The Scientific Afterlife

I suppose that many scientists do not think of posterity much when they do their work.  in my experience generally you think of the problem in front of you, the bureaucracy around you and beer.

But in a way the output of your career, those papers you fought to get published, are your gift to the ages.  that is why Researchgate and similar H-indexing type sites focus on telling you who is citing you.

Researchgate is like a propellerheads-only version of facebook.  If you don't log on for a week or so it emails you with lots of things you could find out about if only you logged on.  For all I know ( I dont pay much attention to these things, I am a marketers worst nightmare) it is full of targetted ads for designer labcoats and Igor cages.

Anyway one disturbing thing about researchgate is its ability to raise the dead.

A collaborator of mine died last year.  A wonderfully kind and generous man called Soo-Ik Chang, he died suddenly leaving a young family.  I really think the Korean science community has lost a majr asset.

Anyway such is the time delay factor in science that he is still publishing.  People are finishing papers with him on as an author and publishing them.  We are too.

So this mornings email from researchgate was a bit upsetting.  It featured a picture of Soo-Ik, smiling like always, telling me he had cited my work.  Strange how these things work out.