h Index and its limitations

'It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge' – Albert Einstein, German Scientist and Nobel Laureate. Mondal et al.1 analyse h index when they understand its predictors, significance and criticism in their Editorial published in the November 2023 issue of the Journal. Therein they underscore how to calculate its value, where to find it, why it differs across various platforms, its advantages and limitations and also its usage. They also highlight other numbers and indices used in academia to gauge a researcher's work and factors affecting the index. The insightful article provides us with a lot of information in brevity covering salient features while making us aware that 'no' index is still there that is capable of judging the quality of a research paper. Nevertheless, our universities are supposed to compete to get a good grade from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)2 and this body brings weight to the index.3 So, it makes us discuss the metric used in the assessment impacting our daily job. Under a heading of Guidelines: Bibliometric data validation methodology of NAAC,3 at several places, it weighs in the index. Our administrators make it a competitive exercise to collect the data, and then, in turn, faculty members are regularly sensitized to the citation metrics. Later on, the recruitment and promotion exercises conducted at the university premises and other recruitment bodies bring to the table the evaluation code and it becomes a day-to-day practice to assimilate the pattern and then try to improve one's index. Nonetheless, there are several landmark discoveries and inventions which compel us to rethink about the issue. One of the brightest scientists of the last century – the Genius and the Thinker – Albert Einstein (1879–1955) gave us a theory of space-time warp.4 The theorem is at the base of geostationary satellites and the time displayed at our modern-day digital devices. But as hardly anyone could grasp the significance of the theorem then – and perhaps few do now – he was awarded a Nobel Prize for the simple-to-grasp photoelectric effect.5 If his peers did not get the intriguing theorem and hence did not value it, that inability neither diminishes his work nor him. Universal truths are sometimes beyond our ability for accurate recognition early on and when we fail to realize its potential, the incidence marks limitations of our collective imagination. The wonderful physicist a hundred years ago gave a theory that when massive cosmic bodies, such as black holes collide and move, they distort the fabric of space-time itself. Then, a decade after his demise, massive scientific collaborations around the globe made the Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Established in 1965, it detected the waves stated by the Genius fifty years after the laboratory started to look and the Nobel Prize next year was awarded for the discovery at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.6 Now, India has been building one such laboratory and we are hopeful for an exciting future.7 If the scientists did not get recognition from their peers for their long-term project when they were working for humanity, it indicates our shortcomings and not theirs. Nevertheless, when we have discovered a new way to scan the cosmos, new avenues for observations have opened up for mankind with unexplored and unrealized potential. Let us look at the sky with amazement and awe. British scientist, James Chadwick, discovered neutron, and for that discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935.8 But a section of the world woke up to the meaning of the word nuclear and the nuclear energy only when atom bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2 a decade later. If Adolf Hitler and his German scientists as well as the Japanese Emperor and Axis powers knew something about the potential of the discovery, they would have taken a different course then. What we deduce is that even the award of the much coveted Prize does not guarantee that the significance of a novel discovery will be recognized by all. If these knowledge producers are not respected then, it is not their fault. In an alternate (or parallel) universe, the dictator would have realized the value of one the most famous equations in science (e = m c2) and would have won the war. Takaaki Kajifa and Arthur B McDonald got the Nobel Prize in 2015 for the discovery of neutrino oscillations.9 The finding still does not have practical implications but India has now been constructing its own laboratory of similar kind.10 Where will the courageous scientists usher us and what horizons we are to discover, we do not know completely but the explorers need full encouragement and support even if their h index is low and others do not know much about the sputtering start. What will be the uses of the discovery of the fundamental particle, I do not know but I am looking for an exciting future. When J J Thompson discovered electrons in his pivotal experiment and got the Nobel Prize in 1906,11 electronics and communications engineering and cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO) were decades away down the timeline. Later on, the CRO was developed to television and it adorns homes of us all. Computer science is now one (or one of the) most sought-after disciplines of the engineering scholars and has several potential applications. What we need to realize is that the gap between the discovery of a truth (e.g., a fundamental particle or scientific law) and its application may be decades or century/ies, and in the meantime, all sorts of research should be promoted. If we respect only what others recognize by the citations and its proxy – the h index – or some other metrics, we may miss some useful and really wonderful discoveries. The historical examples make us aware that every work needs its independent evaluation. Sometimes, we may – and have failed to – realize the true potential of an uncovered truth and to stay ahead of the competition requires the utilization of all our mental faculties. General rules are made for routine work, and inventors and discoverers should have unfettered freedom for making the maximum benefit to mankind. Extraordinary people need extraordinary nurture, and the breed of amazing scientists like those described above need it. The Genius, Albert Einstein, was Jew and Nazi Germany persecuted him for no fault of his. He continued to work for the benefit of all but the frenzy around racial supremacy did not allow him to do his business as usual. His work was publicly burnt and was mocked at conferences by his few contemporary competitors at public gatherings. That happened in the last century. Let us not repeat the mistake for another reason – for example not giving tenure to someone for her relentless work who may be awarded the Nobel Prize for her discovery of mRNA technology, and on that platform, a vaccine was made against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).12 Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.