Publish & Perish

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When I was 18 and in my Final Year M Sc, I was allotted: Cosmic Ray Showers as my Seminar Topic by our HoD.

That was the first time I had to enter the Journal Section of our Library at AU. I was told that Bhabha and Heitler had published a Definitive Paper on the subject in Physical Review around 1948. I took down the slim bound volume for the year, glanced at their Paper and promptly shoved it back into the rack. It was too forbidding for me. And I contented myself with whatever was available in Janossy's book.

But Physical Review made a great impression on me because the authors were celebrities heard by even me. And the look was Exclusive.

By the time I published my Paper with B K Parida in Physical Review in 1978 or so, it has been split up into Phys Rev A, B, C, D, E and maybe F. And our article appeared in Phys Rev D15, meaning perhaps it had become a fortnightly appearing on the 1st and 15th of every month. And neither me nor Parida were anywhere near celebrity status; unfortunately.

My redoubtable Ph D Guide SDM used to speak of Proceedings of the Royal Society as the Tenth Heaven and Physical Society as the Ninth Heaven during his prime time.

When it came to me, the Physical Society thing vanished and reappeared as European Journal of Physics, A, B, C, D, E and perhaps F. And even I could publish in it Papers read not even my me later on.

American Journal of Physics was cute in the 1950s and great names published great Papers in it. I did publish quite a few Articles in its watered down version from 1970 for about 30 years. Sadly they had to advertise for Referees and when I applied I was chosen for almost a decade; one Paper every six months.

But by and large I am happy with my 25 odd Articles in Educational Physics Journals rather than the 15 odd in Research Journals.

For 2 reasons:

1. They are well read by teachers and students and had something nice to say which was unsaid earlier.

2. They brought me in touch with great teachers like G M Volkoff, A M Portis and E F Taylor; and I milked them for my benefit.

As for Book publishing, I had never any reason to publish a Book because I had never that much NEW to say to fill about 250 Pages. But when I needed to write one for my Jumbo First Year students in a hotch-potch course, I did write a Lecture Notes which took about 9 months to compose and a lifetime in Physics to sort of understand.

After retirement I promptly went into Severe Clinical Depression and couldn't read or write for almost 2 years.

My students and younger colleagues knew that I would recover. But my Close Relatives who knew neither about Depression nor Writing proclaimed from roof-tops rather firmly that I was a Gone-Case (Theory of Relativity).

It is to convince them that Depression is like Headache and curable completely that I compile my blog-posts once in a while and get them printed and distribute them to Doubters. In my 5th booklet I even succumbed to the artifice of Propaganda by including, instead of a Preface, an Impeccable Page titled Best Compliments from: Professor Anushree Roy (anonymous) and Dr G Gopal Rao, MD OBE (onymous).

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All in all I would say that everyone in the Academic World should try and publish something or other every year. It keeps one writing-fit and is fun.

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