Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

walls wrote: post #22

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980's, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same. Space rockets are same as they were in 80's, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc? Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/145134227466…

Cars, planes, and rockets all have optimal shapes for their environment, of course they're not going to change much once they get to that point. Cars are still vastly different today than in the 80s in (at least) performance, efficiency, and safety. Planes are also getting quite a bit better, although adoption of these planes is slow as most airlines want to get as much as they can out of the old fleet.[0] SpaceX has…

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #77

echelon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something has changed. I can't imagine Einstein's generation functioning like that. Have pioneers of innovation moved to private corporations now that they have capital that rivals academia? Private companies can reward innovators with more than just credentials. Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, Google Brain, OpenAI, Tesla, SpaceX, ... Granted, this isn't even across all fields as they are not all economic drivers.

Bell Labs was only pseudo private. The government required they have that research lab in exchange for being allowed to have a monopoly. One should also consider that institutions like that were partly so productive for being at the right place and time in history, when we were developing the tools to exploit the low hanging fruit nature has to offer us. That whole era, we snatched it all up quick. Spaceflight and su…

Post by ClumsyPilot » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #82

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980's, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same. Space rockets are same as they were in 80's, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc? Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/145134227466…

That ignores an enormous about of vehicle safety improvements (roof crush resistance, various collision detection/drift detection, electronic stability control, crumple zones... ad nauseum). That also ignores really impressive improvements in ICE based cars (idle shutdown, cylinder deactivation, reduced pollution). That's not even touching on electric vehicles and self-driving car advances.

Post by goohle » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

BlueTie wrote: post #63

Understandability is waning. Which in many places amounts to the same thing. Newtonian physics could be understood by an average child. General Relativity could be understood by intellectuals somewhat. The cutting edge of physics now is barely understood by the people who are publishing the papers. For additional progress to continue in a lot of fields we're giving up a lot of understanding. If we give a mouse a maze…

Post by photochemsyn » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #70

photochemsyn wrote: post #56

It's worth noting that scientific progress in the Soviet Union seriously stagnated in the Lysenko era due to the prioritization of ideology and the destruction of independent science. I'd argue we are seeing the same thing in many western countries, especially the USA, under the ideology of corporate control of academic research. Much can be traced back to Bayh-Dole legislation in the 1980s, which allowed universitie…

Excellent observation apart from the profit-minded corporations bit. Corporate R&D spending has greatly increased, while USGOV spending has remained mostly flat. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/may/rd-busine...