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Fashions in Physics: Good or Bad?

Writer's picture: Mishkat BhattacharyaMishkat Bhattacharya

What is fashion?


Many human beings seem to love what is new and get bored of whatever is old. New and old are of course relative terms. What is new may in fact be a reinvention; what is old may have hardly exhausted its possibilities. But it is undeniable that fashion trends (that go from being in to being out) are a phenomenon in many fields of human endeavor: clothing, art, films, literature, investment and even science.


Some examples from physics


Right now 'quantum' is rather fashionable. 'Nano' is still somewhat fashionable, but was perhaps more so about five-to-ten years ago. A strong trend that came by a few years ago, and that still has an afterglow is 'topology'. A trend that is still growing involves 'non-Hermitian' physics.


How to identify these trends


Easy - look at the top journals and try to find recurring buzzwords (such as those presented in quotes above) in the titles of the papers. In practical terms, papers on fashionable topics are easier to publish (especially in high impact factor journals) and more likely to accrue citations, funding is easier to obtain, the relevant sessions in the conferences are better attended, and recent faculty hires in physics departments are more likely to be in that area.


How and Why do they arise?


Someone needs to perform a more rigorous study of the origin of scientific fashions (I can't remember if Thomas Kuhn said something about them in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which I read a long time ago), but in my experience they typically arise from breakthroughs of some kind (major or minor) which open up a new area (large or small) in physics research. A substantial number of people then tend to follow up on the initial discovery based on motivations like


i) the excitement of becoming the pioneers of a newly accessible frontier (a kind of a scientific wild west)

ii) the possibility of picking 'low-lying fruit' (i.e. results which are technically relatively easy to obtain and rely more on the novelty of the topic for their appeal), and

iii) the opportunity of moving away from already crowded areas of research.


What are some of the good effects of such trends?


Fashion trends ensure that


i) new scientific discoveries are fleshed out extensively

ii) that certain topics receive a lot of attention and vetting, and

iii) that certain lines of thought are taken towards their logical limit (i.e. upto the point where another breakthrough is required to generate a fresh paradigm).


The strength and relevance of the original discovery improves as a result and applications come into view (for certain areas). Particularly fruitful is the fact that fashion trends often attract people from different corner of physics research (e.g. optomechanics attracts gravitational wave astronomers, fluid dynamicists and quantum information scientists, to name a few types). These scientists, each with their own specialties, give their own takes on the breakthrough and work out its manifestations from different perspectives. This fleshes out the original physics in a manner which is powerful and fertile.


What are some of the bad effects?


Oscar Wilde said that fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Fashion trends in physics promote


i) unoriginal work (e.g. same physics is presented but for a different system, a value proposition which can be abused),

ii) 'hit-and-run' physics (published by people who may not have a deep association with the area but manage to make a quick connection to their own expertise just to get into the fray; but they leave the fray as soon as the next trend comes along)

iii) generate a substantial number of papers which will be forgotten in a generation or so, if not as soon as the next trend comes along

iv) high citation numbers (read h-indices) for those scientists who are 'trend-coasters' (there are quite a few of them) as opposed to being 'trendsetters' (these are fewer in number).

v) the enlistment of gradate students in fashionable areas of physics research, which unfortunately, may not continue to be fashionable by the time they finish their PhDs. This will reduce their employability

vi) taking attention away from less glamorous or less topical but otherwise substantial areas, which might be equally investment-worthy in the long run.


What should I do?


Should I work in a fashionable area or not? This is, of course, a personal choice, and one which in fact need not be made. Meaning - at least as a professor - that one can work in both types of areas. I don't like making choices if I don't have to.

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