It’s time to do that other thing that people do at this time of year: Reflect upon the year that is coming to an end. People start doing highlight programs on the radio and tv, surveying the year of blog posts on blogs, and so forth. Also, various science editors start doing their “top science stories” of the year. They are usually smart enough not to try to rank them, but even so, I do find myself wondering about what makes it to the lists and what does not. I’m particularly curious as to the nature of the discussions that must have taken place in order to compile the list.
Of course, science does not work to a tidy calendar (even though that would be rather nice and neat for our funding agencies), and – more significantly – it is often very hard to see the full significance of a piece of science research, even an apparent breakthrough, until many years later. Sometimes decades or more.
What might be interesting to do would be year-end summaries of years long ago. Take 1905 for example. Everybody knows that was Einstein’s “Miraculous Year” with five remarkable papers that still shake our world today (catch up here), but what other science stories broke that year? I bet there were several. And what happened in 1906?
This all makes one wonder which of the 2007 stories will turn out to be a big deal 10 years from now, or 100. I’m sure that the editors and compliers have had these thoughts too, and they carry on doing this listing each year, which (on balance) I think is a rather good thing. However these lists come about, and whatever “top” means (top for the year, or top for science in the longer run) I do think that they are rather useful for pointing people to lots of interesting science stories – especially if there are online versions of the lists, with hyperlinks. So I’ll point you to two that I found, the top 100 of Discover Magazine, and the top 25 of Scientific American, and hope that you find some interesting material there….maybe stumbling upon a story or two that you might have missed during a busier time in the year. If you have a most (or least) favourite science story from this year, or think that all the lists have missed one they should not have, or think that there’s a really good “top n science stories” list we should know about, please let us know in the comments.
Happy New Year!
-cvj
(Cross-posted on Correlations.)
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An interesting set of articles is the Edge Annual Question 2008–What Have you changed your mind about? Why? Some interesting perspectives. As for me, I am too rigid a thinker to have changed my mind about a blasted thing in 2007. Anyway, lots of scientists are represented (and a few of the cooler atheists).
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html
Take 1905 for example… …what other science stories broke that year?
Interesting you pick 1905 as an example. There were significant global events that year, other than science stories, that mirror much of what transpired in 2007. I have been looking at 2007 as a micro-mirror of the 20th century, and 1905 is as good a choice of reflection as any (on a grid of 100 various possible choices–tehe). Wars (following illegal invasions of sovereign nations), revolutions (bloody sundays and murdered miners among them), music and theater compositions and performances (a couple of truly great ones), new art movements, etc., and so forth—all a veritable treasure-trove of historical moments whose repercussions continue to reverberate to this day (the IQ test notwithstanding).