Times Higher Education has just published its influential rankings of World universities. I imagine that university presidents all over the world, at this time, are either pounding their chests, proudly announcing to their students that the reputable i…
Continue readingTag: Research
Exponential Book: Why should I publish in PRX ?
Dear Colleague: “Why should I publish in PRX?” We have heard this question often, and with the inaugural issue of PRX about to close, we have our first concrete answers.” As I read this first line of the e-mail message, the thought go…
Continue readingExponential Book: Computers do not ruin physics…
… physicists ruin physics (bumper sticker — I doubt if it exists, but it should) The efficacy of a computer simulation (or of any other numerical computation) in predicting the behaviour of a physical system, crucially hinges on two ingredi…
Continue readingExponential Book: Happy birthday, High-Tc. I miss you.
Twenty-five years ago, the first so-called high temperature superconductor was discovered — unexpectedly, almost out of nowhere. Suddenly, the interest of physicists all over the world in the phenomenon of superconductivity was re-ignited (click …
Continue readingExponential Book: Impact factor trends
A few days ago, I received an e-mail message from the Publisher of my favourite physics journal (JLTP), who was pleased to inform me that its Impact Factor (IF) climbed in 2010 to 1.403, seemingly a significant improvement from the 2009 value of 1.074….
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Wakefield, Ratajczak and Vaccines
Are vaccines the cause for a spike in autism? Recent research from an independent physician shows that there might be a link.
Continue readingExponential Book: On being anal
It took me a while to come to the realization that I need to vent over this subject right here, on my blog, no matter how petty, ridiculous and irrelevant it is (the subject, smartass, not the blog). I am becoming quite tired of having to argue with th…
Continue readingExponential Book: My lost chapter
Dear Editor, It is now almost one year since I submitted to you the chapter that you solicited from me as a contribution to the upcoming volume “Real cool phases of matter”, which is going to be included in the distinguished series “E…
Continue readingExponential Book: Free agent professor
If you’re a college or university teacher, whom do you work for ?” Thus begins Stanley Fish‘s latest New York Times editorial on the subject of academia. Here are a few excerpts: “Academics […] want […] to work in an organizatio…
Continue readingExponential Book: Killing me softly with his (referee) report
Dear Colleague, given that every other day we seem to be telling each other appalling stories of disgraceful article refereeing to which we are subjected, I think we should all try and agree, first of all among ourselves, on what constitutes “bad…
Continue readingExponential Book: My thoughts on CCP
The Division of Computational Physics of the American Physical Society has now its own blog, brought to you by its very own executive committee, of which I am presently a “member-at-large” (soon to be apprehended and brought into custody, I…
Continue readingExponential Book: Make up your mind, already !
Academic job seekers are sometimes in the fortunate position of choosing one of several job offers (not often these days, given the difficult job market). This happens both at the postdoctoral, as well as the faculty level. The reason is simple; someon…
Continue readingExponential Book: Great blog. By the way, you are full of it.
Last week I was in Dallas, at the annual March meeting of the American Physical Society, attended by members of the Division of Condensed Matter and Computational physics. For different reasons I ended up spending quite a bit of time talking to postdoc…
Continue readingopenalex: Cities Running Huge Risks by Ingoring Climate Change: UN Habitat Report
I’m one of the many contributing authors for this year’s UN Habitat Global Report on Human Settlements, launched in London on Monday (see also BBC). This is the first time that the report, one of the most authoritative sources for analysis on urban iss…
Continue readingPoliTeching: A New Innovation Center for Progress; Nuclear Debate
I’ve been following the nuclear debate online. I have not blogged anything about Japan’s nuclear plant crisis because there is not enough information coming out (as far as the plant’s condition is concern). Some people on both sides of the nuclear debate have wasted no time in using the crisis to express their nuclear sentiments. […]
75 per cent of women think their vaginas are ugly
New research in Australia has emerged that has found that the vast majority of women in Australia think of their vaginas as unattractive. And that’s putting it lightly. In a survey of nearly 800 Australian women (read: large, credible sample size), nearly half of all respondents said they had considered or would consider cosmetic genital […]
Continue reading