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Why do most tenure at an institution less prestigious than the one where they began teaching, and than where they received their Ph.D?
Can you please elaborate on these two tendencies separately? The quotation assumes that your PhD alma mater differs from the university where you first taught. First, why less prestigious than PhD alma mater? Second, why less prestigious than the university of the first teaching position?

In 2005, thanks largely to his field experiments, List was offered a tenured professor position at the
University of Chicago, perhaps the most storied economics program in the world. This wasn’t supposed to
happen. It is a nearly inexorable law of academia that when a professor lands a tenured job, he does so at
an institution less prestigious than the one where he began teaching, and also less prestigious than where
he received his Ph.D. John List, meanwhile, was like a salmon who swam downstream to spawn, into the
open water. Back in Wisconsin, his family was unimpressed. “They wonder why I’ve failed so miserably,” he
says, “why I’m not still in Orlando, where the weather is really great, instead of Chicago, where the crime is
really high.”

Dubner, Levitt. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (2009). P 118.

See Do universities hire graduates from lesser universities

I think your real problem is you are reading a sloppily written book.

For the tenured job: As a professor (older than a phd student mostly), many other things play a role. Nice living place, love, good public transport etc. often matter (and should matter more) more than uni prestige.

The university you graduate from is not the complete determinant of your career. What you do in your dissertation and (even more) what you do later is more important. Don't overemphasize any one thing in this, especially in making decisions.

Also, I have been told that universities in general are reluctant to hire their own PhD graduates as faculty, in order to reduce what one might call intellectual inbreeding.

Is this specific to the United States?  In (some) European countries we don't really have institutes that are more or less prestigious, just specific research groups that are more or less successful.

@gerrit, probably not entirely specific to US, but a common enough thing here. The highly voted answers explain it pretty well.

@gerrit Ha, that’s wishful thinking. There are definitely (vast) differences in prestige between institutes in Europe.

@KonradRudolph I don't think that holds universally, I think that would depend on the country and the university.  In the UK, yes — but if you have a physics degree from a Dutch university, it doesn't matter which one it's from, and I don't think it's all that different in Germany.  For research the specific group probably matters more than the university the group belongs to.

@gerrit Germany has the Exzellenzinitiative. There’s definitely a difference in prestige between (say) LMU and some local University though you’re right that this difference is much less relevant than in France or the UK, party because Germany still has technical colleges, whose prestige is (often undeservedly) inferior to that of virtually all Unis.

@KonradRudolph You still can't get a doctorate from "Fachhochschulen". And LMU has departments which are generally regarded as inferior as much as Uni Paderborn has ones that are well renowned. And the "Exzellenzinitative" has proven as a perpetual money burning event, that blocks scientific achievement by making people waste their time on writing up how they plan to achieve scientific progress.

@Karl I’m not defending this system (on the contrary; and see my initial comment), just stating it exists.

@AnonymousPhysicist You're right, but I didn't know SuperFreakonomics was sloppily written? Levitt has an impressive CV.

Let's pick a real world example. MIT produces around 500 PhD graduates a year. At the same time MIT hires around 50 new professors per year. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309283/
That means at most 50 MIT PhDs can find a job at MIT. 450 MIT PhDs will have to find a job somewhere else... Which answers your question! Obviously, MIT is not the only prestigious school in the world (or Cambridge, MA for that matter...), but this argument is independent of how many schools are included in the prestigious circle. It all boils down to the fact that (on average) each professor will graduate way more than one PhD student over their lifetime.
This example illustrates what happens in an academic job market in a steady state as is approximately the case at the moment.

Basically correct, but the rate at which professors graduate PhDs does not tell the full story.  Hypothetically if the market were expanding r>1 could be OK (such as after World War II).  However, I suspect the market is contracting so even r=0.9 might be too much.

Very true - I have added a statement about steady state. Incidentally, there is an additional assumption that I totally skipped over. Namely, that PhD holders from more prestigious institutions are likely to outcompete those from lesser institutions. Otherwise the above has no effect!

Implicitly assumes that the only desirable job for an MIT PHD is as a faculty member at MIT or other universities.  I have worked with many MIT graduates, with extensive research experience and publications, all outside of academia.

@RBarryYoung I think my implicit assumption was that MIT PhDs aren't less likely to apply for faculty jobs than those from less prestigious institutions. And that they'd outcompute (on average) PhD holders from less prestigious institutions. Which answers the question why it is rare for academic careers to move up in prestige from PhD. I don't think it says that all 500 MIT PhDs have to find faculty jobs or in fact want faculty jobs, just more than 1:10.

That brings up the question what the percentage of PhDs from "elite / very prestigious" institutions like MIT or Harvard end up with academic faculty jobs at any institution. The OP's observation would suggests that it is significantly larger than 10% which seems surprisingly high. Now I'm curious!

@RBarryYoung but the point is obvious, since Stanford, CMU, Berkley, UIUC, etc, etc are also generating 5-10x as many new PhDs every year as there are Professorial openings.

Does that "hires 50 new proffesors a year", include only starter hires or does it include hiring at all levels of proffessor? if the former then it seems very high. I'd expect the average proffessor to graduate a lot more than 10 PHD students over their academic career.

This is called the "law of descending prestige."

Most universities hire the most prestigious faculty they can.
The number of PhDs from the top universities is larger than the number of job openings at universities.
Therefore, so long as PhDs seek employment at universities, most of them will get jobs at less prestigious universities than their PhD university.

It is not "inexorable," just probable.

Implicitly assumes that the prestige of candidates is the same as the prestige of their current employers and their alma mater, instead of being built on their publications and accomplishments.

If this is correct, a corollary is that if you got your PhD from a less prestigious university then you have a far lower chance of getting a faculty position anywhere at all. This sounds plausible while also making me sad.

@RBarryYoung: It doesn’t assume those are same — it just assumes they’re significantly correlated, which is surely an uncontroversial observation.  (And the correlation can arise through several reasons, some fair and others unfair.  Part is the extra perceived prestige of a candidate just from their prestigious background.  Part is that prestigious institutions give their students advantages to genuinely achieve more.  Part is that prestigious institutions can pre-select more competitively for the most promising students.  I think few would dispute that these effects all contribute.)

@PLL As written, this answer make no such concessions or qualifications.  It literally equates the "hiring of the most prestigious faculty" with "PhDs from the top universities".  And there's no evidence that I am aware of that they are significantly correlated once you factor out the dominant correlation of candidates publications and achievements.  In fact there's no evidence that the OP's assumptions are true in the first place, nor do any of these answers present anything to support their claims.

@RBarryYoung I mean, sure - you could put in all kinds of obvious buts in an answer like this; or you could just assume that a reader understands that Anonymous Physicist is talking about a statistically significant correlation, not a 100% accurate rule.

@RBarryYoung "Top universities" is typically defined in part by universities whose PhD students publish the most and best.

@xLeitix. I mean, look at the user name. Of course the answer is talking about spherical universities and point faculty in a vacuum.

@Nathaniel This is correct but at least in the US a significant proportion of colleges do not graduate PhDs at all. These tend to be lower ranked so even with a PhD from a not very prestigious but PhD granting institution you can still land tenured faculty jobs at non PhD granting institutions.

Regression toward the mean.
Basically, if you're already at the top, the only place you can go is down. It is well known that over many trials, individuals who perform very well in early trials will tend to perform worse in later ones. This doesn't suggest that the individuals themselves are getting much worse, but instead reflects some aspects of the random nature of success. An illustrative example can be seen in baseball, where players with the highest batting averages in one season tend to have lower batting averages the following season. That doesn't mean that all the top-performing players have all gotten worse; instead it's a reflection of the fact that almost all individuals have worse batting averages than the best averages from any one year. There's some element of random chance in being "the best", and it's simply unlikely to consistently come out on top.
We can view this scenario as a series of trials, where individuals earn their degree, get a professorship, and then become tenured. It's simply unlikely that someone who succeeds at the first step will succeed at all three. Even if you've earned a degree from the top 1% of academic programs, you still have a very low chance of getting a professorship at the top 1% of schools. Unless all graduates of a top 1% school earn a tenured position at a top 1% school, it must be the case that top 1% graduates, on average, get tenured at worse universities. Conversely, if you earn a degree from the bottom 1% of academic programs, practically any professorship you earn will be at a better school.
The overall scarcity of tenured professorships exacerbates this problem, but the phenomenon would likely still exist even if there was a tenured position for every PhD graduate. By chance alone, graduates of "the best" PhD program will become tenured elsewhere that's worse, while graduates of "the worst" PhD program will become tenured somewhere that's better (or not at all).

The problem is that the mean is not having a tenure track job at all. So even the graduates from less prestigious universities tend to move in that direction--not up.

@user3067860 We do have a confounding effect of survivorship bias - graduates of the lowest-ranked university won't be well-represented among tenured faculty, but those low-ranked individuals that do get such a job would be more likely to get one somewhere better than their alma mater, since most tenured openings are at places better than their alma mater. I agree that the scarcity of tenured positions forces the mean to be "not tenured at all", though, so even graduates of low-ranked universities can do worse in practice.

When you write your PhD, you receive important help and guidance.  So it is no proof that you by yourself are capable of something that important.  Also, the standards for a PhD, even from a very good university, are not as high. A PhD will be accepted even if it is not a very important contribution to science.
In your first job, you are perhaps still just following the lines of thought you already learned from your teachers and associates at your school.  For most researchers, this slowly gets drained and leads to fewer and fewer new results.  So, are you one of those few who can continue to learn new important things on your own, when separated from your original teachers?  Not so many can!
After a while, if you yourself alone produce results equal to or better than your PhD, if both your PhD and your later self-generated results are way above the average Phd standard, you will be invited back to an equally prestigious school, perhaps.

Not sure if this is exactly the answer to OPs question, but the description in your middle paragraph is point on. +1

Large and successful and rich institutions have a lot more assistant professors than can get tenure there. They are hired for their research expertise.
"Rural" universities do a lot more teaching, and sometimes little or no science. If someone got a doctorate there, he's likely to want to go somewhere prestigious afterwards for postdoc and assistant professor. Has to, because the prestigious places have more money and projects to hire him on.
So when tenure positions are open anywhere, the applicants generally come from well known universities.
The specifics vary a lot between countries, of course. The scale from "top" to "rural" is wide and continuous in the US, whereas e.g. in Germany you have a hundred full universities, which don't give each other much (some all claim they do), and 300 Fachhochschulen ("applied sciences") where you can't even get a doctorate.

Supply and demand.  There are way too many phds for the university jobs available.   Top schools want top PhDs,   And so on down the line,  until the excess go teach at a community college or work for the government.


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Is Mozilla Developer Network a valid source to cite?
I'd like to cite MDN for my thesis, but since it's a wiki I'm a little afraid to cite it, although it's peer reviewed as well.

Please don't make more work for others by vandalizing your posts. By posting on this site, you've irrevocably granted the Stack Exchange network the right to distribute that content under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license for as long as it sees fit to do so. For alternatives to deletion, see: I've thought better of my question; can I delete it?

If that's where you got information you used then that is what you cite. Whether it's a reliable source of information is a question you should probably take up with your advisor.
Sometimes you can trace information found on a secondary source back to primary sources. That's often the case with wikipedia. When that's possible it's preferred.

If you cite a wiki or other potentially volatile source (i.e. most things on the web), include a date at which you retrieve the information. The page pointed to by a URL can change drastically.

@Buffy 'If you cite a wiki or other potentially volatile source (i.e. most things on the web), include a date at which you retrieve the information'... or make sure the Wayback Machine has got a copy, then provide the URL for a particular dated version on there.

It cannot hurt to create a local copy as well. Zotero has a function for this, but commen browsers have a "save full page" function as well, it just saves less metadata (but may be easier to use outside of Zotero).

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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I feel I am going to have a heart attack
I am doing my PhD still in the beginning and one of colleague is so bitchy, he is from the hell, he has a good and strong relationship with the head of the lab, and always fabricate stories about me, and that I don't do that good in the lab... of course, when I speak the PI is so upset and never ever you can say he is lying, he is always right, and excellent... screaming and closing the line of zoom suddenly, I did not have the chance to defend myself... I tried to avoid this colleague, but in vain, he sent an email to supervisor faking up data about me and something did not happened at all... the PI send me an email that you are not doing well, I will report you ill-performance to committee, I asked for a call to defend myself, but they made their mind, although I had pictures of my work and everything is right... I am crying all the night, how someone could be so devil to destroy me and acclaim things did not happen. He is so jealous almost from everyone, but maybe because I had got recognition and multiples awards before joining their group, this postdoc is so jealous and want only him in the scene, I really tried to avoid and every encounter made a disaster after... I am so tired there are no other labs accepting students for the moment, I feel that I am going to have a heart attack, I am by myself in a foreign country and that is so hard, I really I feel I am going to have a heart attack even the ombudsman don't reply to my emails.

You need to take care of your well-being first. See a counselor or mental health professional. Take a break. Meet friends. Get enough sleep and some exercise. Spend time outdoors.

I wish! They ask for meeting today where they are going to humiliate me and next week they threatened me to present again... how can I, if I cannot find job here, I will be literally on streets, I am here only by myself, and other positions available... I cannot breathe, it is hard to describe, but I am screwed completely

@Erik You must find a way. A counsellor or mental health professional can help you.

Do you have an ally in the department? Someone senior you can discuss matters with? Perhaps someone who is close to your advisor and willing to liaise with them?

When you're in a situation where you feel you have nowhere to turn, you need to go as high as possible till you get a fair hearing and positive changes start to happen. In academia, go to the head of your panel or your supervisor. If that doesn't make any difference, go to the head of your faculty or the committee. If that doesn't work, go higher still. If you are certain you are correct, that you are being misrepresented and that you can justify your position, you have nothing to lose by going as high as possible. Write to the director if you have to [you won't, but you get my meaning].
Do not worry about going over someone's head. If you have spoken to your supervisor/PI and they are not seeing the whole picture, you need to go above them. You should be able to justify why you have done this: you cannot perform in your work, you supervisors are not seeing the whole picture, vital information is being overlooked, your mental health is at stake and you are worried for your physical health. You are paying for this education, and this is no way to spend your money or time. Things will just get progressively worse if positive changes don't happen now.
Ombudsmen take a long time to respond. Weeks, sometimes months. And even then they may come back with a "sorry, we can't help" reply. If you hit a wall at the top with your communication, consider leaving and taking your research with you elsewhere. You should be able to justify why you have done at your next institution so if you can back yourself up with emails.
Research is supposed to be rewarding. Challenging, yes, but not to the point where you are worried for your physical health. I know some people think that PhDs and post-docs are everything, but they're not, they are just a part of your life. You need to change your plan of attack somewhat, and you can start by writing some emails to those higher up, but make sure what you say is factual rather than emotional. Try not to say something which you could regret later. State your case fairly and factually, what you have and haven't done, what has led to this point and why you felt writing to them was the only course of action to take. Good luck.

In many parts of the world, you don't pay for doing a PhD.

Great advice but I would add one additional point that you should be sure to document everything that happens or has happened in as much detail as possible.

This is terrible advice for the asker's situation.   The asker needs to consult a mental health professional and recover before doing any of these things.  Possibly consulting with a lawyer would be wise too.

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How to publish the design of a low-cost alternative for an expensive equipment?
I am a physics undergraduate. We were working on a summer research project, while this idea unexpectedly came up. We worked on it for some months and developed a low-cost alternative for one lab equipment that we were using for our project. We have performed various standard tests on our equipment, and in all of them, our equipment fares well, mostly on par with the commercially available equipment. We have done the literature review, and ours is a novel idea.
We are not much interested in patenting or marketing the product because of the huge time and resources involved. To clarify, our equipment does not have any 'breakthrough' technologies involved, it is just a handier and a more affordable version of otherwise expensive equipment, but it gets the work done.
We want to share this idea so that it may help others like us, but at the same time get us some credit for it.
We are new to this kind of research, hence do not know what to do next. Ideally, how do you go about publishing such a topic?

Hi Bob, to me this looks like a "shopping" question here as a request for a particular journal, which we consider off topic.

I can't answer your question (which will likely be promptly closed as an off-topic shopping question), but, I'm wondering whether publication is a worthy of pursuit. Form a partnership with a competitor, incorporate a business (perhaps poaching staff from competitors), find a way to take your product to market. You might seek a patent, but I'm unsure whether that's possible, given you've already disclosed your idea (to three different editors). Eventually, you might publish as a white paper. (I don't understand why you'd go to the effort of developing a product and not want to see it used.)

@user2768 launching a company is no trivial pursuit. there's a reason why most scientists stick to publishing papers

@taylorswift Launching a company, publishing a paper, they're trivial pursuits, building a company, having impact, they're hard. Some scientists may be content sticking to just research, but, if scientists want to make an impact, they need to work on knowledge transfer, form relationships with industry, or perhaps build a company themselves.

Do you have a faculty advisor? If yes, talk to them! If not, try to find a faculty in your department to give you advice.

You might try talking to your university's intellectual property commercialization people, anyway. I think what you want is a patent. That's a non-academic publication, which although not peer reviewed should still command a reasonable level of academic respect. You don't even have to form a spin-off company as suggested in the comments or partner with one. Your university will probably have a mechanism for this already, at least in the US. You don't have to market or enforce your patents, and you can commit/pledge your patent to the public domain so that others may use or extend the technology, which they could do anyway if you just published it in a journal.

Totally agree. Yes, you want to explore a patent.

@Buffy and Bill: no, please, don't suggest to patent. As someone who works in instrumentation, believe me, the chances that something like that is worth patenting are veeeeeery thin.

@MassimoOrtolano, care to explain more?

@BillBarth For many reasons. First, the idea that their equipment is less expensive than the commercial one is misguided: students simply don't know what makes the cost of an instrument (this is something I discuss in my classes exactly for this). So, almost certainly, their idea wouldn't lead to less expensive commercial equipment. Then, the probability that their design is really new among the sheer number of published and patented designs is virtually zero. Finally, if actually new, the probability that their design improves over the existing ones is even less.

@MassimoOrtolano, actually, the advice was to explore it with the IP lawyers. They will have valid individual advice.

Have you tried Review of Scientific Instruments?

Another option would be the American Journal of Physics which has articles on low-cost equipment suitable for undergraduate labs.

One option is to describe your device in detail in the next publication making use of it to acquire data.
The major drawback of that strategy is that outstanding experimental design is only a minor plus for reviewers. You still need some interesting results/analysis to publish it, which may not be easy to obtain. It is therefore possible that you publish very late, or not at all, if this is a short-term undergrad project.


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How does sending manuscript to new reviewers close the review loop?
I had sent a manuscript of mine to one of the IEEE Transactions journals a while ago. After the first round of revision, I received some comments of two reviewers (let's call them A and B). But after the second round of review, the new comments I received obviously indicated that the two new reviewers (say, C and D) were not A and B (both C and D had explicitly noted that in their comment letters). The comments of C and D were mostly contradictory to those of A's and B's. The weird thing was that both C and D complained about some changes which I had applied to the manuscript according to what A and B had requested. Yet, the most perplexing thing, about the most-recent comments I received after the next round of revision, that is, the editor apparently sent the new revision yet to a new pair of reviewers (here, E and F)! Again, their comments are no where close to something harmonious with what the former pairs had asked before.
Now, I am confused to understand the strategy of the editor. To me, a review process has to be closed just like a loop, in that those who comment on a manuscript should assess the resulting revision. Otherwise, anyone else would pose new sets of comments and ideas which may simply contradict the former ones.
Can one explain how this way of review moderation yields convergence to a decisive result?

Does this answer your question? What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?

Did you point out to the editor that the second pair of reviews contradicted the first? It seems to me that it's the editor's job to resolve the contradiction and tell you what changes to make. Maybe the editor agrees with me about that and asked E and F for reviews to resolve the question.

@AndreasBlass: The reviews of E and F are already sent to me, and they are another pair of contradictory comments (as the last sentence of my first paragraph asserts). As you said, maybe I had to pinpoint the contradictions.

I had a similar problem on a book manuscript once. After several frustrating rounds it ended back about where I'd started and was published. Hard to account for this.

Most probably what happened was the invited reviewers declined for whatever reason (too busy, on holiday, etc) and the editor is inviting a new set of reviewers because it is journal policy to only accept when they have two accept reviews (or they simply aren't confident enough to evaluate based on the original reviews). It is rare for this to happen four times, but it's not inconceivable.
Either way it's obviously not ideal for the authors. I'd suggest asking the editor for guidance. You can't outright tell them what to do, of course, but you could point out that the reviewers are contradicting one another and you are unsure what to make of it.

To me, a review process has to be closed just like a loop, in that those who comment on a manuscript should assess the resulting revision.

So you submit a first version of the paper. The editors invites some reviewers to submit reviews, and Reviewers A and B accept the invite. When Reviewer A accepts the invite, they have no way of knowing how the process will evolve. They know that they have to submit a review within a fixed amount of time, upon which three outcomes are possible:

accept as is;
reject completely;
recommend to revise and resubmit.

The first two outcomes mean that the process ends there. But consider what happens when the third outcome happens. An amount of time X will pass for the editor to make a decision, and Reviewer A has no way of knowing how much time, particularly since Reviewer B may be late with their review. Then, the editor will give an amount of time Y to the authors to perform their revision. Maybe you, as author, are very eager, and you only use an amount Z<Y of that time. So at some point, you resubmit your revision, and Reviewer A will be invited again to give a review. But X+Z time has passed. When Reviewer A was invited for their initial review, Reviewer A had no way of knowing:

whether any number of revisions would be necessary;
how much time X+Z would be.

Maybe Reviewer A finds themselves overloaded with teaching tasks when the invitation for reviewing the revision lands in their inbox. Maybe they had set a month apart for redecorating their house. This is why reviewers cannot, in general, be asked to commit to reviewing more than one iteration of a paper at a time.

You have run into bad luck to have been confronted with a completely fresh slate of reviewers twice. It is not nice to have to chase after a moving target. The prudent thing to do is to summarize the conflicts in the feedbacks, and send a message to the editor. It is their responsibility to resolve such issues, but they may not be aware that any issue exists. So you should make the editor aware.

When reviewers contradict each other there shouldn’t be any additional problem because the algorithm is the same as with one reviewer: you either agree with someone’s position and then edit your manuscript accordingly, or you disagree and then explain why to the editors and reviewers. Either case it’s just positions to consider. It doesn’t matter if there are contradictory positions. Having 6 reviewers should strengthen your piece.


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Posthumous authorship or acknowledgement
Suppose I am working on a book that is a broad expansion of a survey article I wrote with a collaborator, Dr. Y, who passed away recently.
I sent Y extremely early drafts of some chapters and invited Y to be a coauthor.
Y gave a lot suggestions in the structure, content, and style of the book, yet Y remained vague about coauthorship (probably because he had doubts if he will live long enough). Y never said yes or no.
Y never participated in the actual writing.
But Y's suggestions became the high level blueprint that guided the development of the book.
This draft is only about 60% done, but I'm wondering: in this case, should Y be a coauthor?

There may be laws that govern this, though laws vary from place to place. Normally he would have to give permission and that "right" may legally have passed to his heirs. You would do well to contact someone responsible for his estate and take up the question with them.
But since he never gave permission, you don't have permission, yet, to include him. You have an obligation to acknowledge his contribution and probably cite some of the specifics as well, even though they haven't been published.
Dedicating the book to his memory would be a nice touch also.

Even for adding as an acknowledgement, I think OP should speak with the legal heirs of the late person (although this may not have anything to do with law; but as a sense of respect).

In addition to @Buffy's good answer, I would note that an important part of this decision will be based on the degree to which material from the prior survey article is included, since the person is already established as a co-author of the prior article.

If significant portions of the prior article are effectively incorporated in this work, then the default position is for all prior authors to be co-authors, since they are co-authors of a subset of the work. In this case, the person should be a co-author.
If the new work does not include significant portions of the prior work, then the default position is for authorship to be determined independently. In this case, it is your judgement call whether their contributions rise to the level of authorship or should be an acknowledgement.

In both cases, the person can no longer consent so, as @Buffy points out, consent will pass to their heirs.  Usually, though, this won't be a hard decision for the heirs, as a good scientific publication is a lasting mark on the world that honors the memory of the deceased. I have experience with this myself (though I wasn't the one who negotiated with the heirs), and family of the deceased not only happily supported the publication, but went on to establish a standing scholarship in the area in the person's name.


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Is it justified for a teacher to refuse your project proposals just because he wants something unique?
I'm new here and am not sure whether this is the right place to post such a question or not so rather than downvoting just tell me I'll move the question (as I don't want to be banned for having low rep).
I'm currently in my 3rd semester of university majoring in Computer Science and this question is related to a course I'm taking - 'Data Structures and Algorithms'.
A little bit about the teacher -> graduated from the same university in which I'm currently studying last year and was hired to work here
So, the situation is that we have to submit a project (GUI based application made with Java and JavaFX) by 2nd January. Now, here are the problems:
The teacher demands we

we implement every data structure we use from scratch (I have heard this is standard for this course).

only use data structures he hasn't taught us and that all our projects should have unique data structures. Basically, no two groups/individuals can use the same data structure and as you can imagine this will lead to some people being stuck with highly obscure data structure whose implementation or ways of implementation either might not be available or not clear for the person to understand.

use as many data structures as possible. I researched online on a few websites and found out that data structures are important but they are only a small part of the project there are a lot of other things.

As if that wasn't enough of a problem, he rarely responds to our queries on discord or through emails and the upper management doesn't listen to us.
I have also proposed a few project ideas but they were all rejected because there weren't enough data structures used or he didn't want us to use that data structure or some other reason. A few of these were:

Text Editor (not enough data structures).
Sudoku Solver (overused).
Any project that used stacks to implement history and backwards and forwards navigation (don't use stacks).
Todolist (too small project).

Now, I ask is it justified for a teacher to do such things just for getting a truly unique project?
We have barely 3 weeks left to start and finish our projects as not even one of use has gotten their projects approved yet.
EDIT:
Something happened last night, the students that were doing projects in groups collectively decided to not bother getting their projects approved anymore and are now going to go with whatever they want to, they will still use data structures but they are no longer going to strive to meet any of his criteria. They were extremely frustrated and being on the end of their rope they have decided on this and are saying that they will deal with it on the day of the evaluation.

"only use data structures he hasn't taught us" This sounds really weird. Java doesn't have five dozen alternative data structures. I'm sure he doesn't want that you copy&paste an example from his teaching and modify that, but write from scratch. (I'm lost in java if I can't do that. All my programs look the same, the structures have wrinkled skin and are missing a tooth or two. Terrible. ;-))

Our opinion on whether the assignment is justified or not means little because the instructor usually has the privilege of deciding how to assess learning. If all of the students are struggling, then the assessment seems too challenging for what students are capable of. I suggest making sure that you are performing on par or above average.

@Karl a lot of data structures don't exist in java so yeah we have to implement them from scratch like if someone wants to use TreeMaps even though they exist he/she has to implement that from scratch.

@Elodin yes, everyone is struggling but something happened last night please look at the edit

@Ak222 a lot of data structures don't exist in java: Such as?

You're asked to: Implement many untaught data structures. That seems easy. Here's a hint: Data-structure independence. (I won't use a technical term, since that seems akin to homework help.) You're also asked to: Implement a GUI-based application on top. Perhaps not too arduous. The tricky part: Finding an interesting application. Perhaps look to your teacher's research, see if there's something in their research that you can implement. That'd surely interest your teacher, otherwise it'd suggest their research isn't worthy of implementing/using.

@user2768 the teacher gave us an example of a project that we could do though he did say it would be hard. It was to implement djikstra's algorithm but here's the catch: whenever the user drags a node on the graph the distance between it and all other nodes should update and the algorithm should function based on the new distance. I tried searching online but there wasn't one that worked by updating the distance in real time it was more like it was constant throughout (the weight of the edges which was input at the time of the creation of the edge).

@Ak222 Surely there's a library for graphs and associated GUIs that'd support dragging a node? That'd probably get you a long way towards the teacher's example. (You didn't mention any restrictions on using such third-part libraries, so I presume that'd be okay.)

It sounds like the standards are pretty high. It sounds like the instructor doesn't want you to be mediocre. It sounds like they are demanding some creativity.
Those are good things, actually.
It is hard to judge whether the standards are unreasonable or not but you would benefit by meeting them.
Are you permitted to brainstorm with other students? Do that if allowed. Have you asked for ideas from the instructor? Have you tried to take any of your original ideas and modified them to come closer to the standard? Alternatively, have you taken any really hard problems and tried to whittle them down to something that is doable and meets the standard?
It's good that you aren't being singled out, also. The farther you go, the higher the standards you will be expected to meet.

we are permitted to brainstorm and when we ask the teacher for ideas he says you can make whatever but follow the criteria. But the end problem is that in this course we study efficient implementation and usage of data structures. We have to implement data structures and in many cases a specific data structure is most efficient. The others can be used there are over 30 of them as far as I know but they are all meant for specific use purposes. We won't use a tree data structure where a stack would be the best option.

+1: High standards, no mediocrity, something interesting, requirements that'll lead to significant rewards, albeit, probably ill-suited to a class of mixed ability.

@user2768 the problem with our class is that most think Computer Science is too easy and are not even that interested in it as a career rather think of it as an easy money-making opportunity like most people in this field and while I may understand that it might be the teachers intention to weed some people out early on, it is also badly affecting the others that had some genuinely great ideas to look to other ideas just to be unique. And the reward part, well the project is valued at 15 marks out of 100 and for some reason the management decided for the final term assessment be valued at 50

Your question asks if the instructor is justified in enforcing these requirements. Perhaps, perhaps not. I have an opinion, but that's not what I want to answer with.
You might consider attacking this assignment starting from the requirements rather than from the project. Look at a some data structures not covered in the class that you find interesting and think you could implement. Then design a project that calls for those data structures.
Note: three weeks is not a long time for an assignment like this. Try to be just ambitious enough in your data structure selection to satisfy the requirements.

the problem is with someone ending up with some obscure and really hard data structure because he wants a unique data structure in every project. Also, the bigger problem is that he has left no room for negotiation he is unwavering and says that this is how the 'professionals' work

@Ak222 Your comment addresses the OPs question as to whether the requirements are reasonable. My (non)answer is only a suggestion for a possible way to meet the requirements. (Parenthetically, this is not how professional programmers work.)


text:
Choosing between a funded PhD offer and a possibly funded one
I have been admitted into two PhD programs at universities A and B. A offered me funding, however B asked me to apply for state funding before discussing internal funding. The deadline to accept the offer from A is early January, and I will not recieve the results of my application for state funding at B until February. I really want to go to B, but I am afraid of rejecting A's offer and not getting state or internal funding at B. What should I do?
I was thinking about:

Asking A for more time to consider my options before taking a decision.
Contacting B and explaining that I have a fully-funded offer from A, but however, they are my first choice and I need to know whether they will give me funding if I do not get it from the government before rejecting A's offer. A is really prestigious and well placed in rankings, so I though that bringing them up while contacting B would play in my favor.

Would this be a wise approach to my problem? May this just worsen my situation? I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestion. I am desperate about what to do, this is a really important dilema that I have never faced before.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask for more time to decide, though do so quickly as many people (at least in the US and EU) will now be on their Christmas holidays and not back in the office til early January, so many not see your request in time.

Yes, you can try those things.  It is unlikely to make your situation worse.  Only A and B know if they are willing to help you.

Just Mahe sure you don't mention the names of the schools you're debating between. Must say offer from another school...


text:
Which affiliation to put as a student in a different branch than the research paper?
I am an undergrad student in a certain field. However, I am also interested in another, very different one in which I would like to submit a research paper to a journal.
Which affiliation should I put? That of my university even if the education I receive there is not related to the article?
At the moment I have indicated "Student in [irrelevant field] at the university [my university]".

Why mention the field at all? "University of the Inner Solar System (student)".

I think that would be a bit dishonest and would give the impression that I follow a course of study close to the subject being dealt with

As a professor I would only list my university as affiliation, not the department in which I worked. The paper will stand on its own. The affiliation is to help people find you and to aid disambiguation about people with the same name.

I didn't see affiliation like that, thank you for the advice. If you make an answer out of it I will accept it directly. Thank you again.

@Buffy In the journals I read everybody lists their department, even if it's an irrelevant one.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117429/what-does-affiliation-for-a-publication-signify  "Affiliation could mean anything, or nothing at all." said Buffy

Don't be too hasty in accepting. The answer of @AnonymousPhysicist is also good.

I read carefully both answers, they are indeed good as far as I can judge, but I think yours is fair since you commented something close first.

This is an alternate answer to that of Anonymous Physicist, with which I also agree. Especially their last paragraph.
But, since affiliation is mostly to help people find the author and to aid disambiguation of people with the same name, the university is enough for your affiliation, without need to list the department.
So "University of the Inner Solar System (student)" should be fine.
But if you need to list the department for some reason, just be honest. People will understand.
But the most important point is that the paper will/must stand on its own independent of who wrote it or their affiliation.

I've never seen an affiliation that indicated rank such as "(student)"

For an undergraduate student, the affiliation is usually the same as the affiliation of your supervisor.  If you are unsure, ask them.
If you are writing the paper independently, typically the affiliation is in the format:

Department, University Name, Address

At some universities, undergraduates do not have a department, in which case that might be omitted.
It is perfectly fine if your affiliation is unrelated to your paper topic.


text:
My transcript has the wrong course names. How to fix this in PhD applications?
I took courses named A, B, and C during my master. They are all strongly related to the field I want to apply in, and I got top grades in them.
Due to administrative reasons, my transcript shows course names D, E, and F instead. They are all either slightly or not at all related to my field.
Names D, E, F are the names of courses that were replaced by A, B, C that year. I don't really understand why they were not changed in the official transcript, and I may not be able to get a transcript with the correct names.
How can I make sure that this does not hurt my chances when I apply to PhD programs in the field of A, B, C?
I am thinking of sending a version with the correct names, and attaching the official one, with a note that explains the issue. But I don't know how that will be seen by admission committees (they may wonder why I didn't just get a fixed version from my school).
Edit: I want to apply to machine learning programs. The A, B, C courses are about machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence. D, E, F are “3D engineering”, “image processing” and “image analysis”, which seem irrelevant in comparison. This seems to me like a blow to my applications.

Would a person knowledgeable about universities like yours in your country consider this kind of administrative error common?

@AlexanderWoo I don't think so. The program's administration was unusually incompetent during my whole degree. I will be applying abroad, which may make the situation even more confusing.

Can you contact the university and obtain a corrected transcript? Or at least a note from the "registrar" with a complete explanation?

@Hey: "Abroad" isn't generally a concern, because PhD applications are evaluated by professors, and professors are, as a group, quite knowledgeable about the workings of universities in other countries.

@AlexanderWoo, I doubt that tis true, especially if the reader doesn't read the language of the transcript.

@Hey, if this is Germany and the system is LSF, this is completely normal. Just write a short note explaining it. And image processing, by the way, is pretty much just machine learning anymore :)

If at all possible you should get the issuing university to correct your transcript. Failing that, you should get a letter, signed by an authority, that explains the situation. The letter should come from some official. In the US, the person would normally be called the Registrar, but I doubt that is universal. Whoever is responsible for transcripts.
The answer of Nicole Hamilton is correct in that you shouldn't try to alter any official document.

Hi, thanks for your answer. Do you think the "letter signed by authority" situation would lower my chances, by e.g. making the transcript less clear? It seems that this is as much as I'll be able to get.

I can't promise it will help, but don't see how it could hurt, actually.

Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant "will it be worse than a transcript with no error", not "will it be worse than not getting the letter?" (I guess you answered that by "can't promise it will help.")

Getting an official correct transcript is the best, but don't try to alter an official document yourself.

I wasn't planning to :) Thank you.

Do not alter a document issued by anyone else.
You haven't provided enough information for anyone to judge whether A, B and C will seem all that different from D, E and F to anyone reading your transcript.   Either way, there's simply no possible good reason nor any possible good outcome associated with telling anyone other than your registrar that you think there's an error on your transcript.  Until and unless you can get it changed, it is what it is.
What you might do if you think it's that important, is sneak a clarification into one of your essays, explaining that not only did you do well in these courses, but that the content was even more relevant than the course names would suggest.

Either way, there's simply no possible good reason nor any possible good outcome associated with telling anyone other than your registrar that you think there's an error on your transcript. I cannot imagine what you mean by that. Talking to the profs who taught the classes would make sense. Talking to the Program Coordinator would make sense. Talking to the Department Head would make sense. Even talking to a prospective supervisor could make sense.

+1 for the crucial first line here, although like @MartinArgerami I don’t agree with the middle paragraph.

When you're introducing yourself to others, I don't think it's helpful to bring up that you're involved in conflicts.  It invites speculation that you might be hard to manage or that if others have conflicts with you, maybe we will, too. Revealing that you're arguing with your registrar about what your transcript should say invites negative speculation: who gets into these kinds of fights?

@NicoleHamilton I wonder if there is a difference between the administration and the admission committee in that case? I imagine that applications are usually pre-processed by administrative staff, before professors meet to choose candidates. Would it be reasonable to contact the administration to e.g. provide the real course names, along with an explanation signed by my program coordinator, so that they amend the transcript  before professors see it?

One option to "sneak it in" is to mention the book used for the course. If there for example is a classic textbook on machine learning that the course used, any person reading your statement will know it's a serious machine learning course if they recognise the book. For example, if I saw a personal statement in my field, math, say "I was 2nd out of 38 students in my 'introduction to proofs' course, taught out of Rudin's principles of mathematical analysis." I'd think oh, this student really knows their real analysis, even if they didn't have real analysis in their transcript.

Have your letters of recommendation address the issue.
You are getting a letter from the professor who taught one of these courses, right?  In their letter of recommendation, they'll write "I first met Hey when he was a student in Course A, which I taught.  Note this was mislabeled in his transcript as D."
You can also mention it in your statement of purpose when you write about your experience.

I am not asking any of my school’s professors for letters. I got research experience with academics from other organizations, and I didn’t have many opportunities to do interesting work at my school. But I will try in the statement if I can’t get the transcript fixed, thank you for your advice.


text:
Cite or reformulate perfectly formulated sentences?
I'm just writing my bachelors thesis and I need to reference to a book for an in-depth derivation of something.
The concluding sentence in this work is just perfectly formulated, there is no way of making it shorter or more precise. I wonder whether I should write something like

As [4] points out, it can be shown that
the enhancement in the second-harmonic power is given [...]

With the bold text being the quote from the book or reformulate the sentence, making it somewhat less precise? Is this even enough attribution when copying the sentence verbatim or do I need to put quotation marks?

If it is an exact word-for-word quote, use quotation marks.  If you rephrase it, don't.

Is it really only about the formulation "it can be shown that the enhancement in the second-harmonic power is given", or is the quote longer than that? If only those few words, this hardly required being marked as a quote (even more so as this is a rather standard formulation).  Of course, quoting does not hurt.

@user151413 The quote was longer than this and I left out the nifty part that came afterwards. I did not want to give the full quote as people would have just offered reformulations.. But I'm quite happy with my own reformulation now.

That sentence is well formulated but it doesn't seem so outstanding that it cannot be reformulated in different, equivalent forms.
Therefore, I really suggest you to clearly understand its meaning and to reformulate it in your own words.
If you decide anyway to copy the sentence verbatim, use quotation marks or an indented block quotation.

I will mark this answer as accepted as I reformulated the sentence altogether. It looks weird with the qoutation marks. The other answer was also very useful

Yes, you should use quotation marks for direct quotes unless you use some other clearly expressed convention for quotes. Bolding doesn't naturally imply quoting. With quotes you may still want to bold the text, or not.
Also, your "citation" is a bit weak if it only points to the book and not to a particular place within the book.

Boldening is only here on SE, I put [4, p. XX ] now. Thanks


text:
Citation help in APA format
I'm not sure if this question belongs here - if not please redirect me to the right place. I want to cite http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/cccr2018/National-CCCR-2018.pdf in APA format, but I'm not sure how to do it. I don't understand how to classify it. Can anyone help me?
If this question does not belong here, can you redirect me to the proper place?

APA follows the basic format of Who-When-What-Where. In your case, it will be:
ACT. (2018, October 18). Condition of College and Career Readiness 2018. http://www.act.org/content/act/en/research/reports/act-publications/condition-of-college-and-career-readiness-2018.html
Some details:

Who? There is no individual author named; we shall thus take the authoring organization, ACT.
When? The report is from 18 October 2018; use the format YYYY, Month Day for the publication type 'report'.
What? The title of the report (Condition of College and Career Readiness 2018).
Where? The URL where the report can be retrieved from. (Note: The additional words "Retrieved from [URL]" used to be mandatory in earlier versions of the APA Style Guide, but not in the current version anymore - see, for example, here.)

You mention that the words retrieved from are no longer mandatory. Does this mean thye are optional or that they are no longer supposed to be there?

See APA Style Guide 9.16: If the source's content is likely to change over time, then you can add "Retrieved from"; otherwise it is better to archive the webpage you cite, in which case no "Retrieved from" is required anymore.

So if I'm not sure, and I just write retrieved from, it is okay.


text:
Who decides which, if any, solutions are publicized to students?
For students, some textbooks publicize no solutions, some just half (either odd or even numbered exercises), and some all. How's this decided? Does the author have the final say? Can publishers override an author? A debate between both?
I'm not asking about instructors' solution manual that divulges solutions just to instructors.

Usually the author or authors has the final say.  Presumably it is the authors or associates of the authors who will have the burden (at least in part) of providing solutions, and this is NOT indeed a very gratifying task.
In some cases solutions are available but have to be translated to English.
Some authors actually believe that producing solutions will inevitably lead to these being made public, and will eventually bring down the value of the work.  (I disagree: nobody suggests that you need to take problems from same the textbook as the one used in class.)
The need to produce solutions also varies with the level of the textbook.  Publishers may already have staff or freelance contributors to write end-of-chapters questions on calculus or basic physics, but that’s unlikely to be the case in an upper-level text.

"I disagree: nobody suggests that you need to take problems from same the textbook as the one used in class." You're absolutely correct! Many instructors allege this, but why can't they bother to assign problems out of the thirty other books on the subject?

I would be surprised if any publisher required a particular outcome or, especially, overrode an author's decision. It would make for an awkward relationship with the author.
They might, however, make suggestions, since the commercial value of a book might be affected by the decision. But the commercial value and the educational value might be at odds. I've never had a discussion with an editor about this subject and have published with several.
I do know of one case where a grad student was paid to produce solutions. I believe the funding came from the publisher, but it has been too long ago to remember details. But this is something an author could request of the editor. However, such payments usually come out of future royalties to the author, I'd expect.


text:
Is using "iff" appropriate?
Is the word "iff", meaning "if and only if", recognized outside of logic?
In particular, is it appropriate for a physics text?  Or is this kind of abbreviation frowned upon?

Suggest that OP give more specifics about what kind of context is expected. Written on blackboard? Homework? Lecture notes? Thesis? Published paper? Spoken aloud? (In roughly decreasing order of acceptability.)

Comments are not for extended discussion; some answers, opinions, and amusing puns have been moved to chat. Please review this FAQ before posting a comment below this one.

The abbreviation iff is generally understood in several fields outside logic, and in my experience it is well understood by physicists, but the golden rule is to define every abbreviation at its first use and/or provide a list of abbreviations. In this way, even those not familiar with an abbreviation will be able to understand the text.
However, in general, abbreviations may make a text less readable and therefore should be used judiciously. Thus, ask yourself if you will have to use the expression if and only if so frequently to warrant an abbreviation, sparing you just a bunch of characters, and think whether to limit its use to e.g. theorem statements.

I don't agree that defining iff as an abbreviation is correct, at least in maths.

@JessicaB By common definition of abbreviation —"a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole word or phrase"—, I don't know why you wouldn't call it an abbreviation. Note also that the OP is interested in physics.

That's a very wide definition of abbreviation, and if you're using that definition then your rule isn't really correct. For example, you would never provide as explanation of it's. Note that iff doesn't follow any standard pattern for forming an abbreviation, and also cannot be spoken aloud in the contracted form (while retaining its meaning).

@JessicaB It's is part of the English language, and it's a specific form of abbreviation: it's a contraction. And one can choose abbreviations outside standard patterns. The fact that it cannot be spoken aloud is irrelevant: it just means that it's not an acronym. But also within maths, I suspect that many would agree that that is an abbreviation. E.g., here is a quotation from H. B. Enderton, Elements of Set Theory: "Also we abbreviate the phrase "if and only if" as "iff"". So, I feel you may have a too personal view of the meaning of abbreviation.

@JessicaB I also add that iff is present in the Oxford Dictionary of English and it is exactly defined as an abbreviation: "A written form of abbreviation of the phrase ‘if and only if’".

@JessicaB 'cannot be spoken aloud'  The Concise Oxford English Dictionary supplies a pronunciation guide for "iff" (in which it's pronounced exactly the same as "if").

@DanielHatton This could make for confusing discussions!

@user151413 Curiouser and curiouser: I was working from the 1995 edition of the (Concise) OED.  It looks like more recent editions have dropped the pronunciation guide for "iff", added the qualifiers "written" and "abbreviation" as quoted by Massimo, and added a (verifiably incorrect) date to the etymology,

@DanielHatton The full OED reports "if and only if" as pronunciation.

I don't agree with your "golden rule" of defining every abbreviation or providing a list. I think it would be unusual and unnecessary to explain "where cos denotes the cosine function, and arctan denotes the inverse of the tangent function, and exp denotes the exponential function, and max denotes the maximum function", and so on. The OP's question is whether (or in what context) "iff" falls into the quite large collection of notation that can reasonably be used without explanation.

@JamesMartin It all depends on context really. If you have an equation block then writing iff would be perfectly understandable but within a block of text it could be misunderstood.

@JamesMartin Everything should be read with a grain of common sense. Otherwise, in everyday communication, one can end up in an infinite regress for almost everything.

@MassimoOrtolano Precisely. So the question is asking whether or not "iff" is like "exp". I genuinely don't see how the golden rule helps. There are some things one needs to explain, and some things (like "exp") one doesn't need to. And the OP is asking whether "iff" needs to be explained. In a maths context, I wouldn't think it does. If your answer is that "iff" is sufficiently non-standard in a physics context that it needs to be explained, then fine.  But covering that by a rule of "explain everything" doesn't seem to help.

@JamesMartin My answer says exactly what it says: that "iff" will likely be understood in physics, but that if you apply the "golden rule" it will be certainly understood, also by those who are not so familiar with the abbreviation. That's it, I really don't know what you're arguing about, but I can accept that you don't like it ;-)

@JamesMartin I actually would expect for a well-written and well-edited textbook to include a glossary or an introductory chapter that includes all those definitions, or at the very least a reference to another textbook that does.

I agree that the abbreviation should be defined, since this could be unintentionally be confused with "identification, friend or foe". Robot designers and military automation scientists may read the publication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_friend_or_foe

@JessicaB what are the standard patterns for forming an abbreviation?

You can sort this sort of thing out by looking at papers in journals.  Google speeds this along.  I searched as follows:

"iff" journal die reine und angewandte mathematik

and

"iff" "Physical review"

to confirm that there are plenty of papers in physics and math that use "iff" without explanation.  The one paper I saw that defined this was in Physical Review Letters.  You might want to search similarly in one of your target journals.
However:  Do think about your target audience.  An experimental physicist might be confused by this abbreviation.
A nice trick is to write things with nice large figures and few abbreviations and see how long the paper is.  If you are over the page limits for a journal by just a little, you start shrinking images, tightening the prose, and using the more common abbreviations.  Many physics papers have way too many abbreviations so do try to not use every abbreviation possible.
Another reason to use an abbreviation or a symbol (like \Leftrightarrow) is to make a multiline-equation a single-line equation, or to make a two-column equation fit in one column. This can greatly improve the look and readability of a paper.

Thank you for your research. Its only for a bachelors project I'm doing, not a paper. As the page count is not limited I think I will stick to the advice given not to use too many abbreviations.

@Student0284  For a bachelors project you probably will do fine either way.

The reason why this is defined in Physical Review Letters is very likely that Physical Review has a rather strict style guide which is usually rather strictly enforced.  Acronyms have to be defined, even if they are considered to be well-known.

This experimentalist would understand it, but probably picked up outside work from someone with a maths background.  I'd use it only if really necessary, e.g. in something like a display equation that's better without wrapping

I doubt that anyone can get a degree in physics without taking some math classes, where they will be exposed to proofs, thus getting exposed to "iff".

By the way, there is a latex command for if and only if symbol. It is \iff

@GuntramBlohm It is entirely possible to take those math classes in a language different from English though, in which case one might be exposed only to another shorthand for the same concept.

@user151413  "iff" isn't an acronym.  If it was, it would be "iaoi".

@Bloke I'm sure you got my point: Physical Review has rather strict rules about all kind of things, such as spelling out abbreviations, acronyms, and those kind of things - see also the other comments as to whether this counts as an abbreviation.  Also, I don't see why acronyms would only be based on first letters - acronyms for research proposals essentially never do this.

@Bloke The main issue with the 'iff' as a possible acronym is that it is not ever pronounced.   Thus NATO is an acronym and FBI is an abbreviation to most people as it is not generally pronounced as a word.  Of course many people get this wrong, even academics, just as they say PIN number or ORCID ID.

Many here are missing that I said "there are plenty of papers in physics and math that use 'iff' without explanation" and that includes papers in the Annals of Mathematics and Physical Review Letters.  I do not think Physical Review Letters minds at all it one uses it with or without explanation.

@user151413  The APS style guide says ``abbreviations should be defined the first time they are introduced in text'' not 'must' be used.  In practice, as author and referee, I have never before noticed this.  This is not at all strictly enforced.  Of course, I do complain as referee if a paper has uses to many abbreviations or fails to define the non-obvious abbreviations.

@TerryLoring My experience with the APS copyediting procedure is that in the preparation for that, the editor will spell out any abbreviation they don't overlook, or ask you to do so, including things completely canonical in the field.   Some APS journals provide redlined proofs, where you can very well spot that.

@user151413  I guess this proves that APS is a huge organization.  It could be that different editors have different attitudes.

@TerryLoring There's no doubt about the latter. But overall APS editors are much more picky about the rules than those of other journals.  (Just try writing "i.e." or "e.g." without surrounding commas, or use a double hyphen '--' rather than '---'.)

The use of iff outside of formal logic is shorthand, and so is only appropriate in contexts where shorthand is appropriate.
For example, it's probably fine in a piece of maths homework, may or may not be a good choice in lecture notes (depending on their style), and not suitable for a research paper (at least in pure maths).

The word "iff" appears in the 1995 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.  The etymological note in there suggests it arose as an "extension" of "if", rather than as a "shorthand" or "abbreviation".

I don't know what is standard in physics. However, in mathematics (outside of logic), this is the correct answer. Though it might appear in published papers sometimes, it is standard (and usually considered better) to expand shorthand like "iff" to "if and only if," in much the same way that the backwards A and E symbols for "for all" and "there exist" may be okay in notes or homework, but are almost always written in words in more formal text.

Same as for sine: "sine" in prose and "sin" in formulas.  Of course, for formulas, you may be better served by "⇔".  Depending on your intended audience, you may want to define whichever version you use before the first use.

In this case, I think it's more a matter of "sin" being another completely unrelated word.  You wouldn't use "tan", "cot" or "sec" in prose either for similar reasons.  The others ("cos", "csc") don't have that ambiguity issue, but are left with 3-letter abbreviations mostly for consistency I think.

What type of physics text? A research paper? An introductory textbook? I'd say in general "iff" is fine to use in an educated setting iff material equivalence needs to be emphasized. Personally, I'd leave it out if not.


text:
Who decides to publish different versions of the same textbook?
Do authors or publishers decide to publish too similar versions of  textbooks that feel like cash grabs? Or do the publishers suggest it? Three examples — 1.  James Stewart's pricey first year Calculus books.

Ross, Westerfield, Jaffe, and Jordan wrote at least four textbooks titled Corporate Finance. I know the first one is the longest. But the last three feel like duplicates.

Corporate Finance
2019 12th Edition

Corporate Finance: Core Principles and
Applications
2021 Sixth Edition

Essentials of Corporate Finance 2020 Tenth Edition

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance
2019 12th Edition

Brealey, Myers, and Allen wrote at least three textbooks titled Corporate Finance. The first one is the longest. But the last two feel like duplicates.

Principles of Corporate Finance
2020 13th Edition

Principles of Corporate Finance,
Concise Edition 2011 2nd Edition

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance
2020 Tenth Edition

I do not know the topic, but new textbooks in my field usually update content, include new material and sometimes modernize presentation. I cannot follow why OP uses the derogatory or polemic term "cash grab by the author", writing is a textbook is a lot of work and the author honorarium really not that impressive for the amount of work involved. One could certainly earn more with consultancy or just working in the industry. It may be a business for the publisher, but the OP specifically asks about the author. Not voting to close, but downvoting.

I'm interpreting your question as "who suggests a new edition, the author or the publisher?"
The answer is "it depends". Either can suggest. A lot will depend on how long it's been since the previous edition, and whether there's anything new to write about. If the new edition does go ahead you can be sure that both author & publisher approve of it, and that (the publisher at least) think they can sell copies of the new edition. There's usually a summary in each new edition detailing what's new.
As for "duplicate" textbooks: remember, you don't have to buy it if you feel there's no value.


text:
What Is "Blow-Out" In The Research Context For An Academic
A junior academic in a department I was doing research in once said to me in reference to a senior member of the department that "Prof X no longer does research, just course design and teaching. He was involved in fascinating fundamental work in the 1960s but had a research blow-out some years ago."
At the time I must admit I read this as a euphemism for research idleness on the part of Prof X. To me then nothing could be more exciting than going further and further in research, one thing always leading to another - even if one had some teaching to do or had to write an occasional textbook.
About a year later during a conversation with Prof X (temporarily acting HoD till a new chap was appointed) on what really constituted the essence of a PhD, I was shown Prof X's own thesis from the late 1950s. He offered this as an example of a study with no industrial application whatever, performed on a material one might almost describe as a domestic material but which nonetheless illuminated some of the fundamental processes involved in dislocation movement and plastic flow. I took his point.
Till lately - when Google Scholar and UK Theses Online allowed it - I could not readily validate the claims for Prof X's early research distinction. Now I can and see that it was substantial till the late 1970s. Then a complete stop in his publications bar course related textbooks.
Is there such a thing as research blow-out ? Or is it a term for mental/emotional strain leading to a more detached or disinterested attitude to research - or something else entirely different ?

It's surely not a standard term and your best bet would be to ask the junior academic for a little more explanation.

I thought it just meant cruising along at a nice clip, then having a metaphorical tire blow out, thus ending the productive aspect of the endeavor. Definite a set back, but possibly not permanent.

Is it an old term for burnout, perhaps?

The guy got his PhD in the late 1950s? He must be at least eighty years old by now -- maybe he just wants a rest!

Like @astronat commented, are you sure Prof X isn't emeritus/retired and just doing what he wants now?

"Prof X's own thesis from the late 1950s"
"it was substantial till the late 1970s".
20 years of substantial career! show some respect.
I will be rude: I think the junior academic has some deep issues, that he/she does not realize how there is a life outside academica or he/she has way too much expectations (from him/herself and from her/his peers).

I believe some English-language prints of the film "La Grande Bouffe" bore the title "The Blow-Out", but I'm not sure where that takes us in terms of interpreting "research blow-out".

@EarlGrey It was said with respect, not otherwise. That junior member had only one issue - talking too much. Otherwise very competent. Personally I've no issue with focus on education by faculty of that age-group. But I wonder if Prof X would be given such scope in today's academia ("We Are A Research Led University", etc) for non-activity in research. His 1960s papers are cited by hundreds of researchers in his area of research.

@mkennedy : Conversation with junior lecturer occurred in late 1988. Prof X's PhD was published in 1959. So By 1978 when his research dried up, he'd have been in his mid-40s. But his course books were being published up to the early 1990s.

Let's not focus on the exact meaning of "blow out" (which can be interpreted as an explosion, but also as in "blowing out a candle") and instead what might lead to people's research fizzling out. There are many reasons I've seen among my colleagues:

They discover what they really like: Maybe writing textbooks is your colleague's true passion and something they are good at. So they focus on that.
They have a difficult family life -- say, a disabled child, or caring for aging parents -- and make the decision (voluntary or not) that they need to spend more time on that than on their research.
They are very good at a small area of research but that area dies over time. For example, they may have been very good at building better vacuum tubes in the 1950s to 1970s and may continue to be very good at that, but the invention of the transistor led to their area to be more and more of a niche area with fewer and fewer publication and funding options.
They turn out to be good administrators and organizers, and so focus on running the faculty council, the graduate program of the department, or be department head, to the detriment of their research.
They decided that their current salary is good and that they really enjoy playing tennis. So they do what's strictly necessary for keeping their job (teach, do some administration) for 30 or 35 hours a week, play tennis, and other than that accept that their pay raises will be lower than they could be if they spent an extra 20 hours a week on research.

That last point could be interpreted as "laziness", but in the end, I think it's worthwhile keeping in mind that to run a university/the research enterprise as a whole, it takes all sorts of people. Not everyone has to be a crack researcher and it is not useful to measure every professor by the standard template you seem to have in mind.

Point #2 is relevant I think. He didn't care too much for how much or how little people did beyond the necessary seminars, etc. And he was genuinely sure to make sure research grant salary got through. Another thing is that he was bounced into becoming Head of Department due to the accidental death of the previous HoD in 1970. It was a new department in a new university so he must have been seriously busy. But a lot of latitude was also given in that campus for home study leave for book writing.

A "blow-out" in this context is either:

a (I think primarily NA English) reference to a severe conflict, usually used to describe an argument escalated to the point where one or both parties are shouting or yelling at the other. It can also refer to
a mechanical failure involving a pressure release, like failure of a tire or oil well.

In either case, the use of the phrase in the context you refer to seems to be a metaphor referring to these uses of the term: either they had a strong conflict with their research (not necessarily an interpersonal one, but with the "research" itself standing as the other party), or some mechanical failure that blocked progress.
I don't think there is any euphemism here, which would suggest hiding or covering up some darker sin. To say an academic has had a blow-out with their research is to say they've had a major conflict or hit a major stumbling block. The nature of that conflict is unclear - maybe they got burnt out on a particular problem they could not solve, maybe they worked hard on a solution they were confident in only to find that an error some time back made all subsequent work flawed, maybe they just reevaluated and decided they weren't enjoying it.
In this case, they've responded by completely backing away from research and focusing on other areas. "Idleness" implies laziness; there's nothing lazy about making a decision to stop pursuing research. Yes, this may be somewhat unusual at a research-focused academic institution, but some people simply choose to move on but still like other parts of the academic experience like educating others.

I think you mean “blow-up”.

@Buffy No, I do not, I mean "blow-out" as the question asks. #6 here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blowout I agree they can be used somewhat interchangeably, though, at least in US English.

I never heard that usage, actually.

@Buffy Maybe it's a more recent usage, but I wouldn't consider it particularly unusual or niche. It's difficult to follow with say Ngram since there are so many other uses of the term, including hair styles.

Hmmm. And parties. Not since last March, though. Alas.

Actually, there are two possible, but opposite, meanings, though I think the second one is what is intended here.
But a blow out could actually mean an especially important advance in a field. Einstein-like.
The other meaning is probably an extreme form of burn out where someone just decides that there was enough pressure for a long enough time and they just want to do something else. But that something else could also be important in the wider scheme of things. Course design and teaching, especially by people with distinguished careers in research can be valuable both personally and to the institution and its students.
And, a burn out scenario immediately following a vast and intense advance in the field would be pretty natural. So, one of the meanings might apply and be immediately followed by the other.
Doctoral students also have a tendency to burn out at some point, just due to the pressure. Research isn't like cutting grass.

"Research isn't like cutting grass" - no, more like "blowing grass" ;-) It goes in all directions and you get frustrated, which of the various gusts of grass leaves to follow...