PhysMath Central Blog

Open Access is the answer for interdisciplinary research

A fascinating feature on interdisciplinary research in the lastest issue of Nature. Of particular interest is this quote (section marked in bold by me):

“Younger faculty tend to be concerned that if they get involved [in interdisciplinary work], their colleagues in the departments in charge of promotion and tenure will feel they haven't lived up to the standards of the discipline.” Other problems, he says, include finding places to publish — “it's much easier for people to get published in traditional disciplinary settings” — and finding an audience. A physicist could, say, publish a paper on stock-market patterns in Physical Review E, but how many economists will read it is another matter."

How many economists would subscribe, have access to or search a physics journal? Probably not many. However, research published in open access journals requires no subscription, is available to all and - due to the full-text being available online - is indexed by regular search engines, as well as the more specialist A&I databases. Serendipity is afoot. 

Open access journals in interdisciplinary subjects makes sense. That is why we encourage researchers to get in touch and suggest areas where traditional journals are not working for their field. 

Independent, open access journals on PhysMath Central. 

Posted by Chris Leonard at 16:31    Comments (2)

Looking and laughing at the LHC

Listening to comedian Bill Bailey on my iPod on the way to work isn't something which would usually warrant a mention on the blog here, but today was different. Today he was talking about the Large Hadron Collider and that the fact that the experiment has such a wide spectrum of success:

"The spectrum of success for this scientific experiment ranges from 'nothing will happen' when they switch it on...

- Turn it off, turn it on again.

...or, it will create a black hole under Switzerland. That seems to me to be huge margin of error. Nothing or Apocolypse."

He goes on to speculate that if it doesn't work, scientists will get bored and put other things in it, like Maltesers and satsumas.

And to complement that thought, some great photos from the latest issue of National Geographic of the LHC. Although they refer to the Higgs as 'The God Particle', something which annoys every physicist I know.  

Posted by Chris Leonard at 10:56    Comments (2)