String on skids?

[Martin]

The string M/B index described here is one possible gauge of string research activity. It is the number of published papers in a twelve month period that have one or both keywords "M-theory" and "brane" in the abstract.

 

The data base used is Harvard's adsabs service, which covers the professional peer-reviewed literature:

 

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/ads_abstracts.html

 

The relevant search form is:

 

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/physics_service.html

 

To get the M/B index for the period July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005, type

07-2004 into the from-date box

06-2005 into the to-date box

M-theory brane into the abstract-keywords box

 

and press "send query". What do you think string research activity will be two years from now, by this measure, compared with what it has been recently?

 

On the rise? >1500

About the same? circa 1000

On the skids? < 500

In the tank? < 100

 

Here is what this publication index has been in the past four twelve-month periods: July through June.

 

academic year     July through June publication
2001-2002      1002
2002-2003       923
2003-2004       830
2004-2005       723

 

BTW these two keywords aren't the only ones possible, they merely gauge activity by measuring a respresentative sector. You may wish to repeat the experiment using your own search terms.

[Martin]

in case you're interested, here is a recent quote from Edward Witten

 

"I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong... Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don't believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world."

 

This was in a CNN interview of Witten by Candy Crowley. A link to the interview is here:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000211.html

 

The CNN article, dateline June 30, 2005, is headlined "Physics' sharpest mind since Einstein".

 

quotes like this can help one get a feel for the level of optimism among string researchers.

 

other ways to gauge what is going on are to look at the topics of talks at recent conferences, and the recent papers most often cited in other research.

[Martin]

I'd be delighted to hear any differences of opinion we might have. It's a situation where there are no authorities.

Nobody is an expert about the future.

What I want to know is your guess about what a certain number will be on 3rd July 2007.

 

 

If you want to post a specific number, great. Two years from now we can fish up this thread and see who was right!

Or you can just register your rough estimate anonymously in the poll.

The number is defined as whatever the Harvard search engine comes up with for the publications in the 12-months July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007, of articles with "M-theory" or "brane" in their abstract summary.

[J.C.MacSwell]

400 is mine!

 

Not an educated guess. Just a GUT feel.

[Martin]

yours may be the only contender MacSwell!

 

you may win by default. I promise to dig this thread up come 3 July 2005 and we will use the harvard search engine and see if your Grand Unified gut-feeling is on target.

 

anybody else?

 

shall i dig up some more "data" of one sort or another to base hunches on?

 

have to go, back later

[Severian]

How sure are you that this effect is not just your choice of words? Some word become fashionable in the titles of papers while others die out, but that may not be indicating a shift in field as such.

 

For example, as research continues, the term M-theory may be too general to include in a title, and a more appropriate title would have a greater degree of specification of the model (to distinguish it from the other 1000+ papers). You probably need to investigate other keywords too.

[Martin]

How sure are you that this effect is not just your choice of words? ...

 

Not at all sure! Hi Sev, thanks for responding. I am aware that keyword fashions change and this is something the guessers should allow for.

 

May I put your guess down as "about same, around 1000"?

 

I think you may have just responded to the poll and that is the response that increased.

[Martin]

...

 

Here is what this publication index has been in the past four twelve-month periods: July through June.

 

academic year     July through June publication
2001-2002      1002
2002-2003       923
2003-2004       830
2004-2005       723

 

BTW these two keywords aren't the only ones possible' date=' they merely gauge activity by measuring a respresentative sector. You may wish to repeat the experiment using your own search terms.[/quote']

 

Sev's post suggests to me that we should try changing the keywords some. If I expand the list of keywords to "M-theory, brane, superstring" instead of just "M-theory, brane", then I get more papers. But the same qualitative trend. Does anyone have a keyword they would like to suggest?

 

Same thing but with 3 keywords: M-theory brane superstring
academic year     July through June publication
2001-2002      1091
2002-2003      1026
2003-2004       905
2004-2005       786

[Martin]

For obvious reasons, if the guessing game is going to be clear and easy to remember we have to keep it simple. So I will keep the index that we are predicting, for better or for worse, the simple M/B ("M-theory brane") gauge.

 

I havent put down my guess. I think that as of 3 July 2007 this index is going to be 600. [EDIT Ooops make that 500, please]

 

MacSwell says he guesses 400.

 

and the "unknown poster" who voted around the same time that Severian joined us indicates he thinks around 1000. [EDIT] But in a later post Severian came up with a guess of 620.

 

these guesses are about the M/B index, not about some other indices which we might imagine, and they should allow for various effects like drift in terminology etc. However we are just looking ahead TWO YEARS so how hard can it be?

 

Does anybody else have a guess?

 

So far it is:

 

Guesser         M/B index for July 2007

Severian            620
me                    500
J.C. MacSwell         400

[atinymonkey]

I don't see the gauge as a valid measure. Even if published papers decrease, it's no indication that progress has decreased. As research continues you could expect it to become more focused, and the focus would reduce the published papers. Statistics are notoriously misleading, a reduction could simply mark a watershed in spurious research. For instance, as funding is diverted into areas that are continuously advancing and out of the more stagnant areas; the amount of parallel research will naturally drop.

[Severian]

May I put your guess down as "about same' date=' around 1000"?

 

I think you may have just responded to the poll and that is the response that increased. [/quote']

 

How perceptive of you!

 

Irrespective of what the effect is, it seems sensible to assume a linear progression, which would give us about 620 papers. This falls in the 'about the same' category in your poll.

 

Even if you were to assume it was a statistical fluctuation about the mean, the fluctuation doesn't seem big enough to go below 500 or above 1500...

 

I tried a few other keywords (twistor, ADS/CFT etc) but I was obviously being too specific because I got too few hits for a good statistical sample.

[Martin]

I don't see the gauge as a valid measure. Even if published papers decrease, it's no indication that progress has decreased. As research continues you could expect it to become more focused, and the focus would reduce the published papers. Statistics are notoriously misleading, a reduction could simply mark a watershed in spurious research. For instance, as funding is diverted into areas that are continuously advancing and out of the more stagnant areas; the amount of parallel research will naturally drop.

 

thats fine, tiny.

 

You dont have to see it as a valid measure if you don't want.

 

Just tell us what you think the number is going to be and we will see who's right.

[Martin]

How perceptive of you!

 

Irrespective of what the effect is' date=' it seems sensible to assume a linear progression, which would give us about 620 papers. This falls in the 'about the same' category in your poll.

 

Even if you were to assume it was a statistical fluctuation about the mean, the fluctuation doesn't seem big enough to go below 500 or above 1500...

 

I tried a few other keywords (twistor, ADS/CFT etc) but I was obviously being too specific because I got too few hits for a good statistical sample.[/quote']

 

Severian! it is so great to have your reaction and that you tried alternative indicators! I will put you down at 620 (your number).

 

In our guesses we can be more exact than the crude brackets of the poll.

 

To give you some room, I will change my guess to 500

[Severian]

Heh, except I completely failed by misreading the poll title. I thought it said in twelve months but just noticed it was 2 years. I think that will make your 500 a better guess (but leave mine at 620 for fun).

[Martin]

We now have 8 respondents to the poll! It would be great to have some names and guesses to record, so we can see who gets it closest to right.

 

Does anybody else have a guess?

 

So far it is:

 

Guesser         M/B index for July 2007

Severian              620
me                    500
J.C. MacSwell         400

 

 

Especially the three, last time I looked at the poll, who said publication of M-theory/brane papers would top 1500! Please one or more of you post a number---tell us who you are so your guess can be added to the list here. I think it will make the game more interesting to increase the spread some.

[Dave]

I'm guessing somewhere in the 550 region. I certainly don't expect it to go up, at any rate

[Martin]

I'm guessing somewhere in the 550 region. I certainly don't expect it to go up, at any rate

 

Thanks for registering your guess, dave!

Here is how the list stands for now:

 

Guesser         M/B index for July 2007

Severian              620
dave                  550
me                    500
J.C. MacSwell         400

 

 

Does anybody else have a guess?

 

Especially the three who said publication of M-theory/brane papers would top 1500! Please tell us who you are so your guess can be added to the list here. We really could use some more spread.

[DQW]

Okay, here's a completely blind guess : 540 (on the M/B search results)

[Martin]

People, DQW according to my hunch has good direct knowledge of the situation, as does the savy Severian we know. Admittedly the future is a closed book: no one can be an authority about what is based on mere assumption. But if there were some validity in the "Delphi" approach to forecasting then we would certainly have the beginnings of a Delphi-type ("ask the experts to guess") approach. I didnt expect anywhere this amount of agreement!

 

Guesser         M/B index for July 2007

Severian              620
dave                  550
DQW                   540
me                    500
J.C. MacSwell         400

 

 

Does anybody else have a guess?

 

Especially the three who said publication of M-theory/brane papers would top 1500! Please tell us who you are so your guess can be added to the list here. We really could use some more spread.