If you don’t know what is a meme? Here is the link to wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
It is worth mentioning Richard Dawkins’ popular book “The Selfish Gene” which is a kind of meme itself. How do we categorize memes? Similar to genes, good memes propagate prolifically both in space and time; while bad memes cannot survive for long and would eventually become extinct. Like genes, memes can also mutate – for better or for worse. In this blog, I will cite various scientific research topics as the examples of good-or-bad memes.
In physics, Newton’s mechanics to quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity theory are widely acknowledged the wealth of mankind; while the fate of string theory remains uncertain at this point – unless it can be experimentally verified, its life expectancy might not be long. In chemistry, Mendeleev’s table is apparently a good meme; while DDT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT) turns out a bad one despite its earning the inventor’s temporary fame (1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine). The lesson we can learn from the history is that only time – the merciless judge – can tell the goodness of a meme.
Such situation is particularly true in the profession of engineering which deals with designs and implementations. Fourier transform was an old tool of frequency-domain analysis but without the invention of FFT, its application won’t reach so far (and TI probably won’t exist). By contrast, watermarking – it was really hot when I was a graduate student – appears to have lost its momentum. It seems to me that many topics in engineering field have such “fashionable” characteristics but they are not healthy memes in the long run.
Now what about compressed sensing – another fad? In my own personal opinion, it is the mutation of sparse representation which has been hot since 1990s. However, the idea of integrating sensing and processing (not just compression) does make a lot of sense from a scientific perspective (the co-evolution of human retina and brain). Therefore, I have been advocating a new kind of meme (the mutation of compressed sensing) called “collective sensing” in my recent papers and proposals. Of course, only time can tell whether such mutation is for better or for worse. Given the global environment which emphasizes energy research everywhere, I can’t help wondering whether the meme of “renewable energy” is going to be the next fad and how fast it can mutate. At the end, I want to cite Hamming’s advice “It’s not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack. “, which shows a lot of insight to tell good memes (driven by curiosity) from bad memes (driven by ecomonics).
(Added Mar. 19, 2010) I am not a physicist but there is a lot of buzz sound about topological insulator at the APS meeting. Based on my limited knowledge, it is a story related to bismuth telluride. Whether this topological insulator is going to become another hype in nanotechnology – let’s wait and see. I am going to put my bet on the YES side (I have nothing to lose except my sympathy for contemporary theoretic physicists – they must be missing the golden years of relativity theory and quantum mechanics).
How often do you write your blogs? I enjoy them a lot 4 4 8
Thank you for your comments. I usually write 1-2 teaching-related blogs and 2-3 research-related blogs every week.
I want you to know, your writing goes to the nerve of the issue.