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What role should "media ratings" play in science?
The argument has often been made in the string/loop forum (by eigenguy, jeff, Lubos IIRC and perhaps others) that because more
theoretical physicists work on string than work on loop, therefore string is a more valid approach and should receive more encouragement than loop.
I don't want to bother with that particular argument but want to comment on the whole idea of fad statistics, head-counts, citation-counts, research budget ratings, journal-counts and all such indices that have to do with research trends and fashions.
I think that you CAN sometimes get useful information about where science is going from looking at the statistics! But one has to be cautious and have a bit of historical perspective. In the history of science there have been "dark horse" events where tiny minorities became influential and overturned the majority view.
The best way to find out how useful some information is can often be just to TRY IT. So I am going to try out the SLAC citebase here.
What were THE 20 TOPCITED GR-QG preprints posted from year 2000 onwards, in year 2002?
You see I am not focussing on string stuff because string/brane research is normally posted in HEP-TH, and not in gr-qc. And I am not focussing on OLD stuff but only on what came out after 1999. For example I excluded Rovelli's "Loop Quantum Gravity" LivingReviews article because its gr-qc posting number began 97... (came out in 1997) and kept only articles where the number begins 00, 01, or 02. The citation counts will seem small to some people (there are relatively few Relativists and it is mostly they who cite from and post at the gr-qc arxiv.) But given these restrictions, how do things look thru this particular window? What new stuff has been cited a lot by those who cite from gr-qc?
"The Top Twenty"
(you see they range from 57 citations down to around 17, small numbers but this is gr-qc, not hep-th!)
---------------------
0057
RELATIVITY IN SPACE-TIMES WITH SHORT DISTANCE STRUCTURE GOVERNED BY AN OBSERVER INDEPENDENT (PLANCKIAN) LENGTH SCALE
By Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (Rome U.).
Published in Int.J.Mod.Phys.D11:35-60,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0012051]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0054
CLASSICAL BLACK HOLE PRODUCTION IN HIGH-ENERGY COLLISIONS
By Douglas M. Eardley, Steven B. Giddings (UC, Santa Barbara).
Published in Phys.Rev.D66:044011,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0201034]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0036
INTRODUCTION TO MODERN CANONICAL QUANTUM GENERAL RELATIVITY
By Thomas Thiemann (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.). [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0110034]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0031
THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN GENERAL RELATIVITY AND EXPERIMENT
By Clifford M. Will (Washington U., St. Louis).
Published in Living Rev.Rel.4:4,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0103036]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0028
EXTENDING THE LIFETIME OF 3-D BLACK HOLE COMPUTATIONS WITH A NEW HYPERBOLIC SYSTEM OF EVOLUTION EQUATIONS
By Lawrence E. Kidder, Mark A. Scheel, Saul A. Teukolsky (Cornell U., Radio. Space Res. Ctr.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D64:064017,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0105031]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0028
GEOMETRY AND DYNAMICS OF THE BRANE WORLD
By Roy Maartens (Portsmouth U.). [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0101059]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0027
AN ALTERNATIVE TO QUINTESSENCE
By Alexander Yu. Kamenshchik (Landau Inst. & Landau Network Centro Volta), Ugo Moschella (Insubria U., Como & INFN, Milan), Vincent Pasquier (Saclay).
Published in Phys.Lett.B511:265-268,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0103004]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0023
QUANTUM GRAVITY: A PROGRESS REPORT
By S. Carlip (UC, Davis).
Published in Rept.Prog.Phys.64:885,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0108040]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0021
QUANTUM GEOMETRY OF ISOLATED HORIZONS AND BLACK HOLE ENTROPY
By A. Ashtekar (Penn State U. & Santa Barbara, KITP), John C. Baez (UC, Riverside & Penn State U.), Kiriil Krasnov (UC, Santa Barbara & Santa Barbara, KITP).
Published in Adv.Theor.Math.Phys.4:1-94,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0005126]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
GENERALIZED LORENTZ INVARIANCE WITH AN INVARIANT ENERGY SCALE
By Joao Magueijo (Imperial Coll., London), Lee Smolin (Perimeter Inst. Theor. Phys. & Waterloo U.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D67:044017,2003 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0207085]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
NUMERICAL RELATIVITY: A REVIEW
By Luis Lehner (British Columbia U. & British Columbia U., PIMS).
Published in Class.Quant.Grav.18:R25-R86,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0106072]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
LOGARITHMIC CORRECTIONS TO BLACK HOLE ENTROPY FROM THE CARDY FORMULA
By S. Carlip (UC, Davis).
Published in Class.Quant.Grav.17:4175-4186,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0005017]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
CONSERVATION LAWS IN 'DOUBLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY'
By Simon Judes (Oxford U.), Matt Visser (Victoria U.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D68:045001,2003 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0205067]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
ANISOTROPY DISSIPATION IN BRANE WORLD INFLATION
By Roy Maartens (Portsmouth U.), Varun Sahni, Tarun Deep Saini (IUCAA, Pune).
Published in Phys.Rev.D63:063509,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0011105]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
COVARIANT AND LOCALLY LORENTZ INVARIANT VARYING SPEED OF LIGHT THEORIES
By Joao Magueijo (Imperial Coll., London).
Published in Phys.Rev.D62:103521,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0007036]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
CRITICAL PHENOMENA IN GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE
By Carsten Gundlach (Chicago U., EFI & Southampton U.).
Published in Living Rev.Rel.2:4,1999 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0001046]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
SPACE-TIME QUANTUM SOLVES THREE EXPERIMENTAL PARADOXES
By Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (Rome U.).
Published in Phys.Lett.B528:181-187,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0107086]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
RELIC GRAVITY WAVES FROM BRANE WORLD INFLATION
By Varun Sahni, M. Sami (IUCAA, Pune & Jamia Millia Islamia), Tarun Souradeep (IUCAA, Pune).
Published in Phys.Rev.D65:023518,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0105121]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
RADION ON THE DE SITTER BRANE
By Uchida Gen (Osaka U., Dept. Earth Space Sci. & Tokyo U.), Misao Sasaki (Osaka U., Dept. Earth Space Sci.).
Published in Prog.Theor.Phys.105:591-606,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0011078]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
THE R MODE INSTABILITY IN ROTATING NEUTRON STARS
By Nils Andersson (Southampton U.), Kostas D. Kokkotas (Thessaloniki U.).
Published in Int.J.Mod.Phys.D10:381-442,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0010102]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
------------------------
I wonder what if anything can be learned from looking at this "top twenty".
BTW the information comes from somebody at SLAC
Michael Peskin of the HEP-SPIRES database.
a link to his much more complete listing is
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/topcites/topcites.review.2002.html
The argument has often been made in the string/loop forum (by eigenguy, jeff, Lubos IIRC and perhaps others) that because more
theoretical physicists work on string than work on loop, therefore string is a more valid approach and should receive more encouragement than loop.
I don't want to bother with that particular argument but want to comment on the whole idea of fad statistics, head-counts, citation-counts, research budget ratings, journal-counts and all such indices that have to do with research trends and fashions.
I think that you CAN sometimes get useful information about where science is going from looking at the statistics! But one has to be cautious and have a bit of historical perspective. In the history of science there have been "dark horse" events where tiny minorities became influential and overturned the majority view.
The best way to find out how useful some information is can often be just to TRY IT. So I am going to try out the SLAC citebase here.
What were THE 20 TOPCITED GR-QG preprints posted from year 2000 onwards, in year 2002?
You see I am not focussing on string stuff because string/brane research is normally posted in HEP-TH, and not in gr-qc. And I am not focussing on OLD stuff but only on what came out after 1999. For example I excluded Rovelli's "Loop Quantum Gravity" LivingReviews article because its gr-qc posting number began 97... (came out in 1997) and kept only articles where the number begins 00, 01, or 02. The citation counts will seem small to some people (there are relatively few Relativists and it is mostly they who cite from and post at the gr-qc arxiv.) But given these restrictions, how do things look thru this particular window? What new stuff has been cited a lot by those who cite from gr-qc?
"The Top Twenty"
(you see they range from 57 citations down to around 17, small numbers but this is gr-qc, not hep-th!)
---------------------
0057
RELATIVITY IN SPACE-TIMES WITH SHORT DISTANCE STRUCTURE GOVERNED BY AN OBSERVER INDEPENDENT (PLANCKIAN) LENGTH SCALE
By Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (Rome U.).
Published in Int.J.Mod.Phys.D11:35-60,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0012051]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0054
CLASSICAL BLACK HOLE PRODUCTION IN HIGH-ENERGY COLLISIONS
By Douglas M. Eardley, Steven B. Giddings (UC, Santa Barbara).
Published in Phys.Rev.D66:044011,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0201034]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0036
INTRODUCTION TO MODERN CANONICAL QUANTUM GENERAL RELATIVITY
By Thomas Thiemann (Potsdam, Max Planck Inst.). [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0110034]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0031
THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN GENERAL RELATIVITY AND EXPERIMENT
By Clifford M. Will (Washington U., St. Louis).
Published in Living Rev.Rel.4:4,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0103036]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0028
EXTENDING THE LIFETIME OF 3-D BLACK HOLE COMPUTATIONS WITH A NEW HYPERBOLIC SYSTEM OF EVOLUTION EQUATIONS
By Lawrence E. Kidder, Mark A. Scheel, Saul A. Teukolsky (Cornell U., Radio. Space Res. Ctr.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D64:064017,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0105031]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0028
GEOMETRY AND DYNAMICS OF THE BRANE WORLD
By Roy Maartens (Portsmouth U.). [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0101059]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0027
AN ALTERNATIVE TO QUINTESSENCE
By Alexander Yu. Kamenshchik (Landau Inst. & Landau Network Centro Volta), Ugo Moschella (Insubria U., Como & INFN, Milan), Vincent Pasquier (Saclay).
Published in Phys.Lett.B511:265-268,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0103004]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0023
QUANTUM GRAVITY: A PROGRESS REPORT
By S. Carlip (UC, Davis).
Published in Rept.Prog.Phys.64:885,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0108040]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0021
QUANTUM GEOMETRY OF ISOLATED HORIZONS AND BLACK HOLE ENTROPY
By A. Ashtekar (Penn State U. & Santa Barbara, KITP), John C. Baez (UC, Riverside & Penn State U.), Kiriil Krasnov (UC, Santa Barbara & Santa Barbara, KITP).
Published in Adv.Theor.Math.Phys.4:1-94,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0005126]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
GENERALIZED LORENTZ INVARIANCE WITH AN INVARIANT ENERGY SCALE
By Joao Magueijo (Imperial Coll., London), Lee Smolin (Perimeter Inst. Theor. Phys. & Waterloo U.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D67:044017,2003 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0207085]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
NUMERICAL RELATIVITY: A REVIEW
By Luis Lehner (British Columbia U. & British Columbia U., PIMS).
Published in Class.Quant.Grav.18:R25-R86,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0106072]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0019
LOGARITHMIC CORRECTIONS TO BLACK HOLE ENTROPY FROM THE CARDY FORMULA
By S. Carlip (UC, Davis).
Published in Class.Quant.Grav.17:4175-4186,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0005017]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
CONSERVATION LAWS IN 'DOUBLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY'
By Simon Judes (Oxford U.), Matt Visser (Victoria U.).
Published in Phys.Rev.D68:045001,2003 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0205067]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
ANISOTROPY DISSIPATION IN BRANE WORLD INFLATION
By Roy Maartens (Portsmouth U.), Varun Sahni, Tarun Deep Saini (IUCAA, Pune).
Published in Phys.Rev.D63:063509,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0011105]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
COVARIANT AND LOCALLY LORENTZ INVARIANT VARYING SPEED OF LIGHT THEORIES
By Joao Magueijo (Imperial Coll., London).
Published in Phys.Rev.D62:103521,2000 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0007036]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0018
CRITICAL PHENOMENA IN GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE
By Carsten Gundlach (Chicago U., EFI & Southampton U.).
Published in Living Rev.Rel.2:4,1999 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0001046]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
SPACE-TIME QUANTUM SOLVES THREE EXPERIMENTAL PARADOXES
By Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (Rome U.).
Published in Phys.Lett.B528:181-187,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0107086]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
RELIC GRAVITY WAVES FROM BRANE WORLD INFLATION
By Varun Sahni, M. Sami (IUCAA, Pune & Jamia Millia Islamia), Tarun Souradeep (IUCAA, Pune).
Published in Phys.Rev.D65:023518,2002 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0105121]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
RADION ON THE DE SITTER BRANE
By Uchida Gen (Osaka U., Dept. Earth Space Sci. & Tokyo U.), Misao Sasaki (Osaka U., Dept. Earth Space Sci.).
Published in Prog.Theor.Phys.105:591-606,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0011078]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
0017
THE R MODE INSTABILITY IN ROTATING NEUTRON STARS
By Nils Andersson (Southampton U.), Kostas D. Kokkotas (Thessaloniki U.).
Published in Int.J.Mod.Phys.D10:381-442,2001 [PS file for arXiv: gr-qc/0010102]
[Total number of citations in HEP]
------------------------
I wonder what if anything can be learned from looking at this "top twenty".
BTW the information comes from somebody at SLAC
Michael Peskin of the HEP-SPIRES database.
a link to his much more complete listing is
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/topcites/topcites.review.2002.html
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