Most Influential Paper 2006 (first quarter)

[marcus]

Abhay Ashtekar
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604013
Quantum Nature of the Big Bang: An Analytical and Numerical Investigation I

John Baez et al
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603085
Exotic Statistics for Loops in 4d BF Theory

Louis Crane
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602120
Categorical Geometry and the Mathematical Foundations of Quantum General Relativity

Laurent Freidel et al
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604016
Hidden Quantum Gravity in 3d Feynman diagrams

Gerard 't Hooft
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604008
The mathematical basis for deterministic quantum mechanics

Thanu Padmanabhan
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603114
Dark Energy: Mystery of the Millennium

These papers were all posted in roughly the same timeframe---the first 90-or-so days of this year. Which do you think will prove the most influential in future research? This can't be determined with certainty but perhaps by the end of the year we will have some indication.

 

[turbo]

Padmanabhan, but it won't become evident anytime soon. To understand the exquisitely fine-tuned balance between the expansive pressure of the quantum vacuum and the gravitational equivalence of the vacuum, we need a paradigm-shift in cosmology that incorporates the quantum world into the macro world. From all indications, that is not going to penetrate concordance cosmology anytime soon. We may have to let M theory, colliders, etc, suck up all the resources for the next several decades before the light comes on. Maybe after we spend a trillion dollars and still don't find the Higgs Boson...

 

[marcus]

Padmanabhan, but it won't become evident anytime soon...

Turbo thanks for commenting. and thanks to everyone who voted so far! I am very interested in what other people think about these different ideas and research initiatives.

selfAdjoint said he thought the Padmanabhan paper would be important, one of the year's most important. I will get the link.
That was what gave me the idea to make a poll, in fact.
You might be interested in what he gives for reasons.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=83148

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=955493&postcount=32

... I think that Padmanabhan's dark energy paper astro-ph/0603114, even though much of it is an exposition of his earlier work, may be the most important physics paper, and not just in astrophysics or cosmology, of the year. Just the insight that every observer has a horizon, and every smooth surface can be someone's horizon is tremendously enlightening.

I think you're going to see citations on it coming out for a long time.

 

[hawk00321]

i like this :)

Gerard 't Hooft
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604008
The mathematical basis for deterministic quantum mechanics

 

[turbo]

Turbo thanks for commenting. and thanks to everyone who voted so far! I am very interested in what other people think about these different ideas and research initiatives.

The intersection of quantum physics and relativity is a nasty place, and people often think in terms of complications to reconcile the differences. That is the ideal place to look for simplifications and resolution. The Universe cannot be expected to follow the same rules everywhere across all space and time unless the rules are simple. Cosmologists often don't have a good grasp of this, and should perhaps go into investment banking for a time before they venture into lion-taming as a bridge to cosmology.

 

[marcus]

turbo what is that black and white animal that is neither a skunk or a raccoon? it looks like it has a sense of humor

 

[selfAdjoint]

I did vote for the Padmanabhan paper, although I don't actually think it will show up as heavily cited. This because it was mostly a survey, and cites go to original sources. What I think makes the latest paper important is that by introducing these ideas to a wider audience, he has made it likely that others will work in the area, and thereby cite his earlier papers. I definitely agree with turbo about the role of this line of research. Whatever nature may be like, we are not going to discover it by sterile, scholastic arguments on whose mathematical model is more "natural" or "inevitable", or lord help us, "True".

 

[marcus]

did beauty just raise her ugly head?

 

[turbo]

turbo what is that black and white animal that is neither a skunk or a raccoon? it looks like it has a sense of humor

If you are referring to my avatar, it is my all-time favorite ferret Turbo. Ferrets are fun if you can adapt to their mischievous ways and accept them into your home. Pound for pound, they are way smarter than dogs or cats and dogs and can manipulate their environments like you would not believe. They also routinely out-smart much larger dogs. I love ferrets and skunks, but perhaps got this tendency when I hiked a ~4000 ft "hill" here and ended up sharing my sandwich with a weasel that came to my feet and wanted more and more and kept coming to me to encourage me to give him/her to offer more.

 

[turbo]

did beauty just raise her ugly head?

I hope so, but doubt the wide acceptance of the reality.

 

[marcus]

Thanks to all who voted!
arivero, hawk, heartless, hossi, selfAdjoint, scott, and turbo

I was thinking i wouldn't vote and just see what others said but this morning decided to join with heartless in picking Freidel's paper. (the authors promise a companion doing the same things in 4D)

so far it is 2 for Freidel, 3 for 't Hooft, and 3 for Padmanabhan.

I did vote for the Padmanabhan paper, although I don't actually think it will show up as heavily cited...

At the end of the year, let's not merely apply the citations count in a mechanical way. Let's figure out a more qualitative way to approach it. maybe invite anyone who voted at the beginning to reconsider and see if anyone would change their pick, and why. By yearend there should be some more indications on which to base judgment----besides citation which are always part of the picture.

 

[setAI]

On the similarity of Information Energy to Dark Energy

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603084

 

[ZapperZ]

Abhay Ashtekar
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604013
Quantum Nature of the Big Bang: An Analytical and Numerical Investigation I

John Baez et al
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603085
Exotic Statistics for Loops in 4d BF Theory

Louis Crane
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602120
Categorical Geometry and the Mathematical Foundations of Quantum General Relativity

Laurent Freidel et al
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604016
Hidden Quantum Gravity in 3d Feynman diagrams

Gerard 't Hooft
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604008
The mathematical basis for deterministic quantum mechanics

Thanu Padmanabhan
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603114
Dark Energy: Mystery of the Millennium

These papers were all posted in roughly the same timeframe---the first 90-or-so days of this year. Which do you think will prove the most influential in future research? This can't be determined with certainty but perhaps by the end of the year we will have some indication.

I'm rather curious about this. Marcus, has ANY of these papers appeared in print? Do you have citations for them if they have?

Zz.

 

[marcus]

I'm rather curious about this. Marcus, has ANY of these papers appeared in print? Do you have citations for them if they have?

Zz.

Not to my knowledge, Zapper. I will get some citation-counts later in the year.

these are in large measure papers that members have commented on or notices in recent PF threads----or precursors to them have been. so I gathered together in the poll papers that forum participants were already aware of (perhaps with some exceptions)

they are all so recent that there has barely been time for them to be submitted for publication, not to say published/cited, but I suppose several will eventually make it into print

In case anyone would like link to earlier comment on some of these papers:Padmanabhan
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=83148
and the particular paper on page 3, post #31 and #32
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=83148&page=3

't Hooft
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=116420

Crane
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=113145

Ashtekar
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=111816

Baez
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=115082

Freidel
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=116661

 

[ZapperZ]

Not to my knowledge, Zapper. I will get some citation-counts later in the year.

these are in large measure papers that members have commented on or notices in recent PF threads----or precursors to them have been. so I gathered together in the poll papers that forum participants were already aware of (perhaps with some exceptions)

they are all so recent that there has barely been time for them to be submitted for publication, not to say published/cited, but I suppose several will eventually make it into print

... and some how, they are already "influential" before they even appear in print?

Zz.

 

[marcus]

... and some how, they are already "influential" before they even appear in print?

Zz.

we are guessing as to which will BECOME important
and sometime towards the end of the year one of us will check and see how they are doing

there was no time limit on this prediction poll, so someone will have to make a judgment call later this year or next---about who was right.

=================

for anyone who has not previously taken part in PF forecast polls, it is partly a way to learn who the good guessers are and partly a "group-brain" activity similar to the DELPHI process. We have had several forecast polls so far. I will get some links.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=81739
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=713874&postcount=80

One we had last year was where you guessed how many recent (past five years) string papers would turn out to be highly cited (100+) in 2005, and then after the SPIRES topcite list came out we checked to see who was closest.

You could say that there is no such thing as a good guesser----past performance is mostly accidental and doesn't mean anything. But I suspect it does mean something and anyway it is fun. I am interested in what other people predict.

That is why the forecast polls are public. So you can see who guessed what.

Everyone is welcome, so OF THOSE LISTED which do you think will prove most valuable to future research------important, influential?
Admittedly it is a vague question, I did not specify some objective measure like citation-counts as of a certain date, but we will deal with the vagueness later on down the line when we see what develops.

I still think I will be proven right about Freidel/Baratin, even though "heartless" and I are distinctly in the minority so far

 

[marcus]

11 predictions so far, distributed as follows

Ashtekar 0
Baez 0
Crane 1 (mike)
Freidel 2 (heartless, me)
't Hooft 5 (daveb, davey, hawk, hossi, scott)
Padmanabhan 3 (arivero, selfAdjoint, turbo)

 

[arivero]

't Hooft 5 (daveb, davey, hawk, hossi, scott)

't Hooft is an example of how theoretical science works. He works a lot the photoshop demostrations of their seminar, he is a Nobel Prize (and not in the senil age), he communicates effectively in his papers. Then? It seems that people likes just to publish or contribute about nice closed problems, and they do not risk to follow 't Hooft path.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Marcus, it seems to me you shoould add the Graviton Propagator paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604044, to the poll. I think it is going to be very influential. It doesn't just talk the linking of SST and LQG talk, it walks the walk.

 

[marcus]

Marcus, it seems to me you shoould add the Graviton Propagator paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604044, to the poll. I think it is going to be very influential. It doesn't just talk the linking of SST and LQG talk, it walks the walk.

I agree that it is important and solid progress. I would like to include it as your nomination in the SECOND QUARTER prediction poll.
It is simplest if we just leave be the first quarter because people picked their guess of what would prove most influential from those listed

So going back and making new choices would be a bother.
but we should have some more regular process for nominating, as you have just done. (instead of my wild, hopefully inspired grabs in the dark)

So I will start a thread for people to register nominations for a 2nd quarter 2006 MVP prediction poll. And leave it around until June or so, and then put a poll together.

I think the last one was fun. something you said about padmanabhan prompted me to set it up.

 

[ZapperZ]

The Ashtekar paper has appeared in PRL. Here's the reference:

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 141301 (2006).

Zz.

 

[marcus]

The Ashtekar paper has appeared in PRL. Here's the reference:

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 141301 (2006).

Zz.

Thanks Zapper. It was accepted promptly! There are actually two papers in question. I think you may be referring to this 4 page shortie
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602086
Quantum Nature of the Big Bang
which the arxiv abstract says was revised slightly on 6 April to match the published version in PRL.

Instead of that brief letter, the paper we have in the poll is the longer version, by the same people, with a similar title
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604013
Quantum Nature of the Big Bang: An Analytical and Numerical Investigation I

This is 59 pages---too long to be good food for Phys Rev Letters!

 

[marcus]

Kea weighs in, Padmanabhan gains support

Kea registered her pick of Padmanabhan, but then CarlB was number 13 and picked 't Hooft. Now 13 PFers have registered their picks

Ashtekar  0                                            0%
Baez  0                                                 0%
Crane 1	  (Mike)	                                7.69%
Freidel 2 (heartless, marcus)	                        15.38%
't Hooft  6 (CarlB, daveb, davey, hawk, hossi, scott)  46.15%
Padmanabhan 4 (arivero, Kea, selfAdjoint, turbo)       30.77%

 

[turbo]

I can tell you why I chose Padmananbhan's paper - he has a fine eye for the problematic side of dark energy, including the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant. I have a cosmological model in which expansive nature of the quantum vacuum is dynamically balanced by the gravitational equivalence of the vacuum energy. If this dynamical fine-tuning is not addressed, we will never be able to unite QT with GR. And I think that you are right - the people who chose this paper likely have very different motivations - at least they are not likely to coincide with mine.

 

[marcus]

Kea registered her pick of Padmanabhan, but then CarlB was number 13 and picked 't Hooft. Now 13 PFers have registered their picks

Ashtekar  0                                            0%
Baez  0                                                 0%
Crane 1	  (Mike)	                                7.69%
Freidel 2 (heartless, marcus)	                        15.38%
't Hooft  6 (CarlB, daveb, davey, hawk, hossi, scott)  46.15%
Padmanabhan 4 (arivero, Kea, selfAdjoint, turbo)       30.77%

It is a bit early to say, but if we go by the (fallible and sometimes misleading) objective measure of citations the participants who have proven to be the best forecasters are

arivero, Kea, selfAdjoint, and turbo

In fact Padmanabhan's paper has already garnered 9 citations and the none of the others which folks picked have gotten any.

curiously enough, Ashtekar's paper (which no one picked) has 2 citations and is the only runner-up

here are links to the Padmanabhan(9) and Ashtekar(2) cites

http://www.citebase.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:astro-ph/0603114

http://www.citebase.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:gr-qc/0604013