Astronomical crowdsourcing

I just read a short piece in this month's issue of Nature Physics about a number of astronomical discoveries made this past month. One exciting discovery was of a Neptune-sized exoplanet found in a complicated orbit around four stars about 5000 light years away. I find this absolutely amazing, and even more so considering that it was found by a crowdsourcing website called PlanetHunters.org that recruits public users in identifying transits from a large database of astronomical data.

This is one example of data-centric science, but it is slightly different from the way I've presented it in past posts. In particular, this is an observation that was not driven by some unanswered question. Rather, people were simply looking at data to find planets.

I think that this is really cool, but I do wonder why somebody hasn't written some code to do the data analysis.

The scientific method is not universal

I've often heard others quip that physicists worry too little about the details, whereas chemists worry too much. Recently I've come to better understand the attitudes that give rise to statements such as these.

If you've read other posts on this blog, you've probably realized that I most closely associate with experimental physicists. When I approach a problem, I form a model in my mind that makes intuitive sense. Then, I make the model more rigorous through pictures and equations. Throughout this step, I take extra care to ensure that the model parameters can be easily measured, an approach which no doubt adds a certain flavor to my models. My experiments then become realizations of the model to confirm its predictive power. Sometimes, modeling occurs after an experiment, and, almost always, the process jumps back to an earlier step but proceeds with more refinement.

What I've learned to appreciate is that this process flow varies between individuals in different scientific fields. For example, theoretical physicists don't place as much emphasis on how easy it is to measure a model's parameters, but their theories often extend over a wider range of phenomena. As another example, field biologists must take much more care in preparing an experiment than a physicist in the lab due to costly resources, limited time, and small sample sets. All of these factors leave their mark on the steps in the scientific method.

This understanding is valuable because multidisciplinary research is becoming vital to solving many scientific problems. Before we can help each other, scientists must learn to appreciate and understand our differences; otherwise, we'll never take proper account of the details.

One last comment

My advisor offered some advice to me recently about collaborative work, and I think it's the toughest advice to follow for a stubborn scientist (myself being very much included in this category). He said that you need to listen to the experts in the other fields and not assume that you can know everything.

Cosmic collaboration

This month's issue of Nature Physics contains an interesting article about astronomy's move from the realm of individual efforts to the collective findings of large teams of scientists. While the article is cautionary in tone and recommends that astronomer's reground themselves in the nuances of experimental astronomy, I did find some interesting comments that can compliment my previous post on collaborative research.

For one, the article criticizes a recent trend in astronomy papers whereby authors neglect error bars or even the data upon which their conclusions are drawn. The reason for this, as I understood the article, is that the scientists are largely unfamiliar with how the data was collected or what can contribute to the error in general. This can be one risk of collaborative research projects in general. Eventually, material will arise from a party which has no direct interest in the paper being written and as a result this material will slip by the critical eye of the authors.

Another issue I see is that, according to the article, students and post-docs have become mere data slaves. I think that collaborative efforts can in some way reduce scientists to a tool for performing the mechanical tasks that belong to their field of specialization. I think that this dehumanization of the role of a scientist can squelch creativity and ruin the spirit of scientific pursuits.

The article I am referring to can be found here.

Collaborative efforts

This weekend was CREOL's annual Optics Day, an educational outreach event for students and adults of all educational levels. The purpose of Optics Day is to educate the public about the benefits of optics and photonics-based technologies and how their lives are shaped by the science that we do. In addition to the usual day-long event, the SPIE student chapter hosted a small symposium for graduate students from nearby universities, such as Florida Atlantic University and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

During the panel discussion at the symposium I asked a question of the speakers concerning collaborative research efforts. All the panelists agreed that diversity and interdisciplinary research is very important to science today, especially given that many fields have become highly specialized and esoteric towards scientists outside of the field. However, I was interested to know what all the researchers in a collaborative effort need to have in common to produce good research.

Dr. Michael Bass, from CREOL, suggested that personalities have to be compatible. This includes work ethic, vision, and the individual desires of the collaborators. Dr. Alex Vitkin, from the University of Toronto, suggested that possessing knowledge of a wide range of topics, such as that obtained from a physics education, is very important to be able to communicate with the other researchers. However, he cautioned that we can not be generalists; we must specialize in one area. Otherwise, we risk not being able to contribute to the effort.

It seems to me that in order to contribute to interdisciplinary research, I might wish to have one niche area that I can claim a specialization in.