A Quantum Diaries Survivor

Let’s admit it - bloggers, and I am one of them, love to be linked, especially from high-traffic sites. What’s better than getting linked from a famous site is to get linked from a famous site which deals with more or less the same topics your blog does: because in the latter case the people that get directed to your blog have more chances to end up liking what they read, and some will actually say it - which adds to one’s self-esteem.

Whenever Peter links one of my posts in his blog Not Even Wrong (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/) I get a few more hundred hits, five to ten more comments, and maybe one or two subscribers who will stick around. That is nice - I do not keep this blog for my own sake, but to discuss physics issues with insiders, and do some physics outreach if I have a chance. This site is actually my own little contribution to filling the gap between experimental physics at a high-energy physics experiment and the rest of the world out there. So readers are important! I confess it, if I had few visitors and no feedback I would probably end up closing this site.

This month the magic happened twice - the last time minutes ago. Wow! Thank you, Peter!

So what is the bottomline ? If you own a science site and you like what you see, link me! You will contribute to the dissemination of scientific knowledge (or to the background noise, depending on your judgement of the material).

Update: well, it looks like the post linked by Peter made it to the top posts of the day list here on wordpress yesterday! Sure, science cannot compete with sex searches, religion debates, or political bashing. But it is nice to see that there still is people interested in basic research out there!