a preliminary forensic exploration of a scientific social technologies success - the garrett lisi...

A Preliminary Forensic Exploration of a Scientific

Social Technologies Success - The Garrett Lisi Story

Patricia F. Anderson <pfa@umich.edu>

UM Health Sciences Libraries November 28, 2007© 2007 Regents of the

University of Michigan. All rights reserved.

Social Tech and Scholarly Publication

University of Washington Libraries: Scientific Publication Cycle <http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/environment/imt220/pubcycle.jpg>

Social Tech and Scholarly Publication

Publishing without the academic infrastructure?

Problematic

Who is Garrett Lisi?

His homepage at Sifter.com. Photo of him at Burning Man?

Lisi in the news

Who is Garrett Lisi?

Screenshot of his now famous article, posted to arXiv on November 6, 2007

Lisi: An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

What is arXiv?

The arXiv community

arXiv endorsement process

arXiv about Lisi

Citebase about Lisi

Spires about Lisi

Where does arXiv get their

stuff?

HEP Reaction Data Database

HEP Statistics Playground

HEP Citation Distribution

HEP Olympics

PDG

SLAC

Who is Garrett Lisi?

His blog at fq(x) community

What is fq(x)?

What is fq(x)?

Lisi posted his E8 theory in his blog at fq(x)

Lisi announced his arXiv article at fq(x)

Image of the E8 figure

Lisi in Wikipedia

Who is Garrett Lisi?

“Lisi received a PhD in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 1999[3], and is listed as a visitor at the University of Hawaii[4], but he does not currently hold a faculty position at any university, though he received support from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics[5] and the Foundational Questions Institute.[6] He has been described as a ﾒ surfer dude ﾓ who is primarily employed in activities outside of physics.[7] He splits his time living in Hawaii and Lake Tahoe, Nevada.”

Who is Garrett Lisi?

Among other things, poster child for the power of social technologies in science.

MoreMore links:

<http://del.icio.us/rosefirerising/lisi.garrett><http://del.icio.us/rosefirerising/science2.0>

More podcasts:<http://www.dentalinformatics.com/><http://www.dent.umich.edu/informatics/bootcamp/><http://www.lib.umich.edu/hsl/podcasts/>

More slide presentations:<http://www.slideshare.net/

umhealthscienceslibraries/slideshows/>

Questions?

Contact: Patricia Anderson at pfa@umich.edu