Research revolution in the palm of your hand

Coup d’etat in physics?

By James Dacey

Even its fiercest critics will struggle to argue that open-access publishing has not brought about a revolution in the way scientists engage with the latest research findings.

Driving the reformation in physics and maths is the arXiv preprint server, which was pioneered by Paul Ginsparg at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and is currently hosted by Cornell University.

Now the revolution continues apace as a new innovation will enable frontline physics to be winged straight into the palms of researchers.

ArXiview is a new iPhone application billed as “a very easy way to surf the last few weeks of arXiv postings.”

This new innovation was designed by Dave Bacon, a theoretical physicist at the University of Washington, during a recent spell between jobs.

I ran a quick search of the Apple store website and found a couple of rival arXiv app’s but this seems to be the first to enable users to order results by date.

It remains to be seen whether arXiview will be a bit hit amongst physicists but I can already picture a handful of the uber keen ones wowing their colleagues at conferences as they reel off the days latest findings.

Thankfully, long gone are the days where findings took months, years even, to see the light of day. But let’s just hope this mania for faster, round-the-clock access to physics doesn’t start to chip away at the rigour and depth of the subject.

So what next in the research revolution – Stephen Hawkings tweeting about his favourite formulae?