Sociology of Physics: comment and indices

marcus

String publication for the first four months of successive 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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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

String publication for the first four months of successive 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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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

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

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

To keep track of the drop in string citations in the professional literature:
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 )
==================

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

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

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

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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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

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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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

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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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

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

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

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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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-.../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 ) 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

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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=YES&version=1

With June 2010 incompletely reported, the numbers as of 26 June are 2861, 2841, 2868, 2236.

marcus

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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=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.

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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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=YES&version=1

As of 3 July, totals for Jan+Feb+March+April+May of four successive years were: 2630, 2638, 2499, 2105
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Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=YES&version=1

With June 2010 incompletely reported, the numbers as of 3 July are 3002, 2964, 2925, 2352.

marcus

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:

*high energy physics (HEP) research papers
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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

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/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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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.
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Here are corresponding links for the first six months:

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

2010: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...=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/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2009 Loop papers:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

Link for 2010 (still incomplete,of course):
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...=www&SEQUENCE=

If you select sort by citation count and repeat the display, the most highly cited papers will be listed first.
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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.


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