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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/n...txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...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:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/227399/&tag=pfamazon01-20
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/n...txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1
2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...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:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/227399/&tag=pfamazon01-20
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