Where do you rank in the constellation of stellar astronomers?
The Astronomy Blog is inspired!
This is brilliant.
Brilliant, but a little bit scary.
The Astronomy Blogger ranked astronomers on a H-R diagram:
that is log(google Hits) vs log(refereed Research papers)
Below I shamelessly plagiarize copy fair use an edited version of the key figure.
Yes, I cruelly edited out the Really Interesting Names at the top and left - you'll just have to click through to the Astronomy Blog to read them, won't you...
That is Me! in blue... just under 100 papers, and google says "Steinn Sigurdsson" is 47, 900 hits.
'Course "Dynamics of Cats" has almost 500,000 hits, but that is Just Wrong.
clearly I'm either some sort of premature sub-giant off the Main Branch, or a blue straggler off the New Media Branch.
Now watch some other field "rediscover" this amazing technique, relabel it with a funkier name and self-generate Media Fame.
Yes, publishing figures showing where you are on figures can 'cause your position on the figure to move!
Evenutally, given the right amplitude positive feedback, this would suck up all the computational and communication resources on the planet and destroy civilization.
Film at 111.
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Heh. Cute. And silly. The google number is quite the wildcard. I just googled "mihos astronomy" and considered that a reasonable attempt. That puts me near you, right about on the "P" in "Penny Sackett"...
Make it Citations instead of Google Hits and it becomes deadly serious...
Then someone will plot "h" as the third axis and discover the Fundamental Plane of Astronomers
Having the same last name as a major automotive brand and the same first name of an ugly industrial city in the midlands sure does help with the google ranking. I am not too far from Wendy Freedman!
But can the Large Hadron Collider create _dangerous_ astronomers is the relevant question with regard to the safety allegations. The laws of physics simply will not allow it.
Do we humble amateur astronomers rank as brown dwarfs?
And would people found guilty of research fraud count as cataclysmic variables?
Where do professors Hertzsprung and Russell plot?
Prof Michel Mayor is there...WHY NOT ME??? I hope HARPS breaks down real soon now...