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Founding Member
Location: India,Tamilnadu,Pollachi
Work: General Topology
Work: General Topology
Our host Peter Matthews wrote "Some fields like maths and physics are famous for moving very fast." That is certainly true of mathematics in a way. But what's also true (and easily proved if one has access to some resource like the "Science Citation Index"/"Web of Science", or even if one looks at the list of references in a representative selection of mathematics papers, say, those online at the ArXiV) is that mathematics--in distinct contrast to physics and many other scientific fields--has a very long "shelf life". That is, while almost all citations of a physics paper (if it gets cited at all...many do not) appear within a year of its publication, and (with a very few "classical" exceptions) essentially no physics paper is cited by anyone (except possibly its author or authors) more than 10 years after its publication, in mathematics it is not at all unusual for papers to be cited 10, 20, or 50 years after publication. My own citation list, at http://black.clarku.edu/~lrudolph/research/citation.html (which is many months out of date), shows this clearly.
Dear Jothiprakash,
Some fields like maths and physics are famous for moving very fast. That is partly because so many people are publishing new work. To chase the latest research may be interesting, but it may also make it harder to do original new research yourself, if that is your aim.
To be out in front in any research field, we need to pay attention not just to recent research but also to the whole history of the field. On old paper published 50 years ago might led us to a new insight if we can relate some point made there to another point made 50 years later, and see a new problem or new solution that no-one else is thinking about.
So, my advice, is look for good authors in your field, firstly, then good journals and books, and read across the entire history of the subject. Chasing what other people are doing now, now, and now will only put you behind, in your research and in your understanding. Look around, read around, and find your own path!
Peter (Admin., Kyoto)