After many years of effort, our edited book "Topological Photonics: Fundamentals and Applications" is close to being published! This was a long and arduous process with many steps: Preparing a proposal, soliciting contributing authors, chasing for overdue drafts, reviewing them, dealing with copyright issues, and carefully checking the final proofs.
We started this project back in 2022, when large language models were only just starting to emerge. Four years later, many will ask whether books are now obsolete in this age of AI, when any question can be seemingly answered in an instant by a simple prompt.
In my opinion, physical books are more important than ever.
Nowadays, information is cheap but time is limited. With a book, you have the reassurance that someone thought the content was valuable enough to put it into print. You actually own something, not a license that can be revoked without warning. You are also insulated against the temptation to switch to another tab or check your favourite social media app.
Academic books play an important role in sustaining research. They serve as important and reliable references for graduate students just starting in a field. For mature research fields, they help in distilling the vast primary literature down to the key results that really matter in hindsight. Casual browsing of a well-stocked university library allows one to be exposed to fields and ideas outside one's own narrow area of expertise, the driver of
No comments:
Post a Comment