Posted by
Russell Standish on
Nov 23, 2005; 9:30pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/more-metrics-was-geek-novels-tp520949p520952.html
On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 12:06:30PM -0700, Robert Holmes wrote:
> So all this scoring of ourselves against the geek novel list reminded me of
> a couple of metrics I recently came across in Physics World. One is the
> "h-index" (
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/8/9/1), which quantifies an
> individuals scientific output as the number of papers (peer-reviewed) you
> have written that have been cited at least that number of times. My h-index
> is 1 (I've written one peer-reviewed paper that got cited once); real
> scientists score in the 20-40 range after 20 years or so in the business. So
> what's the highest h-index in FRIAM?
20 is a pretty high h number. You can compute h approximately quite
easily from Google Scholar, a little less easily from ISI. I did it
for myself, both my PhD supervisors and several other academic
individuals I know of. My h number was 7 according to Google, and 6
according to ISI. My first PhD supervisor was about 5, and my second
one about 23. The second supervisor is considered a leader in his
field. Nobel prize winners were typically reported with h values in the
30s. Most other scientists I am acquainted with (of my vintage) came
in under 10, so my h-value was actually fairly average (gave me some
sort of comfort, at least).
Whilst the h value is considerably better than raw publication and
citation values, it is still prone to the fashion effect. Working in a
fashionable area of science (eg gene sequencing) will give you a higher
h score than an unfashionable one (eg complex systems).
>
> The Physics World correspondence that followed their item on the h-index
> drew a parallel with the Eddington Number E, invented by famed astronomer
> and amateur cyclist Arthur Eddington. E is defined as the highest number of
> days in your life on which you have cycled more than E miles. My E is about
> 15. Eddington's was 87 when he died. So who's got the highest E number here?
>
The longest distance I did/do regularly is about 10km. Translating
this into miles, that would be around 7 (IIRC)? I have occasionally
done longer distances, of course, but not more than 7 times...
So I would have to be (7,7) then ...
> Robert
>
> (h, E) = (1, 15)
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