Sociology of Physics: comment and indices

marcus

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/...tecount%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

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. 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

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/p...ndex-video.php
Marcel Twelve (Paris, July)
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg12/en/
http://www.icra.it/MG/mg12/en/invite...rs_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..._programme.php
Ellisfest (Cape Town, August)
http://www.mth.uct.ac.za/~jeff/Quant...ity/About.html
Corfu QG School (Corfu, September)
http://www.physics.ntua.gr/corfu2009/qg.html
AsymSafe (Perimeter, November)
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Eve...0_Years_Later/
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Eve...ited_Speakers/
http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/...ety/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

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

marcus

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

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

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.

Chaos' lil bro Order

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

marcus

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.

changeseeker

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.

marcus

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

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

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/np...=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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

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!

marcus

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:

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

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...px?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:

marcus

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/np...=YES&version=1

2008: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=YES&version=1

2009: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...tecount%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/...tecount%28d%29

Suppose we divide into two-year chunks and check for a trend:
[2003 2004]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...tecount%28d%29

[2005 2006]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...tecount%28d%29

[2007, 2008]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...tecount%28d%29

126
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