Will blogs revolutionize how science is done?

The latest issue of Nature Physics has an editorial which is worth thinking about. It is followed by a Commentary by Michael Nielsen. Both claim that due to new on-line tools such as blogs and wikis a major revolution is about to occur in the way science is done. Although, I remain to be convinced the changes will be as dramatic, as significant, and as fast as claimed, there are some important points I am in sympathy with.
Indeed this why I started this blog!

* Scientists are too secretive about sharing new ideas and data.

* Science will advance faster the more informal and unstructured collaboration occurs.

* We could all benefit from "picking the brains" of great scientific minds. Blogs, wiki's, etc. provide a highly efficient means of this happening.

* There are significant amounts of insights, experiences, data, questions, that never "see the light of day" because they are not suitable for conventional
publications but need to be disseminated.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 21, 2009 at 3:38 AM

    I only wish there were more condensed matter blogs. The blog is a good format -- informal and open. Students and other interested readers can follow along and even get some (nearly) real-time answers to questions. The way scientists communicate is already changing. The Internet could become the never-ending conference (without the layovers and smelly hotel rooms). It's only a matter of time before we start twittering our results.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Herzberg-Teller coupling?

Image
Is it something to do with breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation? In molecular spectroscopy you occasionally hear this term thrown around. Google scholar yields more than 3000 hits. But I have found its precise meaning and the relevant physics hard to pin down. Quantum mechanics in chemistry by Schatz and Ratner is an excellent book , but the discussion on page 204 did not help me. "Herzberg-Teller" never appears in Atkins' Molecular quantum mechanics. So here is my limited understanding. Herzberg and Teller wanted to understand why one observed certain vibronic (combined electronic and vibrational) transitions that were not expected, particularly some that were expected to be forbidden on symmetry grounds. " Intensity borrowing " occurred. Herzberg and Teller pointed out that his could be understood if the dipole transition moment for the electronic transition depended on the nuclear co-ordinate associated with the vibration. In the Franck-Condo
Read more

Is it an Unidentified Superconducting Object (USO)?

If you look on the arXiv and in Nature journals there is a continuing stream of people claiming to observe superconductivity in some new material. There is a long history of this and it is worth considering the wise observations of Robert Cava , back in 1997, contained in a tutorial lecture. It would have been useful indeed in the early days of the field [cuprate superconductors] to have set up a "commission" to set some minimum standard of data quality and reproducibility for reporting new superconductors. An almost countless number of "false alarms" have been reported in the past decade, some truly spectacular. Koichi Kitazawa from the University of Tokyo coined these reports "USOs", for Unidentified Superconducting Objects , in a clever cross-cultural double entendre likening them to UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects, which certainly are their equivalent in many ways) and to "lies" in the Japanese translation of USO.   These have caused g
Read more

What should be the order of authors on a conference poster or talk?

I welcome discussion on this point. I don't think it is as sensitive or as important a topic as the author order on papers. With regard to paper authorship my general rule is that the person who does the bulk of the work, including actually writing the paper should be the first author. Doug Natelson has a good post on co-authorship , that I largely agree with. My only difference is that I am not really convinced that good practice prevails in the majority of circumstances. I fear there are increasing numbers of co-authors, particularly senior ones, with marginal contributions. But, what about conference talks and posters? Many of these are based on work that is already or about to be published. Should the author order be identical as the associated papers? I am not sure it should necessarily be. My tentative view is that the person who writes and submits the abstract and actually prepares and presents the post/talk should be the first author. Perhaps they should also highlig
Read more