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John Creighto said:
Yes definitely. What interests me is how this index changes over time. I have kept track of it since September 2006. Doing a reading at or around the first of the month, always at noon pacific so as to avoid any accidental "cherrypicking"
For much of 2008 the index was down around 0.5 and 0.6. Also for much of 2009. And now it is up, often over 2 or 3.
This is a big change. Does it signal a longterm shift in the way the physics-fans in the general public are thinking? Or is it just a brief temporary spike? And if it is purely temporary, why did it happen now?
I think the public is capable of being fooled by science hype. Indeed it probably has been fooled quite a bit including by media specials (eg even with Hawking, Brian Greene,...) that you'd hope would be solid and not misleading. So you can't take booksales as an indicator of what is valid research or good science policy. It could even sometimes be a contrary indicator!
I don't need to keep track of wideaudience booksales to tell me what is valid science and what isn't. Neither do you. We have other ways---our critical faculties, citation counts, reading informed inside opinion.
What indices like this can tell us is about public perceptions and especially alert us to change---shifts in perception.
Smolin's book essentially advocates a more inclusive, broad front of attack on the quantum geometry/gravity problem. Not just string, but also spinfoam, causal sets, dynamic triangulations, loop quantum gravity...
And the book gives the reasons why you need to allow for string being a dead-end. A fundamental weakness in the string approach. No approach can you say from the outset that it is right. Every approach can turn out to be flawed some way, and it may turn out to be possible to work around the flaw or it may NOT. So the mature strategy is to develop along a variety of paths and support several research lines.
Well in 2006 there was a serious problem of overconcentration on string with an entrenched establishment protecting its own prestige, especially in the US.
Now that monopoly has broken somewhat in Europe, and the Europeans are being rewarded by exciting advances along the non-string lines. Most recently the socalled Asymptotic Safe approach that nobelist Steven Weinberg talked about at Cern (July 7) just this past week. But actually a lot of nonstring QG research action.
So the situation that Smolin assessed in the book has proven to be in some sense self-correcting. It is as if at least the European Scientific Establishment paid attention to what Smolin was saying. Or knew it already. So more funding HAS gone into the nonstring lines that Smolin was talking about, and also allied approaches that he didnt even mention.
Now it remains for the USA scientific establishment (DOE research, NSF, national science foundation,...) to get the message.
Smolin's book can be a helpful PART of this shift in perception and policy, but it can't do the job all by itself.
Still, I think it is an interesting index and I am waiting to see where it goes next.
BTW Smolin's next book (about Time and the Laws of Physics) is likely to be very controversial. In its day TwP was considered a dark horse and not likely to be as persistent and influential as it seems now to be. The new one could be like that too.
) details still to be filled in. missing connections that still have to be made.
That's fine.