tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2007509643610309350.post571748628561730689..comments2024-01-22T10:47:38.507+05:30Comments on As I Please: High Energy Physics and Indian ScienceRahul Basuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07751088048215388592noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2007509643610309350.post-75690723206716237602008-05-05T20:43:00.000+05:302008-05-05T20:43:00.000+05:30One point to note is, till recently, Chinese physi...One point to note is, till recently, Chinese physicists did not want to work in China, so Spires wouldn't pick them up as Chinese (regardless of their actual nationality). (Which is fair enough in my opinion.) Indian physicists, particularly in HEP, have long been happy to work in India, if only at a handful of places. <BR/><BR/>I've been told by several Chinese people that it is viewed as a sign of failure to return to China after you've studied/postdoc'd/worked in the US. I also met a Chinese woman who was a qualified surgeon but working as a masseuse because her qualifications weren't recognised in the US and it was too disgraceful to return to China. <BR/>Things may have changed recently. While Indian scientists have shown some reluctance to return, I think it was never to this extent.<BR/><BR/>I disagree on the importance of getting into textbooks. If the work is important enough, it must get into, at least, the graduate curriculum. Of course that is different from aiming for the textbooks -- I agree one can't do research with that goal in mind, and it will never work, anyway. I also agree (as I said in your earlier discussion) that it is difficult to judge the permanence (textbook-worthiness) of current work except in exceptional cases. So proxies like citation impact will have to do as immediate measures of quality. By the way, Google Scholar seems not too bad to me, for the few "cited by" lists I clicked on. (Fairly obscure and very up-to-date citations, no duplicates.) In computer science there is citeseer. In biological sciences, Pubmed would seem ideally placed to handle this sort of thing, but doesn't seem to. There's also Web of Science but it's not free.Rahul Siddharthanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04809667965184094636noreply@blogger.com