‘Tis the season when bloggers, playing out the string between Xmas and New Year’s, fill the void with greatest-hits lists from the year just passed. But a question inevitably arises: how does one decide which posts to include? There are many different criteria, and preferring one to another might lead to very different lists. This is what’s known as the measure problem in blogospheric cosmology.
This year I’ve decided to confront the problem pluralistically. Thus: here we have five different Top Five lists, chosen according to completely different criteria. Let us know if your favorite Cosmic Variance post of the year somehow managed to not be on any of the lists.
First, the most crude and common measure, the posts with the most page views this year.
- Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
- I’m Too Smart to Understand Human Beings
- Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos
- Dark Energy FAQ
- Physics and the Immortality of the Soul
Next up, an equally quantitative and misleading measure of popularity: the top five posts by number of comments.
- Live-Blogging Curiosity, Hawking, and God
- Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
- Physics and the Immortality of the Soul
- Do You Think Inflation Probably Happened?
- Hell
Since I know they won’t do it themselves, here are my five favorite posts by the CV co-bloggers:
- Unsolicited Advice XI: How to Write a 5 Minute Talk, by Julianne
- The Scientific Method is Alive and Well, by Daniel
- The Aftermath of the Clown Murders, by Julianne
- James Webb Space Telescope, by Risa
- Making the (Higgs) Sausage, by John
And here are my top five favorite guest posts, in a very strong year:
- The Era of Dark Matter Direct Detection, by Neal Weiner
- The Quantum Mechanics of Source Code, by Jim Kakalios
- Contra Eternal Inflation, by Tom Banks
- Hunting for the Higgs, by Matt Strassler
- First Glimpse of the Higgs Boson, by Jack Gunion
Finally, here are my top five favorite posts by me, excluding the ones that made the first two lists. Be thankful I was able to restrain myself to only choosing five.
- Scientists Aren’t Always Complete Idiots
- Dark Matter: Just Fine, Thanks
- Are Many-Worlds and the Multiverse the Same Idea?
- Free Will is as Real as Baseball
- What Can We Know About the World Without Looking at It?
A successful year overall — I think Sept/Oct/Nov of 2011 were our highest-traffic months of all time. Here’s to seeing you all in 2012!
happy new year!
As ever, thanks for another illuminating and thought-provoking year, both comforting and discomfiting!
This is a really nice reading list for the hols. Many thanks
Cormac
Thanks!
I agree it was a great year as far as quality. I suppose that’s the main thing, but I wish you (and the other bloggers) had more time and could produce more posts. Sometimes it is like waiting for the next George R.R. Martin “Game of Thrones” novel to come out.
Which inspires this suggestion for a New Year project: publish a collection of your essays in book form. Then you could go on “The Daily Show” and be interviewed by Jon Stewart about it. Meanwhile, you would have a good reason to write more posts, for added book material. That would be a win-win-win, as far as I’m concerned.
Have a great new year! Thanks always for the continuing education, from one of your biggest fans.
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