Whither scientific publishing ?
I come back to one of my favorite subjects, prompted by a recent comment asking for my opinion on the proposed boycott of Elsevier, a company publishing a number of…
Physics
Saturday At The Movies
Climate deniers, take note: if you work at it, you might be as smart as this toddler. For more info on this toddler and the unique approach to learning his…
Independent and original
I doubt if I can offer any deeper insight or more pointed advice to a tenure track assistant professor in the sciences, than what anyone can find on a number…
On the road again
A long and tiring term is coming to a close. Time to celebrate the holidays, then head out to Vancouver for a few days, to end 2011, and then it…
The light at the end of the tunnel…
This afternoon I defend my masters thesis, after which I will hopefully have only a few minor corrections and then I will have earned my masters in physics. I also…
A simple criterion
Agreement seems lacking, among researchers, on the question of which citations to a scientific article are “legitimate”, i.e., worthy of being included among the total number of hits received by…
Google Scholar Citations
Thanks to Bee of BackReaction, I have become aware of a new feature of Google Scholar, called Google Scholar Citations. It is essentially a free alternative to Web of Science…
The boss is out to lunch
The two basic criteria to establish whether someone is your boss are: – Can they fire you ? – Can they give you a raise ? Unless the answer to…
My BCHA talk: 14 Billion Years in 90 Seconds
I finally got a half-decent video of myself giving a talk. Of course the projector still failed to work with my laptop, so I went slide-less (but it still works…
Time to simplify
As I was discussing with my collaborator the wisdom of following the request of one of the referees to include an additional figure in our manuscript, I expressed my doubts…
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.”…
Sliding into Fall
Oops, it did it again…. The Fall term 2011 has managed to sneak up on me, like its 2010 predecessor. All of a sudden, it’s all back. I am facing…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…