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Sociology of Physics: comment and indices |
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| Apr18-11, 01:24 PM | #222 |
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Sociology of Physics: comment and indices
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 Code:
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 |
| Apr27-11, 01:23 PM | #223 |
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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/s...tecount%28d%29 2006: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 2007: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 2008: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 2009: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 2010: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 Code:
Loop gravity research, by year 2005 41 2006 81 2007 121 2008 142 2009 141 2010 154 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: Code:
Loop cosmology research, by year 2006 21 2007 39 2008 46 2009 45 2010 57 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. |
| Apr27-11, 02:37 PM | #224 |
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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 Code:
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 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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%28d%29 4 out of 10. The stringy ones are numbers 1, 3, 6, 8. 2008: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 3 out of 10. Numbers 1, 6, 10. 2010: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%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. |
| Apr27-11, 05:50 PM | #225 |
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I'll try the experiment of changing this to the Top Thirty
Code:
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 2000: http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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/s...tecount%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. |
| Apr28-11, 02:24 PM | #226 |
| May1-11, 03:41 PM | #227 |
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http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...tecount%28d%29 There have been 41, so far. 2008, 2009, 2010, and part of 2011 (up to 1 May) |
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| May13-11, 12:31 PM | #228 |
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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/...d=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. |
| May15-11, 06:04 PM | #229 |
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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 |
| May17-11, 02:27 PM | #230 |
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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/20...e-is-no-heaven The e-book version of "elegant universe" is being sold for $2.11. |
| May18-11, 11:21 AM | #231 |
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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: Code:
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
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| May27-11, 03:04 PM | #232 |
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The list of bounce cosmology papers keeps growing. This search now gets 33.
http://www-library.desy.de/cgi-bin/s...ENCE=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. |
| Jun13-11, 02:17 PM | #233 |
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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/s...tecount%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. |
| Jun14-11, 02:05 PM | #234 |
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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....11#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. |
| Jun15-11, 02:38 PM | #235 |
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Code:
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...nf=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. |
| Jun16-11, 04:53 PM | #236 |
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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/...1/annual.shtml (twelve) 2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...3/annual.shtml (six) 2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...5/annual.shtml (two) 2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...7/annual.shtml (one) 2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...9/annual.shtml (one) 2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...0/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 Code:
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/ 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. |
| Jun17-11, 02:26 PM | #237 |
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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. Code:
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 |
| Jun24-11, 03:52 PM | #238 |
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I redid the format of this information:
Number of recent string papers making the top fifty in the annual Spires HEP topcite list Code:
year (some omitted for brev.) 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010 recent work highly cited in year 12 6 2 1 1 0 Annual first-time faculty hires (US and Canada) in HEP theory as a whole, and in string, averaged over 3 year periods Code:
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 Code:
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 2001 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...1/annual.shtml (twelve) 2003 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...3/annual.shtml (six) 2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...5/annual.shtml (two) 2007 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...7/annual.shtml (one) 2009 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...9/annual.shtml (one) 2010 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...0/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...=strings2011-S |
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