- Peter Higgs, the British physicist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, believes no university would employ him in today's academic system because he would not be considered "productive" enough.
The emeritus professor at Edinburgh University, who says he has never sent an email, browsed the internet or even made a mobile phone call, published fewer than 10 papers after his groundbreaking work, which identified the mechanism by which subatomic material acquires mass, was published in 1964.
He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out papers. He said: "It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964."
I do agree with his point, science has suffered for it. If you go to school for 28 years, and are obsessed with a slice of the universe that it takes years to even speak intelligently about, and you don't make a killing, maybe it's best to let you do what you do, and not to put a squeeze on you. Productivity is not valuable. Only specific kinds of productivity are valuable, and busyness is not productivity.
As you know, my wife has been doing research this past year. I'm always amazed by how many papers she's a "co-author" on. She works hard, no doubt about it, but it seems there's always a "paper" to be written. I guess I didn't realize how much work was constantly being done that warranted writing about. As for the Big Bang Theory, I want to know who the asshole is that insisted that this be his introduction to television? Idiot. That said, if you were to pick one show to introduce Peter Higgs to the amazing story telling abilities of television (anything NOVA or Sagan are out) what would it be?
The idea of Peter Higgs watching Breaking Bad is somehow really funny. It does involve some alchemy, science and chemistry. He may be a fan. I'd smoke Peter Higgs' meth, just to see...
I think it would actually be a great disservice to Higgs to introduce him to a television show that is already about something he knows quite a bit about (i.e. science) he might like a show that is less about science and more about humanity. Having said that, I don't know, what I would pick.That said, if you were to pick one show to introduce Peter Higgs to the amazing story telling abilities of television (anything NOVA or Sagan are out) what would it be?
If you look back over the great works of philosophy and science, many of them were written by people who would be deemed "unproductive" and kicked out of today's academia. Our present-day universities are set against the idea of anyone withdrawing to engage in deep thought for a prolonged period. We have a system designed to promote mediocrity and instant results, instituted by mediocre politicians and managers who are themselves too blinkered to see its limitations. This seems to be the trend in all countries these days.