Essays
Updated by h.z. on July 18, 2012
- Oliver Heaviside: A first-rate oddity by Bruce J. Hunt (Physics Today, November 2012, 48-54). "Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was a self-educated English mathematical physicist who spent most of his life on the far fringes of the scientific community. Yet he did more than anyone else to shape how James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory was understood and applied in the 50 years after Maxwell's death."
- How to nurture scientific discoveries despite their unpredictable nature by Abraham Loeb (arXiv:1207.3812v1, 2012). "Open research without a programmatic agenda establishes a fertile ground for unexpected breakthroughs."
- Francis Crick (1916-2004) by Mark Bretscher and Peter
Lawrence (Current
Biology, 2004) The key to discovery: identifying problems that were really worth solving.
- The
mismeasurement of science by Peter A. Lawrence (Current
Biology, 2007).
Impact factors and citation numbers are used heavily to rank individual scientists. This unavoidably leads to significant changes in the strategies of scientists. - Network
science and complexity by Alert-Laszlo Barabasi (Nature
Physics, 2012).
Data-based mathematical models of complexity systems. Algorithms to extract regularity and information from incomplete and nosy data. - A complex legacy by Cristopher Moore
(Nature
Physics, 2011).
The grand unified theory of computation; ultimate limits to computation; the P versus NP question; statistical physics and typical computation complexity; quantum computers ... - Learning brings happiness by Manfred
Spitzer (Newsletter
5/2011 of
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation).
What is happiness? Why do some people seem to be happier than others? Can you buy happiness? How be be happy? ... Science of happiness. Pleasure maximisation; "long-term happiness has a lot to do with purpose and meaning and very little with consumption or gratification"; "the nucleus accumbens is neither pleasure nor addiction centre, and only incidentally a happiness center. Rather, it is our brain's own learning booster."