model)". Here are links for consecutive years:

2006: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2006&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2007: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2008: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2009: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2010: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE +OR+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DK+FRI EDMAN+MODEL%29+AND+DATE%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 35 (as of 2 August)

marcus

Aug10-10, 03:21 PM

I've been using Amazon salesranks as a rough indicator of public interest in string (as compared with other pop-physics, or simply in general).
So far I have not been including the KINDLE e-book sales, because Amazon lists their salesranks separately and gives no clear indication of how to compare e-book ranks with ordinary book ranks.

Also in past years the e-book sales have not seemed (from what I can tell) to be large enough to compete significantly for places in the top five.

However I looked into this recently and have the impression that the Kindle e-book editions of string books (e.g. by Brian Greene) have now become an important part of the market and should be counted among our "top five", and also that one can get an adequate estimate of what the salesrank would be simply by using the rank of the next real BOOK in the cosmology bestseller list (where all the popular string titles are to be found together with favorites like the Hawking books, Carl Sagan, and so on.)

As of noon 10 August the five most popular string books were elegant, fabric, e-fabric, e-elegant, parallel.
Using the "next real book" estimate their salesranks were 4237, 4562, 11093, 14068, 14558, for an average of 9703.6

If we did not include e-books, the stringy topfive average salesrank would be higher, because the list of top five would have to include a couple of titles of much less popular books.
=======================================
Here is the record so far, which has not included e-book editions but will in future.
Mid-month noon salesrank averages of the five most popular books.

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010:...?...
=======================================

String publication for first six months of successive years. Source is Harvard abstracts database using these keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 10 August, the numbers through June appear stable and are 3002, 2968, 2976, 2418.

marcus

Aug12-10, 03:25 PM

As explained in the previous post, I've started including e-book editions (along with the usual hardbound and paperback) in determining the stringy top five. Since Amazon does not publish the overall salesranks but keeps "books" and e-books separate, I have to estimate the salesrank equivalent. I do this using the "cosmology bestseller" list where all the popular string books appear together with other such as Hawking, Sagan etc.
Simply take the salesrank of the next "real book" in order.

Using this extimate the top five stringies as of noon 12 August were
e-fabric, elegant, e-elegant, fabric, parallel and their ranks were
6223, 6662, 12462, 12835, 18811, for an average of 11398.6

Amazon has identified a pop-cosmology market consisting of lay-reader big vision books about the universe and what fundamental particles it is made of and how it came to be--plus cool awesome stuff like black holes and time travel---they gather all that in the "cosmology" bestseller list. The popular string books are there, so it makes it easy to find their salesranks. Have a look at the list!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/13449/

Here are the midmonth average salesrank readings that I've recorded over the past years. Normally noon readings on the 14, 15, 16th of any given month. I might start averaging 5 readings: like 13, 14, 15, 16, 17th. The idea is to record the average salesrank of the five most popular stringy books. When I started checking this number was typically around 3000-4000. Now, with declining interest and popularity, it tends to be higher (although events like a science fair or publicity surrounding a new TV series on the Universe can bring it down around 5000-6000 from time to time.)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: ...?...

marcus

Aug14-10, 04:00 PM

Noon midmonth readings:

13 August 8515.2
14 August 8010.6
15 August ...?
16 August ...?
17 August ...?

On 13 August the five most popular stringy books (now including electronic editions) were elegant, e-fabric, parallel, e-elegant, fabric, and their salesranks averaged 8515.2.
On 14 August the five most popular stringy books were elegant, e-fabric, parallel, fabric, e-elegant, and their salesranks averaged 8010.6.
========

Update on LQG research publication data:
Yearly Loop gravity publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 94 (as of 14 August)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Aug16-10, 04:59 PM

Noon midmonth average salesranks of the five currently most popular string books:

13 August 8515.2
14 August 8010.6
15 August 8374.8
16 August 9224.0
17 August 13906.6

These average out to 9606.6

On 13 August the five most popular stringy books (now including electronic editions) were elegant, e-fabric, parallel, e-elegant, fabric, and their salesranks averaged 8515.2.
On 14 August the five most popular stringy books were elegant, e-fabric, parallel, fabric, e-elegant, and their salesranks averaged 8010.6.
On 15 August the string top five were elegant, fabric parallel, e-fabric, e-elegant.
On 16 August the string top five were fabric, elegant, e-fabric, parallel, hyperspace.
On 17 August the string top five (elegant, e-fabric, hyperspace, fabric, parallel) ranked 5256, 10315, 10960, 15872, 27130, for an average of 13906.6.

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606

...Here are the midmonth average salesrank readings that I've recorded over the past years. Normally noon readings on the 14, 15, 16th of any given month. I might start averaging 5 readings: like 13, 14, 15, 16, 17th. The idea is to record the average salesrank of the five most popular stringy books. When I started checking this number was typically around 3000-4000. Now, with declining interest and popularity, it tends to be higher (although events like a science fair or publicity surrounding a new TV series on the Universe can bring it down around 5000-6000 from time to time.)...

marcus

Aug22-10, 08:33 PM

Here are links to Spires "top-50" listings of the most-cited high-energy physics papers
for 2008:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/annual.shtml
for 2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml

What I've been watching here is how many of the top 50 papers are recent string---recent in the sense of having appeared in the past five years, counting back from the year in question. For the year 2008, it would be 2004-2008.
In the early 2000s it would typically happen that around twelve out of the top fifty would be recent string papers. And the rankings of those twelve would often be near the top of the 50 list.
In 2008 four of the fifty top-cited HEP papers were recent string. And the four recent string papers that made the top 50 list had average citecount around 180, which put them down near the bottom of the list. Their ranks in the top 50 were 37, 44, 48, 49.
In 2009 one of the top-cited HEP fifty, was a recent string paper. And it was number 33.

Details were given in this post:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=372499
=====================

String publication for the first seven months of successive years:
Here are some figures for the first seven months:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 22 August: 3334, 3338, 3293, 2627 (preliminary, July is still not all catalogued.)

Noon salesrank averages of string top five. Quite a bit of fluctuation lately, which may have to do with a new popular-audience book by Hawking scheduled to go on sale in a couple of weeks. Should raise public excitement regarding theories of the universe and related matters.

19 August 11443.0
20 August 11506.2
21 August 9355.6
22 August 6952.0
23 August 10516.2

The top five always seem to be from this list of six: fabric, e-fabric, elegant, e-elegant, parallel, hyperspace. For instance at noon 23 August the five most popular string were elegant, fabric, e-elegant, e-fabric, parallel, with respective ranks 6044, 6876, 11400, 13899, 14362 giving the average sbown here of 10516.2.

marcus

Aug25-10, 05:44 PM

String publication for the first seven months of successive years, using
keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 25 August: 3334, 3338, 3304, 2743 (July may still not be all catalogued.)

Noon salesrank averages of string top five. Quite a bit of fluctuation lately, which may have to do with a new popular-audience book by Hawking scheduled to go on sale in a couple of weeks. Should raise public excitement regarding theories of the universe and related matters.

19 August 11443.0
20 August 11506.2
21 August 9355.6
22 August 6952.0
23 August 10516.2

The top five always seem to be from this list of six: fabric, e-fabric, elegant, e-elegant, parallel, hyperspace. For instance at noon 23 August the five most popular string were elegant, fabric, e-elegant, e-fabric, parallel, with respective ranks 6044, 6876, 11400, 13899, 14362 giving the average shown here of 10516.2.

Though I have not yet seen much about the new Hawking book "Grand Design", I'm going to start provisionally counting it as stringy. According to some reports, it promotes the vision of M-theory as TOE. The book goes on sale 7 September, will presumably sell well, and will help improve the string topfive average (reducing the unusually large salesrank numbers seen of late).

So probably for a while the day's top five string books will tend to be drawn from this list of seven: grand, fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace, e-fabric, e-elegant.

A new Roger Penrose book is also due out in September, but since the book will not be in any sense stringy it will not affect our keeping track of this index of reader interest.

Just now (25 Aug) when I looked the top five (grand, fabric, elegant, parallel, hyperspace) ranked 2331, 6455, 9528, 17898, 19624 for an average of 11167.2
Checking again, at noon 26 August, grand, parallel, elegant, fabric, e-fabric ranked 373, 9768, 10368, 10404, 15695 for an average of 9321.6.
If the Hawking book turns out on balance NOT to be stringy (a judgment call) that would make the average string saleranks quite a bit larger.

marcus

Sep1-10, 03:43 PM

It's been two weeks since I posted LQG research publication data, so I'll update:
This annual Loop gravity publication index uses the Spires base with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 96 (as of 1 September)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

So far despite a wave of orders for the new Hawking book (which pending review I will assume is stringy) the string topfive salesrank is still around twice what it was as recently as 2 years ago---suggesting a drop-off of interest. Some spot checks at noon on several days:

30 August 8040.2
31 August 9765.8
1 September 9615.2
2 September 9954.8

At noon on 1 September the five most popular string books (grand, elegant, parallel, fabric, e-fabric) ranked 659, 7540, 11299, 12111, 16467, for an average of 9615.2
At noon on 2 September the five most popular string books (grand, elegant, parallel, e-fabric, e-eleganty) ranked 9, 4249, 7533, 16321, 21662, for an average of 9954.8

To put this in perspective here are mid-month averages I happened to record in previous years, as well as some in 2010:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(when possible, recorded at noon on the 14th 15th, and 16th of each month)
January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606

String research publication for the first 6 months of successive years still shows the curious sharp drop we saw earlier.
The source is Harvard abstracts database using keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 1 September, the numbers through June appear stable and are 3002, 2968, 2987, 2436.

marcus

Sep3-10, 11:54 PM

The whole string book market has been changed by a crop of new books that all seem likely to become very popular:

Shing-Tung Yau "The Shape of Inner Space" http://www.amazon.com/Shape-Inner-Space-Universes-Dimensions/dp/0465020232/ Officially goes on sale 7 September 2010

John Gribbin's book "In Search of the Multiverse" http://www.amazon.com/Search-Multiverse-Parallel-Dimensions-Frontiers/dp/0470613521/ A new edition appeared 24 August 2010.

Hawking's book "The Grand Design" Officially goes on sale 7 September 2010.
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553805371
Advance orders have made it #1 book at Amazon.

Brian Greene's new title is scheduled to appear in January 2011 "The Hidden Reality--Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos"
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Cosmos/dp/0307265633/

marcus

Sep6-10, 04:08 PM

Pop-string is suddenly huge!
The average salesrank of the five most popular string books has never been lower, as far back as I can remember. Here are some noon readings, 6 September

grand 2
abridged audio grand 1134
yau 1269
elegant 1944
multiverse 2005

That makes the topfive average 1270.8
I've been used to seeing numbers like 4000 (a couple of years ago) and 8000 (recently). So a topfive average salesrank of 1000 indicates unusually strong sales.

As far as I can see the huge public appetite is for books about the universe claiming to explain why it exists or how it came about, and more specifically multiverse books. And these multiverse books (all except the new Roger Penrose book) tend to devote a chapter or so to String Landscape and M-theory. At least I think they all do. I haven't seen Hawking's. So I count them as stringy even if that's not the main focus.

The titles to look out for, if you follow this new craze, are
Grand Design (Hawking Mlodinow)
Shape of Inner (Yau)
Search for Multiverse (Gribbin)
and eventually Hidden Reality (Greene) but that is not yet ready for sale.

marcus

Sep10-10, 03:55 PM

The other indices I've been watching are essentially unchanged since the last update, so if curious just scroll back a few posts. What has changed remarkably is the pop-sci book market.

I am calling the new Hawking Mlodinow a "string" book because it promotes the idea that there is an "M-theory" (so far the actual theory is missing but perhaps someday it will be formulated) and that this theory describes a huge landscape of possible versions of physics and the book also promotes the unsubstantiated idea that a multitude of universes exist exhibiting all these versions of physics.

This "Multiverse" idea conveniently hides the string theoreticians' failure to explain the universe that we actually see--to offer a unified coherent and predictive theory of the world nature gives us. It elevates string/M to an imaginary throne: the "Law Governing the Multiverse".

So even though the book has little concrete to say about string theory and deals with (so far nonexistent) M in only the vaguest terms, because of its M/multiverse message I count the current Hawking as stringy. Because of its popularity the index we are watching--the average salesrank of the five currently most popular string books--has improved enormously. It is now down around 1000 and has been so for several days. I will record whatever it is at mid-month. Here is a spot check indicating what to expect:

At noon 10 September the topfive stringy books (grand, e-grand, Yau, Gribbin, audio-grand) ranked 2, 290, 1529, 1734, 1898, for an average of 1090.6. Parenthetically here, by Yau I refer to the "Shape of Inner Space" book, and by Gribbin I mean his "In Search of the Multiverse". Besides the conventional format edition of "The Grand Design", there is an electronic edition and an abridged audio edition--as you can see, all three are doing well.

To put the 10 September number in perspective I will show it with some mid-month averages recorded previously:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(when possible, recorded at noon on the 14th 15th, and 16th of each month)
January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606

Spot check for comparison
10 September 1091

String research publication for the first 6 months of successive years still shows the curious sharp drop we saw earlier.
The source is Harvard abstracts database using keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=6&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=6&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=6&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

As of 10 September, the numbers through June are 3003, 2975, 3013, 2475.

marcus

Sep14-10, 04:01 PM

Popular string book market completely changed.
For most of the past 4 years the string top five, the list of five most popular string books, has been dominated by Greene and Kaku, always the same four books. At noon today 14 September it was Hawking and Yau. Grand, e-grand, Yau, audio-Grand, elegant ranked 2, 81, 812, 1584, 1844 for an average of 864.6

=====================

String publication for the first seven months of successive years, using
keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=7&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=7&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=7&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=7&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July figures as of 14 September: 3335, 3345, 3331, 2815

marcus

Sep16-10, 08:40 PM

The string topfive midmonth average salesrank is in for September.

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(when possible, recorded at noon on the 14th 15th, and 16th of each month)
January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060

This is a huge jump in popularity associated with the Hawking book that just came out. I don't think "Grand Design" actually teaches much about string, but I count it as stringy because it promotes "M-theory" as the law of the imagined "Multiverse". All the different solutions of M-theory correspond to different versions of physics and (assumed to exist) different universes.
It seems to me this is very stringy thinking and the book should be counted.

All 3 of its editions ( regular hardcover, audio*, and e-book) came out simultaneously, the beginning of this month, and all three are making the stringy topfive.

Today when I checked the top five (grand, e-grand, Yau, audio-grand, elegant) ranked
3, 32, 1145, 1318, 2769 for an average of 1053.4

The same number computed on three consecutive days at mid-month:

14 Sept 864.6
15 Sept 1260.8
16 Sept 1053.4

gave a mid-September average of 1059.6, which I have recorded above.

*earlier notices said the audio version was abridged---now I see it described as unabridged.
=====================

Just out of curiosity (although not needed for the mid-month record) I checked again on 17th. At noon the string topfive (grand, e-grand, Yau, audio-grand, elegant) ranked 3, 29, 1125, 1965, 2757 for an average of 1175.8.

marcus

Sep27-10, 03:12 PM

String publication for the first eight months of successive years, using
keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=8&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=8&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=8&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=8&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August figures as of 27 September:
3686, 3726, 3706, 3087

===========================

In the popular book market, at noon on 27 September the top five string books (e-grand, grand, Yau, audio-grand, elegant) ranked 10, 10, 1006, 2249, 3201, for an average of 1295.2

===========================

The annual Loop gravity publication index that I'm tracking uses the Spires database with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 98 (as of 27 September)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Sep30-10, 12:46 AM

String publication for the first eight months of successive years, using
keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=8&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=8&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=8&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=8&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August figures as of 27 September:
3686, 3726, 3707, 3462

===========================

In the popular book market, at noon on 29 September the top five string books (e-grand, grand, Yau, elegant, e-elegant) ranked 14, 14, 1321, 3122, 4278, for an average of 1749.8

===========================

The annual Loop gravity publication index that I'm tracking uses the Spires database with DESY keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 102 (as of 29 September)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Oct15-10, 03:45 PM

Time to do a midmonth review of the popular book market to see how pop-string books are doing. Counting Hawking *Grand Design* as a string book because of its favorable mention of M-theory, though it may not teach anything very definite about the subject.

I recorded the average salesrank of the string top five---the five most popular stringy books as of noon on the day in question.

13 October 1332.4
14 October 1278.4
15 October 1544.4
16 October 1438.8
17 October ....

As an example, at noon on 15 October the top five (e-grand, grand, Yau, hyperspace, parallel) ranked 33,33, 965, 2565, 4126, for an average of 1544.4.

EDIT: At noon 16 Oct, the top five average was 1438.8.

marcus

Oct17-10, 07:19 PM

The average salesrank of the string top five---the five most popular stringy books as of noon on the day in question. For example, at noon on 15 October the top five (e-grand, grand, Yau, hyperspace, parallel) ranked 33,33, 965, 2565, 4126, for an average of 1544.4.

13 October 1332.4
14 October 1278.4
15 October 1544.4
16 October 1438.8
17 October 1125.8

The resulting 5-day average for mid-October is 1344.0, extends the following record:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344

===================
String publication for the first eight months of successive years, using keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=8&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=8&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=8&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=8&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August figures as of 17 October:
3686, 3726, 3713, 3475

===========================

A yearly Loop gravity publication index[/B] that uses Spires database with keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 111 (as of 17 October)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=[/QUOTE]

marcus

Oct22-10, 04:08 PM

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344

I made a spot check on 22 October and it was: topfive (e-grand, grand, Yau, elegant, fabric) ranked 53, 53, 1608, 2986, 4506 for an average of 1841.2--up some from mid September and mid October. So it may be that Hawking Shock caused a temporary run that will subside.

===================
String publication for the first eight months of successive years, using keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, compactification, heterotic, AdS/CFT

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=8&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=8&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=8&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=8&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August figures as of 22 October:
3686, 3728, 3737, 3492

===========================

A yearly Loop gravity publication index[/B] that uses Spires database with keywords "spin, foam", "field theory, group", "quantum gravity, loop space", and "quantum cosmology, loop space".

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 113 (as of 22 October)

Link for 2008 Loop research papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (about 1/5 of year still to go):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Oct27-10, 04:40 PM

A spot check on the indices.

Popular string topfive average salesrank was 2109.6---e-grand, grand, Yau, elegant, e-fabric ranked 61, 61, 1560, 4091, 4775.

String publication index for January-August was 3488, a slight correction.

Loop publication for 2010 (as of 27 October) was 117.
=======================

I'll get the links ready for string publication through the first 9 months of successive years.

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=9&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=9&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=9&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=9&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August+September figures as of 27 October:
4053, 4087, 4158, 3814

marcus

Nov3-10, 07:29 PM

It's been a week, so I'll do another spot check on the indices.

Popular string topfive average salesrank was 1642.2---grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, fabric ranked 61, 61, 1858, 2775, 3956
=============

String publication index for the first 9 months of consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=9&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=9&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=9&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=9&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August+September figures as of 3 November:
4053, 4087, 4158, 3812
===============

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 121 (as of 3 November)

marcus

Nov13-10, 03:35 PM

Over a week, time for another spot check.

As of noon 13 November popular string topfive average salesrank was 2551.4---grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, parallel ranked 52, 214, 1390, 5312, 5789
=============

String publication index for the first 9 months of consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=9&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=9&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=9&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=9&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Jan+Feb+March+April+May+June+July+August+September figures as of 13 November:
4053, 4088, 4151, 3837
===============

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 126 (as of 13 November)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Nov15-10, 03:54 PM

For the November midmonth salesrank average

13 Nov 2551.4
14 Nov 2304.6
15 Nov 2345.0
16 Nov ...
17 Nov ...

To illustrate, at noon on 15 November the stringy topfive (grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, e-elegant) ranked 64, 260, 1828, 4324, 5249, for an average of 2345.0

The past history of the midmonth averages has gone like this:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 ...

What we are seeing starting in September 2010 is the effect of the Hawking blockbuster, combined to a lesser extent with the popularity of Yau's new book.

marcus

Nov17-10, 03:29 PM

The November midmonth string salesrank average (over 5 days) was 2220.0

13 Nov 2551.4
14 Nov 2304.6
15 Nov 2345.0
16 Nov 2052.8
17 Nov 1846.2

To illustrate, at noon on 15 November the stringy topfive (grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, e-elegant) ranked 64, 260, 1828, 4324, 5249, for an average of 2345.0
and at noon on 17 November the stringy topfive (grand, e-grand, Yau, e-elegant, elegant) ranked 69, 182, 2689, 3091, 3200, for an average of 1846.2

Whenever I've happened to record them in the past, the midmonth averages have gone like this:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220

Starting in September 2010 we see the effect of the Hawking blockbuster, which is primarily a *multiverse* book rather than an especially stringy one---but can be counted as string-pop because of touting M-theory as an overarching law governing the multitudinous versions of physics. This will soon be followed by the arrival of Brian Greene's new book "The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos..." in January 2011.

marcus

Nov22-10, 09:00 PM

String publication index for the first 10 months of consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=10&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=10&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=10&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=10&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+September+October figures as of 22 November: 4529, 4506, 4512, 4187
===============

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 129 (as of 22 November)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Nov27-10, 04:19 PM

Not much change since mid-month in the indices. On the popular book front, the stringy top five on 27 November (grand, e-grand, elegant, Yau, fabric) ranked 76, 326, 3314, 3625, 4663, for an average of 2400.8. Recall that the mid-month average for November was 2220. I'll update the Loop publication index for the year--which seems likely to turn out more or less the same as 2008-2009

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 146
2010 135 (as of 27 November)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

The string publication figure for the first 10 months of 2010, defined earlier, is still at 4187 (may still increase some with late entries.)

marcus

Nov29-10, 03:53 PM

Curious blip in the popular physics book market.
Today at noon Bojo's Loop cosmology book ranked 3255 among all amazon books:
http://www.amazon.com/Once-Before-Time-Whole-Universe/dp/0307272850/ref=pd_ts_b_12?ie=UTF8&s=books

On the specifically physics bestseller list it was #12, behind Hawking but ahead of Greene (elegant, #14) and Yau (#15) and Kaku (parallel, #17). Seems some people read Brian Clegg's review in the WSJ.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622591025130892.html#p rintMode

Later today the book ranked 2250 (at 2PM) and then subsided to 2410.
It was #2 on the cosmology bestsellers list. (After Hawking's latest.)

Now (7PM pacific time) it's #1855 among all the books amazon sells. Respectable showing!

marcus

Dec2-10, 11:32 AM

marcus

Dec8-10, 03:20 PM

Update on the string publication index for the first 10 months of consecutive years:

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=10&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=10&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=10&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=10&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+September+October figures as of 2 December: 4514, 4573, 4513, 4233
===============

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 141 (as of 8 December)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

================

A spot check of the popular book market at noon pacific, 8 December.
The average string topfive rank was #2627.4,
those of the five most popular (grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, hyperspace) being 104, 870, 2778, 3002, 6383

================
String publication figures for first 11 months of successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=11&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+October+November figures as of 8 December: 4942, 4930, 4921, 4484 (preliminary)
===============

marcus

Dec13-10, 01:40 PM

As a gauge of popular interest in string I've been recording midmonth averages of the salesranks of the current five most popular string books. The readings are normally taken at noon Pacific time or as close thereto as I can conveniently manage. In the months when I've recorded them, midmonth averages have gone like this:

Midmonth average of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220

Starting in September 2010 we see the effect of the Hawking's Grand Design, which can be counted as string-pop because it suggests M-theory (if and when finally formulated) could turn out to be an overarching law governing a multitude of versions of physics actually realized in a "multiverse".

This month the plan is to record 5 days around the 15th.

13 Dec 2787.0
14 Dec ...
15 Dec ...
16 Dec ...
17 Dec ...

At noon 13 December the top five string books (grand, e-grand, Yau, elegant, hyperspace) ranked 98, 1628, 3617, 3975, 4617, for an average of 2787.0
================
String research publication figures for first 11 months of successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=11&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+October+November figures as of 13 December: 4952, 4965, 4953, 4667 (preliminary)
===============

marcus

Dec14-10, 10:13 AM

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 146 (as of 14 December)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

13 Dec 2787.0
14 Dec 2757.2
15 Dec ...
16 Dec ...
17 Dec ...

At noon 14 December the top five string books (grand, e-grand, elegant, Yau, hyperspace) ranked 108, 1353, 3065, 4201, 5059, for an average of 2757.2

marcus

Dec16-10, 11:21 AM

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 147 (as of 16 December)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

===========================

Popular market for stringy books, mid-December noon readings
13 Dec 2787.0
14 Dec 2757.2
15 Dec 2791.2
16 Dec 2692.8
17 Dec ...

At noon 15 December the top five string books (grand, e-grand, elegant, Yau, parallel) ranked 113, 1711, 3475, 3844, 4813, for an average of 2791.2

At noon 16 December the top five string books (grand, e-grand, elegant, Yau, parallel) ranked 121, 1503, 2821, 3768, 5251, for an average of 2692.8

Midmonth salesrank averages of string topfive
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2700 (estim.)
January 2011 ....

================
String research publication figures for successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic, as of 16 December: 5494, 5450, 5507, 5018 (preliminary, will increase)
===============

marcus

Dec17-10, 08:39 PM

At noon 17 December the top five string books (grand, e-grand, elegant, Yau, parallel) ranked 107, 1588, 2435, 3686, 4665 for an average of 2496.2

mid-December noon readings
13 Dec 2787.0
14 Dec 2757.2
15 Dec 2791.2
16 Dec 2692.8
17 Dec 2496.2

Midmonth average: 2704.9

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 ....

marcus

Dec21-10, 05:25 PM

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 40
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 148 (as of 21 December)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

===========================

String research publication figures for successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic, as of 21 December: 5494, 5450, 5508, 5032 (preliminary, will increase)

String research publication figures for first 11 months of successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=11&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+October+November figures as of 21 December: 4952, 4965, 4953, 4669

marcus

Jan4-11, 01:50 PM

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 152 (as of 4 Jan 2011)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

===========================

String research publication figures for first 11 months of successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=11&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=11&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=11&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=11&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic.
Jan+...+October+November figures as of 4 Jan 2011: 4990, 4973, 5144, 4971

marcus

Jan6-11, 10:48 AM

Loop publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 154 (as of 6 Jan 2011)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

===========================

String research publication figures for successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic, as of 6 Jan: 5533, 5460, 5699, 5415 (preliminary, will increase)
========================

Around the beginning of the year, sometime in Jan or Feb usually, Spires posts the "top 50" High Energy Physics papers. The 50 papers most cited during the past year.
Here is a reference to the 2009 list, giving some links:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2580491#post2580491

Here is the 2010 top 50 list (except it has now been enlarged to show the top 100 papers):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml

It's interesting to see what recent papers get highly cited, recent being from the past 5 years, to gauge the value of current research.

In the early Naughties (e.g. 2001-2003) it was common for 10 or more recent string papers to make it into the top 50 list. There was a lot of interest and a lot of cite-worthy papers were being written. In 2009 only one recent paper made it. In 2010 no recent string paper made it into the top 50.

Spires has adopted a new practice and starting this year it extended the list to show the "top-100". There was one recent string in the top 100. #62, which got 146 cites in 2010. In case anyone is curious that paper was http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1218

=======================
In the popular market, stringy books are doing well, if you count Hawking's new one as stringy because of its plug for M-theory as possible "theory of everything". At noon on 6 January the topfive stringy books (e-grand, grand, hidden, elegant, e-elegant) ranked 175, 175, 2147, 2279, 3415, for an average of 1638.2.

marcus

Jan16-11, 04:01 PM

At noon 15 January the top five string books (e-grand, hidden, grand, e-elegant, Yau) ranked 186, 186, 255, 1890, 3072 for an average of 1117.8

The mid-January average (14-16th) was 1252.2

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252

We are witnessing an enormous popularity of multiverse books. In September, just a few months ago, it was "The Grand Design" and now it is "The Hidden Reality", which is basically about the various different multiverse notions (as one sees by looking down the TOC). These books are not primarily string, although they invoke "landscape" (the vast variety of different versions of physics resulting from different ways of wrapping up the "extra dimensions".) Lack of determinacy in the pre-eminent theory suggests somehow that nature should actually realize each of the mathematical possibilities---separate regions governed by each theoretically possible set of laws. Lack of a principle of selection encourages belief in existence of a multiverse. Plus the idea appeals to popular imagination.

================

Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 156 (as of 16 Jan 2011)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

marcus

Jan21-11, 02:08 PM

Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 157 (as of 21 Jan 2011)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

String research publication figures for successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic: 5533, 5462, 5699, 5412 (as of 21 Jan)

Spires top cited articles during some past years
(with number of recent string papers making the top fifty)

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

Papers are counted as recent if they appeared during the past five years. In 2009 one of the fifty top-cited papers was recent string (recent being 2005-2009). It was number 33.
In 2001 twelve of the fifty were recent string (recent being 1997-2001). Their ranks were 2,3,4,5,6,13,14,17,22,39,49, and 50.

marcus

Jan28-11, 04:34 PM

Significant changes in the 2010 numbers so I will update the previous post:

Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 159 (as of 28 Jan 2011)

2010 search:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

String research publication figures for successive years

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Harvard Abstracts, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic: 5534, 5462, 5704, 5542 (as of 28 Jan)

Spires top cited articles during some past years
(with number of recent string papers making the top fifty)

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

Papers are counted as recent if they appeared during the past five years. In 2009 one of the fifty top-cited papers was recent string (recent being 2005-2009). It was number 33.
In 2001 twelve of the fifty were recent string (recent being 1997-2001). Their ranks were 2,3,4,5,6,13,14,17,22,39,49, and 50.

marcus

Feb13-11, 03:04 PM

A huge pop-multiverse book buying frenzy. At noon, Brian Greene's new book is #15 at amazon. The new Hawking hardback is #331.

BG's "Hidden Reality" and SH "Grand Design" are multiverse books, not proper string books.
The idea that there could be a law of the universe that instead of having a single solution has multiple solutions and that therefore there must be multiple universes.

Scientists didn't use to make that jump. If they had a law or math model with adjustable parameters they would say let's adjust the constants so we get the right solution, the one that fits the data*. They wouldn't start fantasizing about there being a different universe for every possible set of parameters.

At any rate I count these multiverse books as string books and have been keeping track of the average salesrank of whatever are the 5 most popular string books that day.

We just have to guess the salesranks of e-books by their positions on the physics bestseller list, because amazon ranks kindle separately, so today my estimate is the noon topfive average is about 190

15, 15, 300, 300, 331

The top five were e-hidden, hidden, e-elegant, e-grand, grand

*the simple model-fitting plan breaks down when your theory fails to have a tractable set of parameters to make systematic adjustments on.

marcus

Feb15-11, 03:30 PM

As noted earlier the pop string topfive average is dominated by new multiverse books by Greene and Hawking. I record an average of noon salesrank readings around the middle of the month.

14 February 195
15 February 174

At noon on the 15th the five most popular string books were hidden, e-hidden, e-grand, e-elegant, grand. The electronic "kindle" books have taken over a large share of the pop physics book market.

marcus

Feb16-11, 03:32 PM

The 16 February noon reading was 301. So I'll average 3 days and call it the mid-February topfive stringy salesrank average. (195+174+301)/3 = 223

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223

We are witnessing an enormous wave of popularity of multiverse books. It started in September with "The Grand Design" and has now risen further with "The Hidden Reality".

At noon on 16 Feb the five most popular string books were hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-elegant, and e-grand.

marcus

Feb28-11, 03:25 PM

The storm of enthusiasm for pop multiverse books shows no signs of abating. At noon 28 Feb the top five stringy/multi books, e-hidden, hidden, e-grand, e-elegant, grand, ranked an estimated 97, 97, 247, 279, 430 for an average of 230.
This is much the same as it's been all the past month, whenever I've looked.
In the case of Amazon's "kindle" e-books I estimate their equivalent print-book ranks based on the separate kindle ranking provided by Amazon.

To follow trends in professional research literature, I've begun using the German mirror of Stanford Spires. The Stanford homesite has become too slow, and often times out. So here is the mirror:
http://www-library.desy.de/spires/hep/

So for example here is Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 160 (as of 28 Feb 2011)

2010 search:
http://www-library.desy.de/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Keeping track of string research publication, I see no clear trend. Here are figures for four successive years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 using the
Harvard Abstracts search, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic: 5549, 5471, 5734, 5667 (as of 28 Feb)

Fra

Feb28-11, 03:43 PM

The storm of enthusiasm for multiverse books shows no signs of abating.

What is the world coming to?

/Fredrik

marcus

Mar1-11, 06:34 PM

Hah hah! Well you tell me where it's going, if you see any significance. Lacking evidence I must suppose that multi-dreams are just a temporary fad.

I fear that in the long run authors like Greene and Hawking undermine the respect for science.

Confusion and mistrust build up, after being taken for a ride and disappointed folks will tend to suspect subsequent popularizers of half-baked hucksterism.

AFAICS the only safe path for science in the long run is avoid excesses of speculation and stick staunchly to the rigorous Empiricist tradition. Don't raise unfounded hopes or peddle fantasy to sell books.

I need to keep this DESY database search link, for recent quantum cosmology papers, handy so I'll put it here for the time being:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+cosmology+and+date+%3E+2008&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Fra

Mar2-11, 12:12 PM

Hah hah! Well you tell me where it's going, if you see any significance. Lacking evidence I must suppose that multi-dreams are just a temporary fad.

I fear that in the long run authors like Greene and Hawking undermine the respect for science.

Confusion and mistrust build up, after being taken for a ride and disappointed folks will tend to suspect subsequent popularizers of half-baked hucksterism.

I'm associating to the romantic era beeing a reaction to the enlightenment. I'm starting to think that the lack of success or reason with regards to unification and QG maybe have created this "romantic reaction" of mysterious multiverses... when reason fails what do you do? ;)

Worst case we just have to ride it out, and await the next counter reaction. But I feel the counter reaction coming already... it could be the inferencial views that is like a purification of empiricism. I see it as far away from multiverses or ensembles of universes you can come.

I'm not sure what to expect. But the romantic era laste for what was it a century? When did this multiverse stuff get started? then add 100 years... before the train is turning?

Maybe the amplitude is lower these days, but then at least overall humanity is improving.

/Fredrik

marcus

Mar3-11, 04:06 PM

But remember Fra, the multiverse fad is primarily in the POPULAR market.
I think you are right that at the level of real scientists (when they are not writing pop-slop or trying to grab headlines) the reaction against multivism is already in progress.

There was a great workshop at Princeton IAS trying and condemning multivism already back in 2008 as I recall, or maybe 2009. they even brought Lenny Susskind to it, to be sure he got the message. We hear a lot less about it now than say in 2006.

What we have to take notice of is the wave or fad at popular level. It appeals to people as a viral fantasy.
The storm of enthusiasm for pop multiverse books shows no signs of abating. At noon 28 Feb the top five stringy/multi books, e-hidden, hidden, e-grand, e-elegant, grand, ranked an estimated 97, 97, 247, 279, 430 for an average of 230...

Today the noon average ranking was in the 300s, having stayed a long time in the 200s.
At noon 3 March e-hidden, hidden, e-elegant, e-grand, grand ranked 133, 133, 436, 546, 673 for an average of 348

Oriako

Mar3-11, 11:52 PM

ZapperZ

Mar4-11, 06:31 AM

Damn You! I just read this ENTIRE thread and spend over an hour doing it, now I'm behind on my homework.... God PhysicsForums ruins me sometimes.

Extremely interesting stuff though, it's good to see that in the scientific community (researchers) there is less interest in string theory, multiverses, etc.

They should be focusing on quantum gravity, REGULAR cosmology, and other empirical fields that can be tested by observations... here, in OUR universe!

Thanks for doing all the amazing work, keep it up... but damn this forum for snatching up at least an hour of my time every day, it's like an addiction.

But this is really not new, nor is it a revelation. If you look at the percentage of members in the various divisions of the APS, you'll see that none of these fields are that big. A lot of people are often surprised when I tell them that the largest percentage of practicing physicists are in the field of condensed matter physics/material science. These are the people responsible for your iPod, iPhone, and other modern electronics.

Physics isn't just a subject dealing with esoteric stuff. The largest percentage of it actually deals with knowledge that has a direct bearing on how we live.

Zz.

marcus

Mar8-11, 01:02 AM

There is a new research literature database in beta version called InSpire. Stanford-SLAC is offering it as an improvement over their old workhorse Spires. I don't know how much work it would be to switch over.
Here is an update on the indices that I've been using until now.

Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 141
2009 147
2010 161 (as of 7 March 2011)

2010 search:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

In string research publication I see no clear trend. Here are figures for four successive years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 using the Harvard Abstracts search, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic: 5549, 5471, 5735, 5669 (as of 7 March)

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Spires top cited articles during some past years
(with number of recent string papers making the top fifty)

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

In this tally, papers count as recent if they appeared during the past five years. For instance in 2009 one of the fifty top-cited papers was recent string (recent being 2005-2009). It was number 33.
In 2001 twelve of the fifty were recent string (recent being 1997-2001). Their ranks were 2,3,4,5,6,13,14,17,22,39,49, and 50.

In the popular book department, String is enjoying a period of unusually high popularity associated with the appearance of Multiverse books by Hawking and by Greene. Today (7 March) at noon the five most popular books (hidden, e-hidden, e-elegant, grand, and e-grand) ranked 89, 167, 294, 423, 552, for an average of 305. This is better by more than a factor of 10 than has been the case for several years. In the case of e-books these ranks must be estimated from their separate e-book ranks which Amazon provides. Here are some recorded noon averages around the middle of past months for comparison.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223

sutivnn

Mar9-11, 11:42 PM

Smolin's most recent book, The Trouble with Physics, seems to be hanging on to a fairly constant market share, relative to the most popular string reading. It could be that interest in both string apologetics and critique is fading.nội thất fami (http://www.noithat-fami.net) nội thất 190 (http://www.noithat190.net.vn), noi that fami (http://www.noithat-fami.net) và noi that 190 (http://www.noithat190.net.vn)
In any case at noon on 24 August, Trouble ranked 9831 and the five string books currently most popular (fabric, parallel, blackhole, elegant, hyperspace) averaged 7726.2, making the ratio 0.79
Likewise on 25 August the ratio was 0.77. Trouble 13004 and string topfive average 9997.2.
The stringy top five were fabric, elegant, parallel, blackhole, idiot guide.

thanks !

marcus

Mar10-11, 04:06 PM

Hi Sutivnn!

You quoted a very old post, I fear the information is way out of date. But thanks for your comment.
By now Smolin's book has pretty well dropped out of sight. The new fashion in popular physics speculation is Multiverse. There is no popularized critique to take the place of Smolin's book in this new context of Multiversism.

There are books by Greene and by Hawking that are selling fantastically well. I do not recommend reading them, or speculating about Multivism, but I watch to see what science or pop-science the public buys.

Today 10 March at noon the Amazon ranks of the top-five string books (hidden, e-elegant, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) were (estimated in the kindle case) 130, 229, 252, 499, 746, for an average of 371.2

I abbreviate: hidden means Greene's Hidden Reality. e-hidden is the electronic version, e-elegant is the electronic version of Greene's Elegant Universe. grand is Hawking's Grand Design.

marcus

Mar14-11, 03:55 PM

For the March mid-month reading of the popular stringy book market I will take noon (Pacific) averages on three days: 14,15, and 16 March.

Today at noon (14 March) the five most popular stringy books (e-hidden, hidden, e-elegant, e-grand, grand) had ranks 135, 143, 151, 401, 669. In the case of the e-books these had to be estimated from the separate Kindle ranks which Amazon posts, and their places in the physics bestseller list.
The 14 March topfive average was thus 300.

That is way better than it's been in the past:

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223

The top stringy books are now mainly focused on Multiverse, and currently multivism seems to have strong popular appeal---so these books Greene Hidden Reality and Hawking Grand Design are selling fantastically well.

marcus

Mar16-11, 04:11 PM

At noon on three consecutive mid-March day the stringy topfive readings were
300, 266, 480, for an average of 349.

To give a little detail, at noon on 16 March the five most popuiar stringy books (hidden, e-elegant, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 185, 375, 388, 682, 771 which averaged out to 480.
Amazon gives separate ranks for "kindle" e-books so their ranks have to be estimated linearly from the ranks of their immediate hardcopy neighbors on the bestseller list.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349

marcus

Mar22-11, 10:53 PM

Some updates on research literature

Loop research publication for consecutive years:

2005 41
2006 82
2007 122
2008 142
2009 147
2010 162 (as of 22 March 2011)

2010 search:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+K+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+DK+FIELD+THEORY%2 C+GROUP+OR+DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUA NTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+AND+DATE+%3D+2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=

Harvard abstracts service has gone back and added quite a bunch of papers to their catalog for past years. Here are figures for four successive years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 using the Harvard Abstracts search, keywords M-theory, AdS/CFT, superstring, brane, compactification, heterotic: 5587, 5516, 5775, 5728 (as of 22 March)

2007: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2007&end_mon=12&end_year=2007&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2008&end_mon=12&end_year=2008&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2009&end_mon=12&end_year=2009&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=12&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstring+AdS%2FCF T&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

Spires top cited articles during some past years
(with number of recent string papers making the top fifty)

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

A paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the past five years.

marcus

Apr6-11, 04:06 PM

Today at noon, 6 April, string topfive (e-elegant, e-hidden, hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 314, 387, 473, 623, 1837, for an average of 727.
E-book ranks are estimated from their "kindle" ranks and their placement amongst the conventional physics book bestsellers.

marcus

Apr7-11, 02:58 PM

At noon, 7 April, string topfive (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 250, 299, 527, 555, 1353, for an average of 597.

An interesting trend has surfaced in the research area of quantum cosmology (QC). This is the appearance of papers by professional theory testers ("phenomenologists") exploring ways to test Loop QC by observation of the primordial light.
(The Loop cosmology bounce, if it occurred, would have left an imprint that would be detectable in the microwave background.)

Here are some 29 papers which have appeared since 2009 in early universe phenom'y bearing on the practicality of testing Loop QC. Most are by phenom people, not the theorists themselves.
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28 DK+PRIMORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+DK+INFLATION+OR+DK +COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

We can watch the volume of publication (and of citations) in Loop bounce phenomenology to get an idea of the extent to which bounce cosmology is "going empirical" or becoming an observational issue subject to testing.

We could also track overall publication in quantum cosmology as a whole, or the loop part of it, for a sense of how the field is growing.

marcus

Apr12-11, 03:41 PM

At noon Pacific on 12 April the string top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 262, 304, 397, 762, 1298, for an average of 605.

I want to streamline the Spires search used here to track Loop research output. I will drop the group field theory (gft) keyword and run successive years as before.

If you would like to check the numbers paste this in to the search box at Spires:

FIND DK SPIN,FOAM OR QUANTUM GRAVITY, LOOP SPACE OR QUANTUM COSMOLOGY, LOOP SPACE AND DATE = 2005

and then repeat, each time increasing the date.

Loop gravity research, by year
2005 41
2006 81
2007 121
2008 142
2009 141
2010 154

Someone might be interested in the component of this which is Loop cosmology. In that case paste this in:
FIND DK QUANTUM COSMOLOGY, LOOP SPACE AND DATE = 2006
and repeat as above. The current formulation (Ashtekar et al) only appeared in 2006 so I start with that year:

Loop cosmology research, by year
2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 57

marcus

Apr13-11, 07:48 PM

marcus

Apr13-11, 08:16 PM

Inspire beta version gets different numbers of papers than the Spires searches i have been using to keep track of research publication. Probably the most important thing is to be consistent---keep tracking the same index. But in any case I want to see what the Inspire searches do. So here I put in keywords "Loop quantum cosmology OR Loop quantum gravity OR spin foam".

Loop gravity research including Loop cosmology (using Inspire beta)
2007 129
2008 154
2009 154
2010 163

This is actually not much different from the results of a similar Spires search that I tabulated a post or two earlier. Here are the links if you want to see the lists of papers for any reason.
2007:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Loop++quantum+gravity&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=a&p3=Spin+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2008:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Loop++quantum+gravity&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=a&p3=Spin+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2009:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Loop++quantum+gravity&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=a&p3=Spin+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2010:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Loop++quantum+gravity&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=a&p3=Spin+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

And here I put in keywords "Loop quantum gravity OR spin foam" omitting the keyword "Loop quantum cosmology".

Loop gravity research without pointer to Loop cosmo (using Inspire beta)
2007 97
2008 119
2009 120
2010 130

2007:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+gravity&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Spin+foam&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2008:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+gravity&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Spin+foam&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2009:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+gravity&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Spin+foam&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2010:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+gravity&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=a&p2=Spin+foam&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
=================

Here's what you get just putting in "Loop quantum cosmology" for keyword.

Loop cosmology research (using Inspire beta)
2007 45
2008 51
2009 50
2010 64

2007:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=a&p2=&f2=&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2008:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=a&p2=&f2=&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2009:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=a&p2=&f2=&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
2010:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=a&p1=Loop+quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=a&p2=&f2=&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

I've discovered that with Inspire it is important to use the "advanced search" option and enter the date in the "added since" row rather than as a search term in one of the three search term fields. Otherwise double counting can occur since each paper can have both an arxiv date and a journal publication date---these can be in different years. Just a word of caution.

With the links given in this post, that has been taken care of. You don't have to worry about double counting because the year has been entered correctly.

marcus

Apr14-11, 04:01 PM

At noon Pacific on 12 April the string top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 262, 304, 397, 762, 1298, for an average of 605.

Maybe I'l do a full seven days around the 15th, for the midmonth check this time. At noon on 13 Aprll the string top five ( (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 201,292, 383, 1021, 1546, for an average of 689.

The multivist craze in the popular book market is still strong but may be easing off some.
Amazon is selling the e-book version of Elegant for $2.11, so that partly explains why it has moved to near top. The other four stringy books are all primarily multiverse speculation: "Hidden Reality" and "Grand Design".

At noon 14 April the top five (e-elegant, hidden, e=hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 205, 285, 577, 930, 1971 for an average of 794.

So we've got the beginnings of a 7-day midmonth average: 605, 689, 794,...

=========================

A really remarkable development in Quantum Cosmology is the increasing interest shown by phenomenologists in testing (and possibly falsifying) the Loop Cosmology bounce.

This is what replaces the "Big Bang" singularity when the geometry of the universe is quantized according to the Loop model. The pheno people are new arrivals, not committed either way to any of the various theories, they are professional testers whose reward is figuring out tests, whichever way it goes.

A few posts ago I posted this link:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28 DK+PRIMORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+DK+INFLATION+OR+DK +COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

At that time it got 29 pheno papers that appeared 2009 and later. Now it gets 31 papers. I think this growth of interest in testing represents a change in the feel, or opinion climate, surrounding Loop gravity and its application to cosmology.

marcus

Apr15-11, 03:23 PM

At noon 15 April the stringy top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 241, 339, 437, 720, 1870, for an average of 721.

12 April 605
13 April 689
14 April 794
15 April 721
16 April ...
17 April ...
18 April ...

I intend to average these to record a midmonth figure. It may be that we are pulling out of the current Pop-Multiverse craze, that started September 2010 with appearance of Hawking's latest Fizz---I'm checking more thoroughly because I want to be sure and not entertain false hopes.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January2007: 4396
February2007: 3789
November2008: 3711
July2009: 6485
March2010: 7521
April2010: 11983
May2010: 6884
June2010: 9731
July2010: 8461
August2010: 9606
September2010: 1060
October2010: 1344
November2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349

marcus

Apr17-11, 03:50 PM

At noon 17 April the stringy top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 149, 220, 407, 610, 892, for an average of 456.

12 April 605
13 April 689
14 April 794
15 April 721
16 April 559
17 April 459
18 April ...

marcus

Apr18-11, 02:24 PM

At noon today, 18 April, the stringy top five average rank was 717, making the April midmonth average come out
(605+689+794+721+559+459+717)/7 = 649

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649

In case there's curiosity about detail, today's string top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 241, 351, 572, 921, 1500, for an average of 717. For a month or more the list of five best-selling stringy books has been remarkably stable. Whenever I have sampled it, I saw the same 5 items. An e-book version of the older (1999) string book, Elegant, on sale for $2.11, plus four new primarily multiverse ones (Hidden Reality, and Grand Design, both with conventional and e-book versions).

marcus

Apr27-11, 02:23 PM

Stanford-SLAC has introduced a beta version of "Inspire" as an eventual replacement for Spires physics research literature search tool. I do not trust Inspire for going back more than a few years. I prefer still to use Spires. One actually has more options if one knows how to use it.
I use the German mirror http://www-library.desy.de/spires/hep/ because the Stanford site is slow.
I do pure DESY keyword searches (prefix DK) because that does not mix in "hits" arising from occurrences of words in the title (and possibly elsewhere). It goes purely on the classification by the DESY librarians, and I have found this more reliable than mixing in word-occurrence hits.

With Inspire one does not seem to have the option of a pure DK search.

If you would like to check the numbers paste this in to the search box at Spires:

FIND DK SPIN,FOAM OR QUANTUM GRAVITY, LOOP SPACE OR QUANTUM COSMOLOGY, LOOP SPACE AND DATE = 2005

and select sorting by citation count so the more interesting papers come up first. Then repeat, each time increasing the date. That generates the following seqence of searches:
2005:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2005+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2006:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2006+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2007:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2007+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2008:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2008+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2009:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2009+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2010:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2010+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

Loop gravity research, by year
2005 41
2006 81
2007 121
2008 142
2009 141
2010 154

Someone might be interested in the component of this which is Loop cosmology. In that case paste this in:
FIND DK QUANTUM COSMOLOGY, LOOP SPACE AND DATE = 2006
and repeat as above. The current formulation (Ashtekar et al) only appeared in 2006 so I start with that year:

Loop cosmology research, by year
2006 21
2007 39
2008 46
2009 45
2010 57

If anyone wants to compare Inspire results, look back to post #218.
Over the next day or two, I hope to re-check these numbers and perhaps improve the tables.
Right now I am trying to think how to track the rate of CITATIONS to Loop papers. This could be as interesting as the simple numbers of papers given here.

marcus

Apr27-11, 03:37 PM

Now I want to see how we an track changes in citation numbers over time.
In the field of quantum gravity, cite-numbers are small compared with HEP and experimental, so QG papers do not normally show up in the Top Fifty at Spires.

However we can do a miniature version, and specialize to the DK "quantum gravity" category.
Then we can have the list of each year's QG papers sorted by rank.
And we can look at the Top Ten, and see how many Loop papers make the Top Ten.

I already did this for String-related papers in the QG category. So I will simply re-do the count and add a line to the table

Papers making the QG top ten
Year 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
String-related 4 3 1 4 3 2
Loop 0 4 6 3 4 5

One could say that not much is happening here. But "flat" is also a kind of information, so I post it even though it shows nothing dramatic.
There was a dramatic spike in 2009 when Horava QG appeared, but it subsided. This spike does not show up here simply because I am only tabulating even years.
One could expand the table to include Horava QG, and odd years, and see the spike.

When making this count, it is obvious which papers are Loop and which are not. However
people may wish to see what I have included as "string-related". I have included some papers that were just Sugra4 or Sugra8 without mentioning strings or branes. Also I included the topic of Randall-Sundrum contructions even though I have heard people say that is not real string. And AdS stuff. And Bousso's 2002 holographic paper, which is really not string at all (the result was extended by Ashtekar so as not to fail at the singularity). But maybe some people feel possessive about these things and feel they "belong" to the String program, so I want to accommodate that. So I consider the "string-related" figures a bit inflated.
Here are the papers that I included:
2000:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2000&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
4 out of 10 here (that I can see). The string papers I identify are numbers 1,3,5, and 9. I'm happy if anyone wants to check that.

2002:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2002&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
3 out of 10, this time. I would say 1, 6, and 7 are the stringy ones.

2004:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2004&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
1 out of 10. The one string paper making the top ten is number 8.

2006:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2006&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
4 out of 10. The stringy ones are numbers 1, 3, 6, 8.

2008:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2008&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
3 out of 10. Numbers 1, 6, 10.

2010:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2010&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
2 out of 10. Numbers 5 and 8.

One could also do this for the Quantum Gravity "Top Twenty". I dont know what the results would look like.

marcus

Apr27-11, 06:50 PM

I'll try the experiment of changing this to the Top Thirty

Papers making the QG top thirty in terms of citations
Year 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
String-related 8 4 3 5 5 7
Loop 6 11 14 10 14 14

Here are the papers that I found and tallied, indicated by their current rank numbers:

2000:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2000&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 8/30. Currently 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15, 17, 29
Loop 6/30. Currently 14, 16, 21, 22, 24, 27

2002:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2002&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 4/30. Currently 1, 6, 7, 25
Loop 11/30. Currently 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 28

2004:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2004&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 3/10. Currently 8, 25, 26
Loop 14/30. Currently 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29

2006:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2006&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 5/30. Currently 1, 3, 5, 8, 17
Loop 10/30. Currently 2, 6, 9, 14, 16, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27

2008:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2008&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 5/30. Currently 1, 6, 10, 17, 20
Loop 14/30. Currently 2, 4, 5, 7, 13, 14, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30

2010:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=dk+quantum+gravity+and+date+%3D+2010&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
String 7/30. Currently 5, 9, 13, 16, 22, 24, 26
Loop 14/30. Currently 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 29

Because citations occur regularly the place in the list can change. So the place-numbers are only as of today. If you look later you may find the paper with a rank one more or one less than what I list here.
When making this count, it is obvious which papers are Loop and which are not. However
people may wish to see what I have included as "string-related". I have included some papers which resorted to Sugra4 or Sugra8 without mentioning strings or branes. Also I included paprs with Randall-Sundrum contructions, and whatever AdS stuff showed up. And Bousso's 2002 entropy bound, which does not depend on string (the result was extended by Ashtekar using LQC so as not to fail at the big bang singularity). Maybe some people are sensitive about these things and feel they "belong" to the String program, so I wanted to accommodate that. Therefore the "string-related" figures might be slightly inflated.

marcus

Apr28-11, 03:24 PM

I checked for recent Loop papers making the annual Spires "gr-qc" Top Fifty. The curve is flat.
Recent means in the past five years including the year in question.
This is for years 2010 down to 2002. I happened to make the tallies in reverse chrono order.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (7)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2008/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (6)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2006/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (4)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (7)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2004/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (7)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2002/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
For convenience I put part of this in chrono order

2003:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
2005:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (7)
2007:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)
2009:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/eprints/to_gr-qc_annual.shtml (5)

marcus

May1-11, 04:41 PM

...A really remarkable development in Quantum Cosmology is the increasing interest shown by phenomenologists in testing (and possibly falsifying) the Loop Cosmology bounce.

This is what replaces the "Big Bang" singularity when the geometry of the universe is quantized according to the Loop model. The pheno people are new arrivals, not committed either way to any of the various theories, they are professional testers whose reward is figuring out tests, whichever way it goes.

A few posts ago I posted this link:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28 DK+PRIMORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+DK+INFLATION+OR+DK +COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

At that time it got 29 pheno papers that appeared 2009 and later. Now it gets 31 papers...

Out of curiosity I broadened the search to include Loop pheno papers that appeared 2008 or later.
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28 DK+PRIMORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+DK+INFLATION+OR+DK +COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2007&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

There have been 41, so far. 2008, 2009, 2010, and part of 2011 (up to 1 May)

marcus

May13-11, 01:31 PM

There might be some interest in these informal tallies, which mainly apply to the US+Canada particle theory job situation:
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08

Prof. Erich Poppitz at U Toronto keeps track of "first time faculty hires" in theoretical particle physics (high energy physics theory, including cosmology and phenomenology).
His unofficial counts are based on information posted at this UC Davis site (the theoretical particle physics jobs rumor mill):
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=archive:2009

Poppitz charts the data year by year 1994-2010 but for brevity I will combine years and tabulate three years at a time.

First time faculty hires in HEP theory:
1999-2001 53
2002-2004 73
2005-2007 68
2008-2010 38

Percentage string:
1999-2001 51%
2002-2004 32%
2005-2007 27%
2008-2010 18%

Poppitz does string research himself--he has a range of interests. I find that based on his tabulation, multiplying the total hires by the percentages, I get these numbers for what he counted as first time faculty hires of string people in particular:

First time faculty hires in string (based on postings at Theoretical Particle Physics jobs rumor mill)
1999-2001 27
2002-2004 23
2005-2007 18
2008-2010 7

===============================
On the popular market, the noon string topfive ranks have averaged:

11 May 963.5
12 May 905
13 May 892

The five most popular have consistently been a $2.11 electronic version of Elegant Universe (e-elegant) then hidden, grand, e-hidden, e-grand.

marcus

May15-11, 07:04 PM

To get a mid-month reading of the popular book market, string topfive average noon ranks:

11 May 963.5
12 May 905
13 May 892
14 May 796
15 May 669

marcus

May17-11, 03:27 PM

For a mid-month reading of the popular book market, string topfive average noon ranks:

11 May 963.5
12 May 905
13 May 892
14 May 796
15 May 669
16 May 504
17 May 432

The same top five as usual---primarily multivision books referring to the myriad landscape of "M". Within those five, the order has changed: until last week Greene books consistently led Hawking, but the latter has been featured in the media recently and there has been a big surge in demand for his "grand design". Today 17th the top five were:
grand, e-grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden.

Recent Hawking appearances (Google Zeitgeist symposium, Guardian interview) mentioned here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven

The e-book version of "elegant universe" is being sold for $2.11.

marcus

May18-11, 12:21 PM

String topfive average noon ranks for mid-May:

12 May 905
13 May 892
14 May 796
15 May 669
16 May 504
17 May 432
18 May 536

The average around the middle of the month is 676.
905+892+796+669+504+432+536)/7=
So the longterm record of mid-month averages looks like this:

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676

The last midmonth post was this:
At noon today, 18 April, the stringy top five average rank was 717, making the April midmonth average come out
(605+689+794+721+559+459+717)/7 = 649

In case there's curiosity about detail, today's string top five (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 241, 351, 572, 921, 1500, for an average of 717. For a month or more the list of five best-selling stringy books has been remarkably stable. Whenever I have sampled it, I saw the same 5 items. An e-book version of the older (1999) string book, Elegant, on sale for $2.11, plus four new primarily multiverse ones (Hidden Reality, and Grand Design, both with conventional and e-book versions).

It is remarkable how little has changed since April. Today it was the same list of five most popular stringy (now with emphasis on the multiverse myth instead of unified physics) titles, merely in a different order---namely grand, e-grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden.

marcus

May27-11, 04:04 PM

The list of bounce cosmology papers keeps growing. This search now gets 33.
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28PRI MORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+INFLATION+OR+COSMIC+BACK GROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=ds%28d%29

The main sociology-of-science trends we are watching here are the growth of activity/interest in nonstring QG and the dwindling of the string program.

Here are possible indicators of dwindling.

No first-time faculty jobs in Usa & Canada so far this year: The hiring season is about over for 2011 and so far no offers for string theorists.
See the "particle physics job rumor mill" and Woit's blog.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php
Post #228 has some figures and source links on this, including this table.
===
First time faculty hires in string (based on postings at Theoretical Particle Physics jobs rumor mill)
1999-2001 27
2002-2004 23
2005-2007 18
2008-2010 7
===

Citations to current string research are down: The Spires HEP top 50 used to show a dozen or so recent (past 5 years) string papers. In 2010 no recent string paper made the top 50.

Conference attendance: We should try to keep track of this. Attendance at Strings 2010 was down, but that could have just been a fluke. (Perhaps the leadership goofed by having it in Texas where nobody wanted to go, at a time when everybody was busy.)

Quality of entering PhD students: Again something to try to keep track of as best one can.

All these things have competing alternative explanations which may be interesting to consider. Explanations do not necessarily reflect on the merit of stringy analysis as a mathematical toolkit! There can appear to be some downsizing or downgrading (say of job prospects in academia) which are merely due to historical accident, without any unfavorable reflection on the abstract merit of method.

marcus

Jun13-11, 03:17 PM

I neglected to specify that the link given in previous post is for the phenomenology subcategory of Loop cosmology.

http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+QUANTUM+GRAVITY%2C+LOOP+SPAC E+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE%29+AND+%28PRI MORDIAL%2C+FLUCTUATION+OR+INFLATION+OR+COSMIC+BACK GROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DATE+%3E+2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

This just gets the several dozen having to do with testing.

Getting ready to record the June midmonth string topfive average salesrank, as of noon 13 June it was 903.0
The five most popular stringy books continue to be the inexpensive ($2.11) electronic edition of elegant, and the print and electronic editions of Hawking's and Greene's multiverse books.

marcus

Jun14-11, 03:05 PM

At noon today the five most popular stringy books (e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-hidden, elegant) ranked 367, 708, 843, 1395, 2070 for an average of 1076.6.
To smooth out random fluctuations I plan to take 5 readings around the 15th

13 June 903.0
14 June 1076.6
15 June ...
16 June ...
17 June ...

and use their average for the mid-month record.
===================

Judging as best I can based on objective, quantitative indices, we see declining enthusiasm in the string program and a tendency for researchers' interest to dissipate into neighboring fields. It isn't clear why this is happening. A retrospective publication "Forty Years of String Theory" is being compiled by a team of editors headed by Nobel-physicist Gerard 't Hooft. this may give some perspective on the reasons.

Some of the indications:

Drop in string jobs (shrinking share of hep-theory first-time faculty offers)
Drop in citations--by the researchers themselves--to recent string research (declining representation in the annual Spires hep top-50)
Apparent decline in annual string conference participation.
Cases of prominent string figures moving (part or full-time) into other lines of research.
Growing acceptance of rival approaches by the research community (faculty and PhD student activity at several more institutions including, for instance, UC Berkeley.)

For example, the annual conf. participation figures were discussed here:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3266311#post3266311
Some figures represent CAPS imposed by the organizers, e.g. the Madrid conference was restricted to 440 participants ( http://www.ift.uam.es/strings07/010_welcome07.htm )

Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2004 Paris 477
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2006 Beijing ~600
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2008 CERN 400
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 247 (preliminary, as of 14 June)
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/

I'm happy to report other details in case anyone wants confirmation, but at the end of the day what one would like is to understand the reasons. BTW this does not seem to involve a marked change in PUBLIC attitudes. AFAICS there is still a good market for string popularizations.

marcus

Jun15-11, 03:38 PM

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676

13 June 903.0
14 June 1076.6
15 June 1390.9
16 June ...
17 June ...

The pop string top-five average seems to be getting back to the level it was around September 2010.
===================
Late registration could still bring the annual conference participants figure up. The Uppsala conference does not start until 27 June, i.e. in about 12 days.
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2004 Paris 477
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2006 Beijing ~600
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2008 CERN 400
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 249 (preliminary, as of 15 June)
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011
===========
Links to review job situation:
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
The Toronto website has bar-graphs through 2010. Declining percentage of first-time faculty hires in high energy theory since 2000.

marcus

Jun16-11, 05:53 PM

Here are some of the main string indicators being tracked in this thread:

Spires annual HEP citation ranking, with number of recent string papers making the top fifty

2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

A paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the past five years. There has been a decline in citiations to recent string research reflected in a drop in the number of papers making the top fifty list.
======================

First-time faculty hires in HEP theory as a whole, and the string share, averaged over 3 year periods

First-time faculty hires, US and Canada

period particle theory string
1999-2001 17.7 per year 8.9 per year
2002-2004 24.3 per year 7.7 per year
2005-2007 22.7 per year 6.0 per year
2008-2010 12.7 per year 2.3 per year

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/
Sources:
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php
Post #228 has some figures and source links on this.
There has been a decline in string jobs both in absolute terms and compared with high energy physics theory jobs as a whole.
======================

Registered participants in the annual conference (for brevity I list only odd years and the last two, 2010 and 2011)
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 249 (preliminary)

The registration figure for 2011 is 249 as of 17 June, could increase over the next 10 days.
http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/
However, we may be seeing a decline. Some earlier conferences were "booked to capacity"---registration limited by the organizers and more applicants than could be accommodated. E.g. for logistical reasons the Madrid organizers registered only 440 participants--their stated maximum. This seems not the case with the 2010 and 2011 conferences, for a change.
===================

Meanwhile, here's how the Amazon salesranks of stringy popularization books have been doing:

13 June 903.0
14 June 1076.6
15 June 1390.9
16 June 1234.8
17 June ...
These are noon readings of the top-five string salesrank averages, made around the middle of each month. On 16 June the top five books (e-elegant, hidden, grand, e-grand, e-hidden) ranked 438, 783, 940, 1596, 2417 for an average of 1234.8. The string pop market is now primarily for multiverse books. These have been selling very well.

marcus

Jun17-11, 03:26 PM

13 June 903.0
14 June 1076.6
15 June 1390.9
16 June 1234.8
17 June 1158.4
These are noon readings of the string top-five salesrank averages, made around the middle of each month. On 17 June the top five books (e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-grand, elegant) ranked 502, 832, 874, 1604, 1980 for an average of 1158.4.

That made the June midmonth average 1153.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153

marcus

Jun24-11, 04:52 PM

I redid the format of this information:
Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list

year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010
recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0
A paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the previous five years. This gauges the quality/significance of current work by how other researchers receive it.

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010
annual HEP theory hires as a whole 18 24 23 13
annual string hires 9 8 6 2

Registered participants in the annual conference (some years omitted for brevity)
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 261

Links to sources:
2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S

marcus

Jul12-11, 01:07 PM

I plan to take noon readings around the middle of the month, as usual, to keep track of the amazon salesranks of the top five stringy offerings---especially popular recently with the multiverse books by Hawking and by Greene. Barring accidents, this month I will try to get a whole week of readings, around the 15th, to base the average on. Mass market string books seem less about actual string theory nowadays---and more about multiversal imaginings (stimulated by the many versions of physics which M-speculation suggests but does not choose among.)

mid-July topfive average:
12 July 1390
13 July
14 July
15 July
16 July
17 July
18 July

At noon 12 July, the five most popular (e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-hidden, elegant) ranked 1063, 1311, 1325, 1475, 1777 for an average of 1390.

marcus

Jul14-11, 01:46 PM

mid-July topfive average:
12 July 1390
13 July 1234
14 July 1163
15 July
16 July
17 July
18 July

At noon 12 July, the five most popular (e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-hidden, elegant) ranked 1063, 1311, 1325, 1475, 1777 for an average of 1390.
At noon 13 July, the five most popular (e-elegant, e-hidden, hidden, grand, elegant) ranked 727, 1087, 1157, 1577, 1622 for an average of 1234.
At noon 14 July, the five most popular (e-elegant, hidden, grand, e-hidden, e-grand) ranked 761, 979, 1252, 1359, 1466 for an average of 1163.

marcus

Jul17-11, 04:04 PM

To get a mid-July string topfive salesrank average, tracking the popularization market:
12 July 1390
13 July 1234
14 July 1163
15 July 1488
16 July 1156
17 July 969
18 July ...

Updating the other indices:

Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list

year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010
recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0
A paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the previous five years. This gauges the quality/significance of current work by how other researchers receive it.

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods, with prelim. estim. for 2011

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 11
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 0

Registered participants in the annual conference (some years omitted for brevity)
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 265

Links to sources:
2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S

marcus

Jul18-11, 03:00 PM

As of noon 18 July the five most popular string books at Amazon (e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, grand, e-grand) ranked 783, 1204, 1353, 1651, 1994, for an average of 1397.

To get a mid-July string topfive salesrank average, tracking the popularization market:
12 July 1390
13 July 1234
14 July 1163
15 July 1488
16 July 1156
17 July 969
18 July 1397

1257 is the mid-month average for July. Here's the record of mid-month string salesrank averages.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257

Interest slumped during March-August 2010 (high salesranks) and then shot up in September 2010 (Hawking multiverse book) and in January 2011 (Greene multiverse book).
The two popular multiverse books (Grand Design, Hidden Reality) are not primarily about stringy ideas of unification but they do invoke the string "Landscape" of possible versions of physics (stringy thought does not nail down or determine any one version of basic particle physics, but allows a vast range of possible versions.) Making the best of this defect, some have suggested that perhaps all these possibilities are realized somewhere in nature---i.e. in a "multiverse". This IMO is more fantasy than science, but it permits one to continue regarding string/M formalism as a theory of nature. The multiverse excitement may be abating, judging from recent trends, but it is really too early to say.

marcus

Jul20-11, 03:52 PM

You can see from the longterm record that there is currently an uptrend in the salesranks, back towards levels prior to September 2010---ie before the latest Hawking and Greene books appeared. Today 20 July at noon the stringy top five ( e-elegant, grand, e-hidden, hidden, elegant ) ranked 1221, 1738, 1894, 2395, 3389, for an average of 2127. Amazon ranks e-books separately so their ranks as books must be estimated from where they occur among the regular books on the physics bestseller list.

marcus

Jul27-11, 04:19 PM

The string midmonth salesrank average for July was 1257. As a spot check, to see how it was doing, I looked today at noon 27 July and it was 1440.

That breaks down like this: the five most popular string books were e-elegant, hidden, grand, e-hidden, elegant, 4 for Greene and 1 for Hawking. 2 regular string and 3 multiverse (which promotes string to a possible theory of nature because it has room for the many different string versions of physics, and is thus a string-friendly vision.)

The ranks were 669, 1249, 1457, 1712, 2111 for an average of 1440.

Multiverse speculation tends to be shut out of regular annual Strings conferences, but it is popular with the general public. So it got minimal attention at the recent Strings 2011 actual conference, but outside there was a public lecture about it. Also little or no attention by the professional in regular session at Strings 2008, 2009, 2010. But sometimes stuff for the public on the outside. A curious split of emphasis.

See post 241 (three posts back from here) for indices tracking the interest and activity of actual string researchers as opposed to the popular book market.

marcus

Jul30-11, 03:38 PM

Significant developments at the professional level can be summarized by saying that faculty hires for string are way down. (First-time faculty hires in Usa+Canada at or near zero this year.)
See post #241 above.

The annual string conference attendance has fallen off, and at the last one few of the talks were actually about string/M---people were asking "where are the strings?" and speculating as to the significance of that.

Annual citations to recent string/M research papers are sharply down from their earlier (say 2001-2003) levels.

On an anecdotal, individual level one can see a tendency for prominent string researchers to get out of the field and into related or neighboring areas of research. Perhaps "string-inspired" but not actually dealing with string brane and space with extra rolled-up dimensions. String unification seems to have been side-tracked or put on hold, with more emphasis on finding applications of the math tools in other areas. One hears a more sophisticated view that the string pictures may not necessarily be how the world is but rather one analytical approach---convenient in some context but not essential or fundamental.

There has also been some shift in views on Supersymmetry recently. Since signs of SUSY have not been showing up at the CERN collider. Quotes from string theorists have been assembled in this blog post.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3864

===================

At the level of general public interest, string popularity in the book market, which is now focused mainly on multiverse thinking, has been running around 1600. Already up some from the mid-July average of 1257.

At noon on Thursday, Friday, Saturday (28, 29, 30 July) the saleranks of the five most popular string books averaged 1657, 1654, 1594.
The top five have tended to be e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-hidden, e-grand with little variation.

marcus

Aug3-11, 06:23 PM

Not useful as a statistical index (or so I've concluded) but perhaps a handy snapshot of current topics in string research. Harvard abstracts database search using keywords: superstring, M-theory, brane, AdS/CFT, compactification, heterotic

First six months of 2010
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2010&end_mon=6&end_year=2010&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

First six months of 2011
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&qform=PHY&aut_logic=OR&author=&ned_query=YES_query=YES&start_mon=00&start_year=2011&end_mon=6&end_year=2011&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=heterotic+M-theory+brane+compactification+superstrings+AdS%2FC FT&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

The Spires database has cataloguing done by human librarians. The Harvard system seems simply to use occurrences of words in the title or abstract---tagging is done by machine in other words. Whatever the reason, the results are different.

Here's a Spires search using (human-applied) keywords "string model" and "membrane model":
2002:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2002&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (1783)
2009:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (1036)
2010:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (935)
2011:
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2011&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (500)

I think the point of a search like this is not to get "ALL" of some category of research paper that you imagine in your head and you think is the right definition of string research. The point, I guess, is to apply the same test repeatedly and see if there is change and see if you can understand it. Here the test is what the DESY librarians classify a certain way, and one can only hope that their criteria are stable over the years.

BTW at noon 3 August the salesranks of the top five string books (e-elegant, grand, hidden, e-hidden, e-grand) averaged 2202. Still a long way to go before that index gets back up to its pre-September 2010 levels, that pertained before the two big multiverse books appeared.

marcus

Aug13-11, 03:37 PM

Among indices of professional research activity a small but interesting one is the number of Loop phenomenology papers (related to observational testing) that have appeared post-2008 (i.e. 2009 and later). This search picks up a number of them, probably not all. Testing (using observations of the early universe) is crucial. So even though this only involves a few dozen papers, it is an indicator to watch.

http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28QUANTUM+GR AVITY+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29+%29+AND+%28GRAVITATI ONAL+RADIATION+OR+PRIMORDIAL+OR+INFLATION+OR+POWER +SPECTRUM+OR+COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DA TE%3E2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=ds%28d%29

Here's a Spires search tracking Loop gravity research publication using DESY keywords for spinfoam, loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology. Evidently the figure for 2011 is incomplete. I made the search for the same years tabulated for string in the preceding post, just for comparison's sake.

2002 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2002+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE= (25)
2009 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2009+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE= (142)
2010 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2010+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE= (154)
2011 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+SPIN%2CFOAM+OR+QUANTUM+GRAVITY% 2C+LOOP+SPACE+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%2C+LOOP+SPACE+A ND+DATE+%3D+2011+&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE= (112)

The possible significance here is not the absolute numbers but the change over time, assuming the librarians apply their keyword categories consistently each year. DESY keywords are applied by hand, not by machine. You probably can't get ALL the papers you imagine to be in whatever category, but you can see how the number changes.

Here's a Spires search using the DESY library's keywords "string model" and "membrane model":
2002 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2002&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (1783)
2009 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2009&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (1037)
2010 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2010&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (935)
2011 http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+STRING+MODEL+OR+DK+MEMBRANE+ MODEL%29+AND+DATE+%3D2011&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE= (529)

This is as of 13 August, evidently the 2011 figure will increase as the year progresses.
If you want a very rough estimate of the final figure you can multiply the current one by 12/7.5 since at this point about 7.5 of the 12 months are in.

For other indices connected with professional research and faculty jobs, see post #241 in this thread:
http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3407914#post3407914

=======
The main indicator of wide audience interest we have been watching is the string topfive Amazon salesrank average.
At noon 13 August the five most popular stringy books (grand, e-elegant, e-grand, e-hidden, hidden) ranked 752, 1198, 1501, 2408, 3547 for an average of 1881.

The corresponding topfive average at noon 12 August was 1757. I'm planning to record a midmonth average as I've done in the past.

12 August 1757
13 August 1881
14 August
15 August
16 August
17 August
18 August

The most popular stringy books tend to involve imagining multiverses rather than explaining string theory per se. Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design is especially popular in the wake of his prominent role in a TV series called "Curiosity".

Here's what that index has looked like for the past year. September 2010 was when Hawking's grand design multiverse book came out.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257

marcus

Aug15-11, 02:04 PM

To update something in the previous post,

12 August 1757
13 August 1881
14 August 1371
15 August 1831
16 August
17 August
18 August

At noon 15 August the top five stringy books (grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-grand, elegant) ranked 1023, 1436, 1769, 2015, 2914, for an average of 1831

marcus

Aug17-11, 03:40 PM

12 August 1757
13 August 1881
14 August 1371
15 August 1831
16 August 2244
17 August 2618
18 August

At Pacific noon 17 August the top five stringy books (grand, e-elegant, e-grand, hidden, elegant) ranked 1546, 1797, 2443, 3472, 3833, for an average of 2618.

marcus

Aug18-11, 03:05 PM

At Pacfic noon 18 August the string top five (e-elegant, grand, e-grand, hidden, elegant) ranked
1736, 1762, 2661, 3319, 4405, for an average of 2777. This makes our 7-day mid-month average for August come out to 2068.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068

marcus

Aug26-11, 04:06 PM

Learning how to use Inspire search, which will be replacing Spires.

type this into the box:
keyword:"quantum gravity: loop space" OR "quantum cosmology: loop space" OR "spin: foam" and date=2011

You get this:
http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2011&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (161 found)

161 records are found, presumably will increase between now and yearend. Perhaps, since about 8/12 of the year is over now, it could increase to something like 12/8 of present size. And perhaps not. Hard to guess.

Let's do that also for the years 2005 through 2010
LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (Inspire beta)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2005&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (49 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2006&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (105 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2007&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2008&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (189 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2009&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (200 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2010&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (201 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=keyword%3A%22quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space%22+OR +%22quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space%22+OR+%22spin% 3A+foam%22+and+date%3D2011&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (161 found)

Today I did a spot check of the popular string book market. At noon the top five books (grand, e-elegant, elegant, hidden, e-grand) ranked 2017, 2539, 4423, 5021, 5846, for an average of 3969.

You can look back and compare. This autumn (perhaps as late as November) PBS will be coming on with a Brian Greene special (we've seen flashy visual effects previewed). This time the basis is his Fabric of the Cosmos. This will boost sales of the book.

marcus

Aug27-11, 12:50 PM

I'm still learning how to use Inspire. Here is a corrected version of what I posted yesterday.

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (Inspire beta)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (153 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (123 found as of 27 August)

Inspire will double count if you aren't careful with the settings--a paper has two dates the year it first appeared (say as preprint on arxiv) and the final version date (say as published in journal). What Inspire does is good but you need to consciously select which type of date to use in finding the papers of that year.

I did another spot check of the popular string book market. At noon 27 August the top five books (grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-grand, elegant) ranked 1431, 2014, 2970, 4065, 4291 for an average of 2954.

marcus

Aug30-11, 01:53 PM

Continuing to learn how to use the beta version of Inspire, slated to replace Spires.
Here is a search for string papers using the terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence"

STRING RESEARCH BY YEAR (Inspire beta)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1051 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1127 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (675 as of 30 August, annualized = 1013)

Out of curiosity I did the corresponding thing to the 2011 count from the previous post (loop research):

2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (124 as of 30 August annualized 186)

marcus

Sep2-11, 07:07 PM

Continued experimentation with the new Stanford/SLAC search tool, Inspire.
Here is a search for string papers using the terms "string model" and "membrane model". This time I omitted the term "AdS/CFT correspondence"

STRING&MEMBRANE RESEARCH BY YEAR (Inspire beta)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (981 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1012 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (939 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (947 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (815 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (673 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (444 as of 2 Sept, annualized 666)

Turning to the popular book market, at noon 2 September the top five books (grand, hidden, e-elegant, elegant, e-grand) ranked 1707, 2917, 3337, 4128, 4199 for an average of 3258.
If you scroll back to post #250, you'll notice that this salesrank average is comparable to what we saw back in 2007-2008. But not yet on par with levels seen in 2009-2010 prior to the September appearance of the Hawking multiverse book.
_____

marcus

Sep7-11, 09:26 PM

Update of LQG table (categories loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (Inspire beta)

2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (129 as of 7 Sep, annualized > 180)

A simple way to estimate the annual rate is to type "1 1 2011" (1 January 2011) into this:
http://howlonguntil.net/
It will tell the number of days since beginning of year. In this case, today being 7 Sep, it says 250.
So multiply the number of papers so far by 365/250.

In this case 129*365/250 = 188

Just a rough estimate. Could be 150 or 160. But gives an idea.

marcus

Sep14-11, 03:45 PM

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)

2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (134 as of 14 Sept, annualized > 180)

http://howlonguntil.net/ 256
In this case 134*365/256 = 191
The annualized rate for the first 256 days of the year has been noticeably higher than the rate in past years. I've no idea if this will persist, or how much to expect it to subside.

In the pop science market, multiverse books continue strong. Here are some stringy topfive salesrank averages for mid-September.

13 Sept 2174
14 Sept 2232
15 Sept
16 Sept
17 Sept

STRING&MEMBRANE RESEARCH BY YEAR (categories: string model, membrane model)

2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (981 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1012 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (939 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (947 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (815 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (674 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (466 as of 14 Sept, annualized 664)

marcus

Sep16-11, 03:28 PM

Stringy topfive salesrank averages for mid-September.

13 Sept 2174
14 Sept 2232
15 Sept 2022
16 Sept 2686
17 Sept ...

At Pacific noon on 16 September the five most popular string books (grand, e-elegant, hidden, elegant, e-grand) had amazon.com salesranks 1605, 1937, 3018, 3206, 3663 for an average of 2686. I've been recording midmonth salesrank averages. For comparison, here's how they went in 2011:

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068

Also keeping track of several other indices, some of which are:

Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list

year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010
recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0
This gauges the quality/significance of current work by how much it gets cited by other researchers. Here a paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the previous five years.

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods, with prelim. estim. for 2011

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 11
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 0

Registered participants in the annual conference (some years omitted for brevity)
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 265

Links to sources:
2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S

marcus

Sep18-11, 12:32 PM

Here's another index we've been tracking:
LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)

2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (134 as of 18 Sept, annualized > 180)

To illustrate, http://howlonguntil.net/ 260
In this case 134*365/260 = 188
The annualized rate for the first 260 days of the year has been noticeably higher than the rate in past years. I've no idea if this will persist, or how much to expect it to subside.

In the pop science market, multiverse books continue strong. The combined string topfive salesrank for 17 September was 1793 making the mid-month average for September 2181. Here's what the past year or so looks like.
Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181

marcus

Sep26-11, 06:34 PM

To update the table in post #258
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&...=25&sc=0&of=hb (139 as of 26 Sept, annualized > 180)
In this case 139*365/268 = 189
And the analogous index tabulated for stringmembraneAdS/CFT:

Inspire search using the terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence"
STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (740 as of 26 Sept, annualized = 1008)

Sample calculation http://howlonguntil.net/ 268 days, so 740*365/268 = 1008

marcus

Sep29-11, 03:58 PM

Updates:
LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (140 as of 29 Sept, annualized > 180)

To illustrate, http://howlonguntil.net/ 271
In this case 140*365/271 = 189
The annualized rate so far this year seems noticeably higher than in past years. It will be interesting to see if this persists.

In the pop science market, the string topfive salesrank average at noon 28 September was 2998. The same average at noon 29 September was 2748.
Both somewhat higher than the mid-month figure of 2181 for September.
The five most popular string books on the first day: e-elegant, grand, e-grand, elegant, hidden---then on the next day: grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-grand, e-hidden.

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (747 as of 29 Sept, annualized = 1006)

marcus

Oct1-11, 03:01 PM

142*365/273 = 190
749*365/273 = 1001

Already by 1 October there were from the LQG-SF-LQC community as many papers (142) as appeared in the whole of 2008. Something must be stimulating this increase of activity. The year is only 3/4 over.

It may be the perception that the correct smooth limit has been achieved. By this I mean the limit where one keeps the macroscopic size of the region constant and lets the discreteness parameter gamma go to zero--a bit like what happens to discrete chunks in the kitchen blender. Seeing this work out right could, I guess, motivate researchers with a sense of possibilities opening up.

There was the August paper by Magliaro Perini and the September one by Bianchi Ding.
Emergence of Gravity from Spinfoams (http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2258)
Lorentzian Spinfoam Propagator (http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.6538)
Also important developments by Lewandowski's Warsaw group and by Dittrich's group at Golm.
Insiders would have had advance inkling of these results which can be seen as signposts of success for the program.

Again, at noon 1 Oct the pop-string top five (e-elegant, grand, e-grand, hidden, e-hidden) averaged a salesrank of 2536.

marcus

Oct7-11, 03:25 PM

The picture is largely unchanged from 6 days ago. At noon the five most popular stringy books
(primarily about multiverse, not string/M itself) were grand, e-elegant, hidden, e-hidden, e-grand, and ranked 1746, 1922, 2097, 2840, 3962, for an average of 2513.

DESY has not gotten around to cataloging the new Loop papers so the count is still 142 as it was on 1 October. But new String/M papers have been registered so the count there has changed slightly. The annualized rates are

142*365/279 = 186
754*365/279 = 986

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (754 as of 7 Oct, annualized = 986)

marcus

Oct8-11, 12:47 PM

marcus

Oct13-11, 05:51 PM

For the midmonth noon salesrank averages
12 October 2194
13 October 2872
14 October ...
15 October ...
16 October
17 October
18 October

For example at noon pacific on 13 Oct the top five stringy books (e-elegant, grand, e-grand, hidden, e-hidden) ranked 1236, 1512, 3173, 3758, 4679, for an average of 2872.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181

Ranks tended to be much higher in the couple of years before the appearance of the Hawking and the Greene multiverse books. Books which invoke the multiplicity of possible versions of physics inherent in string/M but which do not go much into string by way of specifics. To see the history of this index back to some sample months in 2007, go back to post #250.

Four new Loop gravity papers have appeared in the last few days, but have not yet been logged by DESY, which updates only about once a week. So the total for 2011 so far is 152 instead of 148.
Annualized: 152*365/286 = 194
Compare with the previous post #263
The annualized rate for Loop research remains somewhat higher than it has been in past years. Not clear why or whether this will persist through yearend.
FWIW: 776*365/286 = 990

marcus

Oct14-11, 03:26 PM

For the midmonth noon salesrank averages
12 October 2194
13 October 2872
14 October 3163
15 October ...
16 October ...
17 October
18 October

At noon pacific on 14 Oct the top five stringy books (e-elegant, grand, e-grand, hidden, elegant) ranked 1336, 1598, 3174, 3578, 6131, for an average of 3163.

Keeping tabs on research trends:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb

http://howlonguntil.net/

marcus

Oct16-11, 04:00 PM

For the midmonth noon salesrank averages
12 October 2194
13 October 2872
14 October 3163
15 October 2060
16 October 2063
17 October ...
18 October ...

At noon 16 Oct the top five stringy books were grand, e-elegant, e-grand, e-hidden,hidden, elegant. It tends almost always to be the same five, just possibly in different order.

Keeping tabs on research trends:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (still missing a couple that havn't been assigned keyword classifiers yet) 151, annualized 151*365/288 = 191

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 786, annualized 786*365/288 = 996

http://howlonguntil.net/

Just as some random string Sociology, or related cultural Anthropology there was a great CERN Christmas party in 2006 that deserves to be remembered. I will get the link.
http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2007/01/cern-th-2007.html
The blogger, whose web-handle is Jester, especially liked the string "Pope" who was dressed in gaudy ecclesiastical garb and who piously intoned: "Our Witten which art in Princeton..."

"...Give us this day our daily string,
And forgive us our theory,
As we forgive those who do phenomenology.
Lead us not into experiment,
And deliver us from tests.
For thine is the arXiv,..."

marcus

Oct18-11, 01:38 PM

Time to update the midmonth pop-string salesrank record.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
The October midmonth noon salesrank averages
12 October 2194
13 October 2872
14 October 3163
15 October 2060
16 October 2063
17 October 2411
18 October 3178

Keeping tabs on research trends, as of 18 October:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 153, annualized 153*365/290 = 193

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 786, annualized 791*365/290 = 996

http://howlonguntil.net/

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (791 on 18 Oct, annualized = 996)

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (153 on 18 Oct, annualized > 190)

I guess one way to describe the situation would be that by 18 October this year the Loop research output is already higher than it has ever been in any previous entire year.

marcus

Oct30-11, 07:26 PM

Keeping tabs on research trends, as of 30 October:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 157, annualized 157*365/302 = 190

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 813, annualized 813*365/302 = 983

http://howlonguntil.net/

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (annualized 190)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (annualized = 983)

marcus

Nov4-11, 01:55 PM

A new PBS NOVA series with Brian Greene has started, this time based on "Fabric of the Cosmos". High-power computergraphic visuals + lots of wonders. Sales of string books are strongly up. The top 5 are actually all Brian Greene.

As of noon 4 November the five most popular stringy books are fabric, e-fabric, hidden, e-hidden, and e-elegant, with an average salesrank of 1135.
See post #265 for a longer-term record of the topfive average salesrank.

================
Baylor University in Texas has hired a string theorist! According to the Theoretical Particle Physics Jobs Rumor Mill 2011 saw about 13 first-time faculty hires in Usa and Canada, but until recently it appeared that none of the hires were in string. However it is now reported that Antonino Flachi has been hired to a first-time faculty position at Baylor.
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=archive:2011
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods, with prelim. estim. for 2011

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 13
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 1

The three year period 2008-2010 showed an average annual rate of 13 hires per year overall in High Energy Physics Theory. So 2011, with 13, shows no change in overall hires. The annual rate of string hires does seem to have slacked off some, but is not zero (as appeared earlier).
A more detailed tabulation by a prof in the Toronto physics departent:
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
Some comment on the trends:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715

In case you haven't heard of Baylor and are curious, "Baylor University in Waco, Texas, is a private Baptist university, and a nationally ranked liberal arts institution."
http://www.baylor.edu/
http://www.baylor.edu/about/
The current president of Baylor University is Kenneth W. Starr, of Whitewater/Lewinsky/Prop 8 fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Starr

======================
String and Loop research publication shows some change from last year. This year's figures now seem roughly stable:
keeping tabs on research trends, as of 30 october:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3a+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3a+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3a+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 157, annualized 157*365/302 = 190

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=ads%2fcft+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb 813, annualized 813*365/302 = 983

http://howlonguntil.net/
Annualized rates updated as of 4 November
164*365/307=195
826*365/307=982

marcus

Nov11-11, 07:13 PM

Keeping tabs on research trends, as of 11 November:
http://howlonguntil.net/ 315/365 of year elapsed

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (171 found, annualized 198)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (832 found, annualized = 964)

Pythagorean

Nov12-11, 02:55 PM

Marcus, do you look much at other theoretical stuffs; I'd be interested in hearing about nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and complexity and the like.

marcus

Nov13-11, 04:12 PM

Marcus, do you look much at other theoretical stuffs; I'd be interested in hearing about nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and complexity and the like.

Hi Pythagorean, those topics strike me more as MATH topics. In this thread I am focused more on some indicators of where fundamental physics (geometry and particle physics) is going.
At various times in the past I've been interested in some of what you mention. Computational complexity for one thing. My wife did her thesis in that, and some friends were researching in that area. Plus it is just intrinsically interesting.

But I can't respond to those themes in this thread---it would just go way off topic. You could start a thread in one of the MATH forums. Or even in one of the Physics forums. You might get some discussion there. I'm not sure where the best place would be.

Here, even though the string fad in theoretical physics may be largely finished and there might be declining interest, I want to keep on consistently keeping track of some things.
In the popular book market (which does not reflect professional research trends) there is again an upsurge in sales of stringy books.

I want to record the noon salesrank readings for a few days around 15th November.
The stringy top five (fabric, hidden, e-fabric, e-hidden, grand) ranked 569, 798, 1074, 1132, 1165 for an average of 948.
The surge in sales has been associated with a new Brian Green Nova series based on "Fabric of the Cosmos" that just started this month, plus back in January his new book "Hidden Reality" came out. So most of the top five string books are various versions of these.

I want a November midmonth average to adjoin to this record:
Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 ....

So I will average these noon readings:
13 November 948
14 November ...
15 November ...
16 November ...
17 November ...

Pythagorean

Nov13-11, 05:32 PM

Hi Pythagorean, those topics strike me more as MATH topics. In this thread I am focused more on some indicators of where fundamental physics (geometry and particle physics) is going.
At various times in the past I've been interested in some of what you mention. Computational complexity for one thing. My wife did her thesis in that, and some friends were researching in that area. Plus it is just intrinsically interesting.

But I can't respond to those themes in this thread---it would just go way off topic. You could start a thread in one of the MATH forums. Or even in one of the Physics forums. You might get some discussion there. I'm not sure where the best place would be.

I'm sure this is mostly semantic, but I was taught "nonlinear dynamics" in my "modern physics" courses (we were given a choice between GR and nonlinear and we unanimously chose nonlinear). It's mostly just an extension of "classical mechanics" but there's also:

Quantum Chaos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chaos): a look at the interface and contradictions between classical and quantum mechanics.

Here, even though the string fad in theoretical physics may be largely finished and there might be declining interest, I want to keep on consistently keeping track of some things.
In the popular book market (which does not reflect professional research trends) there is again an upsurge in sales of stringy books.

I understand; I do not mean to take away from the stringiness.

I am also interested in what the non-professional public thinks of complexity. Have you ever used google insights? You might find it useful in your analysis; for instance, if i compare popular search terms 'complexity' and 'chaos' I see that chaos is (naturally) a much more searched topic, but also that the rhythms are out-of-phase: 'chaos' sees peaks on the weekend (indicating the public is mostly googling the topic under one of it's many definitions) while 'complexity' peaks during the weekdays (indicating it's fellow researchers or students in physics and biology doing literature reviews and learning.)

marcus

Nov13-11, 09:10 PM

Pythagaorean, thanks for the pointer to Google Insights. I have not yet gotten the knack or habit of using that, but maybe in time will. As I said I don't want to get into a discussion of complexity math, or of non-linear dynamics, here in this thread. But you can start a thread in one of the physics forums, if you wish. Sounds like it might be an interesting topic.

Since we are starting a new page for this thread, I will recap several of the indices we are tracking

Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list

year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010
recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0
This gauges the quality/significance of current work by how much it gets cited by other researchers. Here a paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the previous five years.

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods, with prelim. estim. for 2011

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 13
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 1

Registered participants in the annual conference (some years omitted for brevity)
Strings 2003 Kyoto 396
Strings 2005 Toronto 415
Strings 2007 Madrid 440
Strings 2009 Rome 450
Strings 2010 Texas A&M 193
Strings 2011 Uppsala 265
Strings 2012 Munich ...

Links to sources:
2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

http://www-conference.slu.se/strings2011/
https://www.akademikonferens.se/list.jsf?conf=strings2011-S
http://wwwth.mpp.mpg.de/members/strings/strings2012/strings.html

Keeping tabs on some research trends, as of 13 November:
http://howlonguntil.net/ 317/365 of year elapsed

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (171 found, annualized 197)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (832 found, annualized = 958)

Recent research related to testing Loop cosmology (early universe phenomenology, microwave background):
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28QUANTUM+GR AVITY+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29+%29+AND+%28GRAVITATI ONAL+RADIATION+OR+PRIMORDIAL+OR+inflation+or+POWER +SPECTRUM+OR+COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DA TE%3E2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29
The listed articles appeared 2009 or later. As of 13 November there were 46 of them.

marcus

Nov14-11, 03:37 PM

To continue this record of midmonth salerank averages, tracking string popularity with general public, I will take noon salesrank readings for a few days around 15th November.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 ....

13 November 948
14 November 1250
15 November ...
16 November ...
17 November ...

At Pacific noon on 14 November, the stringy top five (fabric, e-fabric, hidden, elegant, e-hidden) ranked 518, 1169, 1341, 1448, 1775 for an average of 1250.

I found a nice gadget http://code.google.com/p/citations-gadget/
http://code.google.com/p/citations-gadget/
This will give you an author's total lifetime citations. I tried putting "carlo rovelli" in the author box and it gave back
that there were 229 cited publications (which I think is about right, InSpire lists 231 but that's close enough.) And a total of 14,751 citations.

The new director of Princeton IAS:
Citations for 'robbert dijkgraaf' : 8102
Cited Publications: 75
H-Index: 41

Citations for 'stefano liberati' : 3488
Cited Publications: 126
H-Index: 34

Citations for 'hermann nicolai' : 6822
Cited Publications: 163
H-Index: 45

Citations for 'abhay ashtekar' : 14690
Cited Publications: 195
H-Index: 61

marcus

Nov15-11, 03:35 PM

13 November 948
14 November 1250
15 November 1419
16 November ...
17 November ...

marcus

Nov17-11, 03:17 PM

13 November 948
14 November 1250
15 November 1419
16 November 1462
17 November 1135

So the midmonth average for November is 1243
Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
As a sample of the noon topfive average, on 16 November the five most popular string books (fabric, hidden, e-hidden, elegant, grand) ranked 780, 915, 1742, 1921, 1952, for an average of 1462.

Updating these indicators of Loop and String research trends, as of 17 November:
http://howlonguntil.net/ 320/365 of year elapsed

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (174 found, annualized 198)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (838 found, annualized = 956)

marcus

Nov20-11, 01:31 AM

I'm trying to get an InSpire search that will work as well as the old Spires search for LQG and LQC phenomenology, testing-related research. Here is one:
find d > 2008 and k loop space and (quantum gravity or quantum cosmology) and (gravitational radiation or inflation or power spectrum or cosmic background radiation or primordial)

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3E+2008+and+k+loop+space+and+%28quantum+ gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and+%28gravitation al+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+spectrum+or+cos mic+background+radiation+or+primordial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb

The same with more to a page:
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3E+2008+and+k+loop+space+and+%28quantum+ gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and+%28gravitation al+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+spectrum+or+cos mic+background+radiation+or+primordial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
Stanford says they are going to turn Spires off. So we have to switch over. Here is the old Spires search:

http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/spiface/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+%28DK+LOOP+SPACE+AND+%28QUANTUM+GR AVITY+OR+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY%29+%29+AND+%28GRAVITATI ONAL+RADIATION+OR+PRIMORDIAL+OR+inflation+or+POWER +SPECTRUM+OR+COSMIC+BACKGROUND+RADIATION%29+AND+DA TE%3E2008&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

marcus

Nov20-11, 09:47 PM

This InSpire search is designed to turn up observational test-related Loop gravity/cosmology papers. It uses categories established by the DESY librarians. The publication date is 2008 onwards.
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3E+2008+and+k+loop+space+and+%28quantum+ gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and+%28gravitation al+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+spectrum+or+cos mic+background+radiation+or+primordial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb
the DESY categories are gravitational radiation, inflation, power spectrum, cosmic background radiation, primordial---in conjunction with LQG/LQC.
So that is a 4-year stretch, and it finds 46 papers.

Loop pheno papers (increasingly observational test-related)
(2000-2003 2004-2007 2008-2011
6 27 46

For comparison, if we look at another 4-year stretch (2004-2007) using the same categories, we get 27 papers.
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3C+2007+and+d+%3E+2004+and+k+loop+space+ and+%28quantum+gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and +%28gravitational+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+ spectrum+or+cosmic+background+radiation+or+primord ial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

And here's the same search for the previous 4 years (2000-2003 inclusive)
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3C+2003+and+d+%3E+2000+and+k+loop+space+ and+%28quantum+gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and +%28gravitational+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+ spectrum+or+cosmic+background+radiation+or+primord ial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

=========================
Loop and String research trends as of 20 November:
http://howlonguntil.net/ 324/365 of year elapsed

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (179 found, annualized 202)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (848 found, annualized = 955)

marcus

Nov30-11, 03:48 PM

Reviewing the pop-string market, in March-August 2010 we saw a lowpoint in string book sales, with salesranks at their highest in several years. Then we saw a big rebound driven by some (incidentally stringy) multiverse books. Hawking "grand" came out in September 2010, Greene "hidden" in January 2011, and then in November 2011 there was another surge caused by the PBS NOVA Greene series based on "fabric".

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
To keep tabs on this I made a spot check. At noon on 29 November the topfive average was 2054 and at noon 30 November the five most popular stringy books (hidden, fabric, grand, paperback-hidden, e-elegant) ranked 794, 1124, 1492, 2874, 2999 for an average of 1857.

marcus

Dec6-11, 11:44 AM

Loop and String research trends as of 6 December:
http://howlonguntil.net/ 339/365 of year elapsed

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (201 annualized from 187 found)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1046 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (946 annualized from 879 found)

================

marcus

Dec8-11, 01:30 PM

The issue of HEP-theory first-time faculty hires came up at NEW blog recently so I did a recount at the "Jobs Rumor Mill" (only source I know for this) to register any changes/corrections from last time. There were 12 outstanding offers from US and Canada physics departments. Two had not yet been marked "accepted". But that may simply be an omission on the Rumor Mill's part.
Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods, with prelim. estim. for 2011

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 10-12
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 1

Recent discussion:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4219#comment-101129
Sources:
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=archive:2011
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3715

marcus

Dec15-11, 03:19 PM

Getting the midmonth December pop-string averages, we have that
at noon on 15 Dec the five most popular stringy books (hidden, fabric, grand, paperback hidden, parallel) ranked 816, 1139, 1612, 2015, 4448 for an average of 2006.

14 December 2179
15 December 2006
16 December ....

marcus

Dec16-11, 03:41 PM

The chart at the U Toronto site showing first time faculty hires in High Energy Physics Theory has been updated for 2011
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
It shows 11 hires with one being string.
The physicist who posts the charts is a HEP theorist who works in various branches of beyond SM theory including string but also lattice field theory: Erich Poppitz. An interesting mix of research interests, it seemed to me.
2011 was the first year (since the record started in 1994) when "lattice" hires exceeded "string". Back in 1994 hires in the lattice gauge theory category were (recorded by Poppitz as) zero. Since then, string has tended to be overwhelmingly favored except for just recently.
period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 11
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 1
Altough the string research program shows some signs of dwindling, stringy book sales to the public are unquestionably strong. Partly I suppose this is due to recent multiverse books such as Grand Design and Hidden Reality, partly also to a new Brian Greene television series. For whatever reason, at noon on 16 Dec the five most popular stringy books (hidden, fabric, hardbound hidden, grand, e-elegant) ranked 980, 1153, 1504, 1644, 4285 for an average of 1913.

14 December 2179
15 December 2006
16 December 1913

The midmonth average this time was 2033.
Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)

January 2007: 4396
February 2007: 3789
November 2008: 3711
July 2009: 6485
March 2010: 7521
April 2010: 11983
May 2010: 6884
June 2010: 9731
July 2010: 8461
August 2010: 9606
September 2010: 1060
October 2010: 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
December 2011 2033

marcus

Jan2-12, 11:15 PM

Maybe it would give an idea of the currently active topics and who some of the active people are if we list the top 25 Loop papers of 2011 citewise:

HEP 203 records found 1 - 25
1.
Diffeomorphisms in group field theories.
Aristide Baratin (Ecole Polytechnique, CPHT & Saclay, SPhT & Orsay, LPT), Florian Girelli (Sydney U.), Daniele Oriti (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.). Jan 2011. 31 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.0590 [hep-th]
Cited by 40 records

2.
Zakopane lectures on loop gravity.
Carlo Rovelli (Marseille, CPT). Feb 2011. 25 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3660 [gr-qc]
Cited by 29 records

3.
Bubble divergences: sorting out topology from cell structure.
Valentin Bonzom, Matteo Smerlak. Mar 2011. 19 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3961 [gr-qc]
Cited by 18 records

4.
Loop Quantum Cosmology: A Status Report.
Abhay Ashtekar (Penn State U.), Parampreet Singh (Louisiana State U.). Aug 2011. 136 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.0893 [gr-qc]
Cited by 17 records

5.
Observational constraints on loop quantum cosmology.
Martin Bojowald (Penn State U.), Gianluca Calcagni (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.), Shinji Tsujikawa (Tokyo U. of Sci.). Jan 2011. 4 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5391 [astro-ph.CO]
Cited by 17 records

6.
Perfect discretization of reparametrization invariant path integrals.
Benjamin Bahr (Cambridge U. & Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.), Bianca Dittrich, Sebastian Steinhaus (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.). Jan 2011. 8 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4775 [gr-qc]
Cited by 16 records

7.
Spin foam models with finite groups.
Benjamin Bahr, Bianca Dittrich, James P. Ryan. Mar 2011. 47 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.6264 [gr-qc]
Cited by 15 records

8.
Spinor Representation for Loop Quantum Gravity.
Etera R. Livine, Johannes Tambornino. May 2011. 1 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3385 [gr-qc]
Cited by 13 records

9.
Regge gravity from spinfoams.
Elena Magliaro, Claudio Perini. May 2011. 8 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.0216 [gr-qc]
Cited by 13 records

10.
Status of Horava gravity: A personal perspective.
Matt Visser (Victoria U., Wellington). Mar 2011. 11 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.5587 [hep-th]
Cited by 13 records

11.
Spin foam models and the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for the quantum 4-simplex.
Valentin Bonzom (Perimeter Inst. Theor. Phys.). Jan 2011. 16 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.1615 [gr-qc]
Cited by 13 records

12.
The Matter Bounce Curvaton Scenario.
Yi-Fu Cai (Arizona State U. & Beijing, Inst. High Energy Phys.), Robert Brandenberger (Beijing, Inst. High Energy Phys. & McGill U.), Xinmin Zhang (Beijing, Inst. High Energy Phys. & TPCSF, Beijing). Jan 2011. 15 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.0822 [hep-th]
Cited by 13 records

13.
The Hamiltonian constraint in 3d Riemannian loop quantum gravity.
Valentin Bonzom, Laurent Freidel (Perimeter Inst. Theor. Phys.). Jan 2011. 24 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.3524 [gr-qc]
Cited by 12 records

14.
Cosmological constant in spinfoam cosmology.
Eugenio Bianchi (Marseille, CPT), Thomas Krajewski (Marseille, CPT & Orsay, LPT), Carlo Rovelli (Marseille, CPT), Francesca Vidotto (Marseille, CPT & Pavia U. & INFN, Pavia). Jan 2011. 4 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4049 [gr-qc]
Cited by 11 records

15.
Coarse graining methods for spin net and spin foam models.
Bianca Dittrich, Frank C. Eckert, Mercedes Martin-Benito (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.). Sep 2011. 39 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4927 [gr-qc]
Cited by 10 records

16.
Observational test of inflation in loop quantum cosmology.
Martin Bojowald (Penn State U.), Gianluca Calcagni (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.), Shinji Tsujikawa (Tokyo U. of Sci.). Jul 2011. 37 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.1540 [gr-qc]
Cited by 10 records

17.
Holomorphic Simplicity Constraints for 4d Spinfoam Models.
Maite Dupuis (Lyon, IPN & Sydney U.), Etera R. Livine (Lyon, IPN). Apr 2011. 27 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.3683 [gr-qc]
Cited by 10 records

18.
Chern-Simons theory, Stokes' Theorem, and the Duflo map.
Hanno Sahlmann (APCTP, Pohang), Thomas Thiemann (Erlangen - Nuremberg U., Theorie III). Jan 2011. 26 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.1690 [gr-qc]
Cited by 10 records

19.
Quantum simplicial geometry in the group field theory formalism: reconsidering the Barrett-Crane model.
Aristide Baratin, Daniele Oriti. Aug 2011. 24 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.1178 [gr-qc]
Cited by 9 records

20.
Tensor models and hierarchy of n-ary algebras.
Naoki Sasakura (Kyoto U., Yukawa Inst., Kyoto). Apr 2011. 13 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.5312 [hep-th]
Cited by 9 records

21.
Cosmological Constant in LQG Vertex Amplitude.
Muxin Han (Marseille, CPT). May 2011. 4 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2212 [gr-qc]
Cited by 8 records

22.
Euclidean three-point function in loop and perturbative gravity.
Carlo Rovelli, Mingyi Zhang (Marseille, CPT). May 2011. 16 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.0566 [gr-qc]
Cited by 8 records

23.
Canonical quantization of non-commutative holonomies in 2+1 loop quantum gravity.
K. Noui (Tours U., CNRS), A. Perez, D. Pranzetti (Marseille, CPT). May 2011.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.0439 [gr-qc]
Cited by 8 records

24.
Tensor models and 3-ary algebras.
Naoki Sasakura (Kyoto U., Yukawa Inst., Kyoto). Apr 2011. 18 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.1463 [hep-th]
Cited by 8 records

25.
Curvature in spinfoams.
Elena Magliaro, Claudio Perini (Penn State U.). Mar 2011. 6 pp.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4602 [gr-qc]
Cited by 8 records

marcus

Jan3-12, 04:03 PM

Loop and String research trends as of 3 January:

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (203 found)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1132 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (912 found)

================
As a spot check on the string pop market, at noon 3 Jan the five most popular stringy books (e-hidden, e-elegant, fabric, grand, hidden) ranked 1529, 1703, 1866, 2256, 3148, for an average Amazon salesrank of 2100. This is pretty much in line with what it's been at midmonth checks during the past few months:

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)
...
...
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
December 2011 2033
=======================
This InSpire search is designed to turn up observational test-related Loop gravity/cosmology papers. It uses categories established by the DESY librarians. The DESY categories used to make the search are gravitational radiation, inflation, power spectrum, cosmic background radiation, primordial---in conjunction with LQG/LQC.

Loop pheno papers (increasingly observational test-related)
2000-2003 2004-2007 2008-2011
6 27 48

2000-2003 inclusive: 6 found
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3C+2003+and+d+%3E+2000+and+k+loop+space+ and+%28quantum+gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and +%28gravitational+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+ spectrum+or+cosmic+background+radiation+or+primord ial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

2004-2007 using the same categories: 27 papers.
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3C+2007+and+d+%3E+2004+and+k+loop+space+ and+%28quantum+gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and +%28gravitational+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+ spectrum+or+cosmic+background+radiation+or+primord ial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

2008-2011: 48 papers
http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=find+d+%3E+2008+and+k+loop+space+and+%28quantum+ gravity+or+quantum+cosmology%29+and+%28gravitation al+radiation+or+inflation+or+power+spectrum+or+cos mic+background+radiation+or+primordial%29&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=citation&rg=100&sc=0&of=hb

marcus

Jan10-12, 05:19 PM

The Stanford/SLAC HEP research database is switching over from Spires to InSpire. I still don't know what is going to happen to the ANNUAL TOPCITE lists that Spires has maintained for many years. Here are the lists up thru 2010:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/matrix.shtml
I hope they continue the practice of listing the "top 100" HEP papers in terms of each year's cites. These are the annual, as opposed to cumulative, most highly cited papers. It's a good way to gauge shifts in research interest.

I've added a 2012 link to each of these two records:
LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (42 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (203 found)
2012 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")
2005 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2005&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2005&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (988 found)
2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1133 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (927 found)
2012 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb

Strings 2012 invited speakers list:
http://wwwth.mpp.mpg.de/members/strings/strings2012/strings_files/program/speakers.html
(still incomplete, lists of speakers and titles of talks will give us an idea where the field is going)

Links to particle physics jobs listings for 2012, short lists, offers:
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=current
(17 institutions, 9 names currently shortlisted, click on institution to see online job description, click on individual name to see InSpire list of co-authors, research publications, in which categories, etc.)
Charts showing trends in first time faculty job offers, Usa Canada, by HEP category:
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08

marcus

Jan12-12, 11:52 AM

The year's first mid-month pop-string salesrank averages. Here is the reading at noon pacific time, for 12 January

12 Jan 2811
13 Jan ...
14 Jan ...
15 Jan ...
16 Jan ...
17 Jan ...
18 Jan ...

At the moment the 5 most popular string books are e-grand, grand, e-hidden, e-elegant, fabric .
The idea is to take top five salesrank averages for several days around the 15th of each month.
For the past 15 months the most popular stringy books have focused on the multiverse notion and have almost exclusively been ones by Hawking or by Greene.

marcus

Jan13-12, 01:46 PM

QUANTUM COSMOLOGY RESEARCH BY YEAR
2006 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (70 found)
2007 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (102 found)
2008 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (93 found)
2009 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (104 found)
2010 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (111 found)
2011 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (85 found)

QUANTUM COSMOLOGY RESEARCH BY YEAR (LOOP ONLY)
keyword "quantum cosmology: loop space"
2006 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (21 found)
2007 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (39 found)
2008 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (45 found)
2009 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (45 found)
2010 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (56 found)
2011 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=&f1=keyword&op1=a&m2=e&p2=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=a&m3=a&p3=&f3=&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=50&sc=0&of=hb (47 found)

January mid-month pop-string salesrank averages. At noon pacific time on 13 Jan the five most popular stringy books (grand, e-elegant, e-grand, e-hidden, hidden) ranked 1956, 2963, 3208, 4433, 4935 for an average of 3499

12 Jan 2811
13 Jan 3499
14 Jan ...
15 Jan ...
16 Jan ...
17 Jan ...
18 Jan ...

marcus

Jan15-12, 03:49 PM

Except for the kindle electronic version of Elegant Universe, the leading stringy books continue to be those featuring multiverse speculation---only marginally about string/M-theory proper. However the sales of popular stringy multiverse books remain strong. For comparison here are midmonth figures for the past several months:

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)
...
...
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
December 2011 2033
At noon pacific time on 14 Jan the five most popular stringy books (grand, e-elegant, e-grand, fabric, e-hidden) ranked 1536, 2271, 3719, 4211, 4569 for an average of 3261. At noon on 15th the stringy topfive were grand, e-elegant, e-grand, hidden, e-hidden and the average was 2516.

12 Jan 2811
13 Jan 3499
14 Jan 3261
15 Jan 2516
16 Jan ...
17 Jan ...
18 Jan ...

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (203 found)
2012 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1133 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (927 found)
2012 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb

marcus

Jan18-12, 10:44 AM

Bringing forward several of the indices we are tracking. The following gauges the quality/significance of current string research by how much it gets cited by other researchers. Here a paper is counted as recent if it appeared in the previous five years. Current string research is less cited than has been the case in the past, and first-time faculty hiring of string researchers has declined.

Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list

year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010
recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0 Sources:
2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2001/annual.shtml (twelve)
2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2003/annual.shtml (six)
2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2005/annual.shtml (two)
2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2007/annual.shtml (one)
2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2009/annual.shtml (one)
2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/topcites/2010/annual.shtml (zero)

Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory overall, and string in particular, averaged over 3 year periods

period 1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2007 2008-2010 2011
annual HEP theory hires 18 24 23 13 11
annual string hires 9 8 6 2 1Sources:
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~poppitz/Jobs94-08
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php?id=archive:2011
http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php

Pop-string book sales have declined somewhat recently as indicated by their increased average salesrankings.

Midmonth averages of string topfive salesranks
(recorded at Pacific noon on several days around the 15th of each month)
...
September 2010 1060
October 2010 1344
November 2010 2220
December 2010 2705
January 2011 1252
February 2011 223
March 2011 349
April 2011 649
May 2011 676
June 2011 1153
July 2011 1257
August 2011 2068
September 2011 2181
October 2011 2563
November 2011 1243
December 2011 2033
January 2012 3143To provide a bit of detail, at noon pacific time on 16 Jan the five most popular stringy books (grand, e-elegant, e-hidden, hidden, fabric) ranked 1674, 1821, 2471, 2947, 3727 for an average of 2528. At noon on 17th the stringy topfive were e-elegant, hidden, grand, e-hidden, elegant and the average was 2664. Again at noon pacific time on 18 Jan the five most popular stringy books (grand, e-elegant, elegant, e-hidden, e-grand) ranked 2485+3361+4626+5365+7782 for an average of 4724 The January midmonth figure of 3143 was obtained as a average of the following:

12 Jan 2811
13 Jan 3499
14 Jan 3261
15 Jan 2516
16 Jan 2528
17 Jan 2664
18 Jan 4724

marcus

Jan26-12, 09:17 PM

Overall reserach trends as of 26 January---year getting off to a good start.

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (203 found)
2012 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (168 annualized from 12 found)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1133 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (927 found)
2012 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (562 annualized from 40 found)

http://howlonguntil.net/

On the HEP-theory job scene http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php shows the first-time faculty positions which Theoretical Particle Physics Jobs Rumor Mill (JRM) says are open in Usa and Canada.
It shows that 19 institutions have posted theory job openings, and over half of these already show "short lists" of people they are considering. These tend to overlap so that although the total length of all the short lists shown so far is 37, the lists contain only 22 distinct names. (Some names are repeated in two or more lists.)

Last year, according to JRM, out of 11 reported hires, one was a string theorist (hired by Baylor U in Texas). Other types of HEP theory that seem to be doing better include cosmology, lattice gauge theory. You can look for yourself.

marcus

Feb3-12, 10:39 PM

Last week I checked the Strings 2012 website and read the preliminary (incomplete) list of speakers. Didn't notice any who would be giving "string multiverse" talks. If it plays out that way this will simply carry on the practice since 2008 of excluding "anthropic string landscape" from the annual conference. Widely considered to be pseudoscience, though the subject of several very popular books and television programs for wide audience.

i just now tried to bring up the Strings 2012 pages and found they had moved or for some other reason I couldn't get them. Here are two url that are (temporarily?) not working:
http://wwwth.mppmu.mpg.de/members/strings/strings2012/strings.html
http://wwwth.mpp.mpg.de/members/strings/strings2012/strings.html
The conference will be in Munich July 23-28.

AFAICS the major conference of this year as regards relativity and cosmology (including string cosmology, quantum gravity, quantum cosmology...) will be the 13th Marcel Grossmann in Stockholm
July 1-7:
Here is the lineup of invited plenary speakers.
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg13/invited_speakers.htm
It is a huge conference with many parallel sessions on many topics.
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg13/parallel_sessions.htm
For instance in the Cosmological Models bunch there is this.
CM4 Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Effects in the Early Universe (chaired by Paulo Moniz)

Here is the entire Quantum Gravity bunch (session chair shown in parens).

QG1 Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Geometry, Spin Foams (Jerzy Lewandowski)
QG2 Quantum Gravity Phenomenology (Giovanni Amelino-Camelia)
QG3 Asymptotic Safeness and Symmetry Breaking in Quantum Gravity (Eckehard W. Mielke)
QG4 Loop quantum gravity: cosmology and black holes (Jorge Pullin, Parampreet Singh)
(There was also that workshop in Portugal to keep track of
http://www.fctec.ualg.pt/qisg/speakers.html )

Updating overall research trends as of 3 February (34/366 year)

LOOP RESEARCH BY YEAR (loop quantum gravity, loop quantum cosmology, spin foam)

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (77 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (120 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (142 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (145 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (152 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (203 found)
2012 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=quantum+cosmology%3A+loop+space&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=quantum+gravity%3A+loop+space&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=spin%3A+foam&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=25&sc=0&of=hb (172 annualized from 16 found)

STRING,MEMBRANE,AdS/CFT RESEARCH BY YEAR
(search terms "string model", "membrane model" and "AdS/CFT correspondence")

2006 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2006&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2006&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1029 found)
2007 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2007&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2007&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1050 found)
2008 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2008&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2008&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1128 found)
2009 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2009&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2009&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1133 found)
2010 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2010&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2010&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (1044 found)
2011 http://inspirebeta.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2011&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2011&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (927 found)
2012 http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&as=1&m1=e&p1=string+model&f1=keyword&op1=o&m2=e&p2=membrane+model&f2=keyword&op2=o&m3=e&p3=AdS%2FCFT+correspondence&f3=keyword&action_search=Search&dt=&d1d=&d1m=&d1y=2012&d2d=&d2m=&d2y=2012&sf=&so=a&rm=citation&rg=10&sc=0&of=hb (678 annualized from 63 found)

http://howlonguntil.net/

The HEP-theory job scene shows little change. http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php lists the first-time faculty positions which Theoretical Particle Physics Jobs Rumor Mill (JRM) says are open in Usa and Canada. It shows that 19 institutions have posted theory job openings, and over half of these already show "short lists" of people they are considering. These tend to overlap so that although the total length of all the short lists shown so far is 38, the lists contain only 22 distinct names. (Some names are repeated in two or more lists.)