The Ancient Origins

Dating back almost 4000 years, Pi finds its roots in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Babylon around 2500 BCE. In these cultures, Pi was approximated to be around 3.125. In ancient Egypt, Pi was utilized in the construction of the pyramids, where precise calculations were essential for architectural and engineering purposes. Similarly, Babylonian mathematicians employed Pi in their astronomical observations and geometric calculations, laying the foundation for Pi’s mathematical significance.

Ancient Greek Contributions

Pi, denoted by the Greek letter π, represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Ancient Greek scholars, notably Archimedes of Syracuse, played a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of Pi. The Greeks utilized Pi extensively in various mathematical calculations, including the measurement of angles, areas, and volumes in architecture, engineering, and astronomy. Additionally, Archimedes devised a sophisticated method involving inscribed and circumscribed polygons to obtain a more precise estimate of Pi, determining it to lie between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71. This groundbreaking approach marked a significant milestone in the historical quest to comprehend the value of Pi.

Indian Mathematics

Meanwhile, in the Indian subcontinent, mathematicians like Aryabhata and Brahmagupta made substantial contributions to the understanding of Pi. Aryabhata, in the 5th century CE, calculated Pi to four decimal places (3.1416), while Brahmagupta introduced the symbol for zero and developed formulas to approximate Pi. With these contributions, Indian mathematicians were able to utilize Pi in a wide array of fields, including astronomy, geometry, and trigonometry.

The Renaissance and Beyond

During the European Renaissance, interest in Pi was reignited. Notable figures like Johannes Kepler and Ludolph van Ceulen dedicated considerable efforts to calculating Pi to greater precision. However, the true breakthrough came in the 17th century with the invention of calculus, which enabled mathematicians like Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to develop infinite series representations for Pi.

Modern Era and Pi Day

In the modern era, the quest for more accurate approximations of Pi continued with the aid of computers. In 1988, physicist Larry Shaw organized the first official Pi Day celebration at the San Francisco Exploratorium, marking March 14th (3/14) as a day to honor this mathematical constant. Since then, Pi Day has gained widespread popularity, with enthusiasts celebrating Pi’s infinite and irrational nature through various activities, including pie-eating contests, math challenges, and educational events.

The Future of Pi

Researchers today face unique challenges that ancient scholars like Archimedes never faced. These challenges include navigating vast amounts of data, collaborating with colleagues across the globe, and managing increasingly complex research projects. Fortunately, tools like Papers provide invaluable assistance by helping researchers stay organized, streamline their workflow, and access relevant literature efficiently.

As we look to the future, the exploration of Pi’s mysteries continues. At Papers, we are committed to supporting researchers in their mission for knowledge and discovery. In celebration of Pi Day, we are offering a special promotion: use promo code PIDAY24 from March 13th – March 15th to enjoy 31.4% off of Papers and unlock new possibilities in your research journey.

The post Celebrating Pi Day: Exploring the Rich History of Pi appeared first on Papers.

Often, we start off with plans for a tidy library but quickly find ourselves adding to our library without organizing or fixing metadata as research pressures intensify. Libraries can quickly become cluttered, much like our real life desks covered in stacks of papers and books.

Never fear – Papers offers many features to help put your library back on track so you can again find the information you need quickly and easily. Below are some of our top tips and tricks for having a library that even Marie Kondo would be proud of.

Tip 1: Use smart lists to identify unorganized references

Do all of your references have either a tag or belong to a list? Whether you primarily use lists or tags, you want to ensure that every reference in your library has one or the other.

Not sure how to find unlisted or untagged references? Try using one of these searches:

• To find articles that do not belong to a list, in the search bar type: unlisted:true

• To find articles that do not have any tags, in the search bar type: NOT(_exists_:tag)

Hint: Turn these searches into a smart list and you will always be able to find unorganized references on the left column at the top of your library.

Tip 2: Visually tidy up your library with nested lists

You can have an unlimited number of lists in your Papers library but at some point it becomes hard to find the list you need. Lists can be nested under other lists to group them into larger topics or projects – up to 7 levels of lists.  

For references that are not needed in your current research, don’t delete them!  Instead, create a list named “Archive” and move all of those references and lists underneath it. This preserves accessibility while reducing visual clutter.  

Tip 3: Clear retracted research from your library

Articles can be retracted years after publication, due to problems such as research errors, plagiarism, data fraud, or fabrication. Once a paper is retracted, promptly delete it out of your library to prevent inadvertent usage in your research. How can you find retracted articles? Papers imports data regularly from Retraction Watch, making it easy for you to spot any references that need to be deleted. Retraction Watch is an initiative of the non-profit Center for Scientific Integrity to track and document peer-reviewed research that has been retracted by either the author or publisher.    

To check your library for retractions or other publisher changes, first update the metadata to make sure all of your information is current. Click on the cogwheel next to either the library or list and select “Update Details”. Next, identify retracted works by searching using the keyword “retracted” in the search bar in all of your libraries.  

These steps should be done periodically to weed retracted works out of your library, especially before any research is cited within your own writing.

Tip 4: Organize your offline Papers library

It may feel like we are always online but sometimes, whether on an airplane or during a bad thunderstorm, the internet isn’t always available. That doesn’t have to stop your research. Utilize the Papers desktop app to store a copy of your PDFs to your hard drive. There are several options for keeping this offline library organized, including customizable folder structures. 

One way to organize articles is to use the journal name as the top folder level with years as the subfolder. Papers can also automatically rename each PDF using fields, such as first author, journal, and year, to make it easier to identify each file.

Tip 5: Declutter your tag list using a CSV file

How many tags do you have in your “My Papers” library? Do you see duplicates or tags that should be deleted? You have the ability to create and assign as many tags as you want but too many tags can quickly become inefficient to search through.

Clean up your tag list quickly by exporting your library or lists as a CSV file. You can then open the file up in your preferred spreadsheet software, use the search/replace function to easily change and delete tags. Once updated, upload this edited CSV file into Papers. All of the tag updates you made in the CSV file will automatically be applied to your library. 

This technique can be used to do any type of batch edits on your libraries. See this article by Papers Support to find out more.

Be Ready for a Great 2024!

It can be tempting to skip over library clean up to focus on research but staying organized and tidy will pay off later on when articles are easier to discover and citations are ready for writing. Make a goal for this year to spend a few minutes each week tidying up your library, and watch your research productivity soar!

The post Tips and Tricks for Tidying Your Library for an Organized 2024! appeared first on Papers.

Best Practice Tip #1: Check Journal Policies

There is a broad spectrum of AI sentiment in the scientific journal community. Some journals are embracing how AI can advance scientific research, and some are steadfast that they don’t want AI tools used in any of their articles. Either way, if you are considering submitting a manuscript, it is important that you check journal policies or contact the editor for clarification on what they deem acceptable for AI tool usage.

Best Practice Tip #2: Document It

Transparency is key to responsible and reproducible research and this is a major consideration when utilizing AI tools. If you want to use AI tools in your research, we recommend documenting all the details of your usage, including date and time used, what tools you used (including the version), and the data input and output. Any usage of AI should be clearly described in the body of the article along with the documentation.

Best Practice Tip #3: Understand It

Often, AI tools are mystery boxes and researchers rarely understand the algorithms that determine how their input data is being used or transformed. AI tools will frequently give different answers when provided with the same prompt and thus follow up studies will never be able to exactly reproduce results despite identical inputs. Perhaps this is appropriate in the context of your research methodology, but it needs to be carefully considered before you decide to use AI tools in your research.

Best Practice Tip #4: Don’t list AI as an Author

There is also the question: if an AI tool is used for a significant amount of the data generation or analysis, should it be treated as a co-author? This anthropomorphization is faulty because co-authors are responsible for upholding the integrity of the research and an AI tool is incapable both of agreeing to the authorship contract and identifying follow-up issues with the research.

Best Practice Tip #5: Check out Writefull

Many journals encourage the usage of AI for assisting with grammar and AI tools can be incredibly helpful in writing clear and coherent text. Writefull, part of the Digital Science family, uses AI software to help authors first paraphrase text they wish to reference and then assist in writing and copy editing research manuscripts. For more information including a free account, visit writefull.com.

To summarize, best practices regarding the use of AI tools in 2024 include:

1. Check Journal Policies: If you are submitting a manuscript for publication, check the journal policies or contact the editor for clarification.
2. Document It: Be very clear and transparent regarding the exact tools you used, dates, and input/output datasets.
3. Understand It: Do not ever use any output, including text, from an AI tool in your research that you do not understand fully and can’t be reproduced.
4. Don’t List AI as an Author: AI tools are incapable of the full range of responsibilities of authorship.
5. Check out Writefull: Grammar AI tools, like Writefull, are great for helping write clear and coherent text.

The post Utilizing and Citing AI in Your Research appeared first on Papers.

This year, we hosted 215 complimentary live training sessions, which reached over 1,500 people – that’s a lot of free knowledge. We hosted these for students, researchers, labs, start-ups, and individual departments. You can sign up for one today!

Papers users were busy this year, and added over 24.7 million documents to their Papers libraries. For some fun context, that’s over 6,000x the number of estimated scrolls that were in the Library of Alexandria.

And Papers users weren’t passively reading those documents this year. There were over 17.5 million annotations to PDFs – roughly 33 annotations per minute!

This work wasn’t done solo. Papers users collaborated with colleagues and fellow researchers, so much so that there are over 20,000 shared collaborative libraries. We hope these shared spaces are driving lively discussions across research teams.

Lastly, but certainly not least, there are roughly 112.7 million total documents in Papers, which, if printed and lined in a row, are nearly enough to fully circle the earth (but we won’t because #sustainability). That’s a lot of research.

We are grateful to be your trusted research partner, and look forward to continuing to support you and your research in 2024. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about Papers’s robust functionality, please sign up for one of our live webinars.

If you are not yet a Papers subscriber, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial to get started.

The post Papers 2023 in Review appeared first on Papers.

What is your name, where are you from, and what did you study?

I’m Daniel Hook, from London, UK. At the start of my career, I spent 11 years studying Physics, starting with a Bachelors’ degree in Physics with Theoretical Physics, then a Masters’ degree in “Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces”, and finally a PhD in quantum statistical mechanics. More recently, I studied for an MBA.

What do you do now? What has your career path looked like?

For the last 8 years, I have been CEO of Digital Science. Prior to my current role I spent 2 years running the Research Metrics division at Digital Science. I had come to Digital Science via an investment in Symplectic, the company that I co-founded with my PhD office mates in 2003. Digital Science made an investment in Symplectic in late 2010 and we were (and are) a very collaborative team so we quickly ended up working with other groups that our new investor had brought on board. That led naturally to a role in Digital Science in 2013.

Did you expect to end up where you are now when you were a student?

No! I knew that I wanted to study for a PhD and that my interest was theoretical physics. Beyond that, I fully expected to attempt to pursue an academic career. There really were, at that time, two main routes after a theoretical physics PhD – one is to become a theoretical physics researcher; the other is to go into quantitative finance. However, theoretical physics, like so many other disciplines, is highly competitive and it became clear that my research area was unlikely to yield post-doc positions. Each of us who started Symplectic had decided that we specifically didn’t want to enter banking, but we were given a chance to write some software for one of the faculties at our university and we thought that might be a good opportunity to do something that was neither theoretical physics nor banking. It turned out to be a good choice as just a couple of years later the banking crisis caused many ex-PhD colleagues who had gone into the banking world to lose their jobs.

What do you wish you knew when you were a student?

Perhaps a controversial answer here. I was a very diligent student in the sense that attended all the lectures, even when the material wasn’t always well taught. In retrospect, I probably should have had the confidence to study some subjects on my own when I felt that the lecturer wasn’t doing such a good job. Recall sometimes being quite frustrated by the pace and capability of some lecturers and I would have been better off taking that time to work on problem sets and teach myself some areas of the curriculum – when you’re 19 you don’t always realise that’s an option. I think that modern online learning environments used in combination with in-person lectures can do a much better job of catering to the different speed and ways in which people learn.

What advice do you have for students right now?

Passing the exams is important but you’re not at university only to pass exams. It is a time in your life when your time is your own and when you are relatively unfettered by responsibilities. While I wouldn’t advocate wasting too much time (wasting a little is ok!) – it is a time in your life when you can explore options, learn who you are, explore interests and see which interests develop into passions. You should aim to leave university with at least one passion that you can carry through your life.

What are you most excited about for the future of science or research in general?

We are clearly just at the beginning of an exponential revolution in research. The nature and rate at which research was done in the 300 or so years following the first formal research communications in the 1660s changed very little. But, with the expansion of the community has come an increase in data volumes, which has fundamentally changed the tools that we need to do research, the ways that we communicate research and the positive difference that research can have on the world. If we consider the change that research has brought us – technologies, medicines, cultural innovations – we all live different and (mostly) better lives than we could have 50 years ago. And we are only just at the beginning of this revolution: As LLMs and AIs start to augment our research capabilities we will be able to access and solve even harder problems than we do today, which will in turn lead to even more impressive and faster developments.

Do you have advice you would like to share with the Papers community? If so, please drop a comment below.

The post Academic Journey: Daniel Hook appeared first on Papers.

What is your name, where are you from, and what did you study?

My name is Fatema Matin. I was born in Mumbai, India and I grew up in Toronto, Canada. I did my high school years in the Middle East (Muscat, Oman and Dubai, UAE). After graduating high school, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Science degree at York University and continued on to a Masters in Biotechnology at University of Toronto.

What do you do now? What has your career path looked like?

My career path has been dynamic. I’ve worked in research, regulatory affairs, sales, business development, marketing and project management. I started as an academic researcher in the battle against HIV/AIDS and then switched gears doing an internship with local startups at an entrepreneurial incubator. I then transitioned into big pharma for regulatory affairs followed by the cosmetics industry as an experimenter (R&D) and quality compliance associate. Finally, I ended up in my current role at Readcube Papers selling a SaaS solution to help scientists/researchers manage their references and make their research life a little bit easier and more connected.

Did you expect to end up where you are now when you were a student?

Not really. I suppose I expected I would become a doctor which was in part due to cultural pressures and in part due to my love of science and wanting to help heal people. But today I’m happy where I am – times have changed so much with technological innovation so it is exciting to be a part of the IT industry and the AI revolution.

What do you wish you knew when you were a student?

Transitioning from full time study to full time work, I wish I knew or was taught more about soft skills. For example, how to work well in teams and how to best use the strengths of various team members when in a leadership role. In addition, the importance of organisation in work and life is critical as you juggle multiple priorities and timelines. Lastly, staying up to date with the latest news both in the world and networking with the best minds within your area of expertise is key to achieving success.

What are you most excited about for the future of science or research in general?

I am excited about AI assistants who can save time for a student by providing relevant and specific information/data at their fingertips. I am passionate about home-based education for school deprived areas via internet learning. Finally, I am excited to begin to see the effects of going paper-free (i.e. moving away from paperback to digital textbooks) for environmental protection.

Do you have advice you would like to share with the Papers community? If so, please drop a comment below.

The post Academic Journey: Fatema Matin appeared first on Papers.

What is your name, where are you from, and what did you study?

My name is Sara Gonzalez, I’m originally from a small town in Indiana (USA) and now I live in Gainesville, Florida (USA). I have a PhD in seismology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a B.S. in geophysics from Caltech, and a MLIS (Library and Information Studies) from Florida State University.

What do you do now? What has your career path looked like?

I’m currently a Product Evangelist for the Papers reference management software. This means that I reach out to customers to help them use the software and bring back requests and issues to the support and development teams. I’ve had a twisty career path, starting off with majoring in astronomy and physics as an undergraduate. I switched to geophysics to study earthquakes in my junior year after I was in the large 1994 Northridge earthquake. That led to graduate studies in seismology and later work at a small research company focused on using seismic data to locate and verify nuclear explosions. Eventually I missed working with students so I found a tenured faculty position in the science library at the University of Florida. I spent 17 wonderful years as a librarian and then decided to explore life outside of academia. I’d always been impressed with Digital Science and luckily ended up with a tremendous team at Papers.

Did you expect to end up where you are now when you were a student?

No, my goal when I started college was to become an astronaut!

What do you wish you knew when you were a student?

I was a first generation college student so there was so much I didn’t understand about navigating higher education and research. I wish I would have known about the support services at my universities but I didn’t know where to find them or even if they existed. As a former librarian, I want to highlight that the library is a place where you are always welcome to visit and ask questions about anything you need.

What advice do you have for students right now?

Even though there is a big push to pick a major and finish as quickly as possible, try to take as many different kinds of classes as you can to explore and gain interdisciplinary knowledge. Technology, science and the world move rapidly and the best way to prepare is to be flexible and well-rounded in your skills and knowledge.

What are you most excited about for the future of science or research in general?

I’m excited about the potential impact of open science and the increase in collaboration of researchers globally and across various fields. While these trends aren’t new, I’ve recently been impressed by how quickly discoveries are being made using publicly available datasets, like the recent release of JWST images, and by the transparent replication of early findings, such as the testing of the proposed low-temperature semiconductor LK-12.

Do you have advice you would like to share with the Papers community? If so, please drop a comment below.

The post Academic Journey: Sara Gonzalez appeared first on Papers.

You might be wondering, how will this impact me? And the short answer is, it shouldn’t. Your experience with Papers will largely stay the same as it has been. The only difference is now we have a new website for you to explore, and we have updated our social handles. Other than that your experience with the Papers app and product will not change. 

Our parent company, Digital Science, shared a press release with more context on why this split came to be and how it will make things better for all of our customers going forward. We couldn’t be more excited about this update, as it means we get to be more authentically connected to our Papers users and their needs. We have lots of exciting plans in store for new features, new communications, and new ways to tailor the Papers product to your specific needs – so stay tuned. 

Thank you for being a critical part of Papers. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you and your support.

The post ReadCube Papers is now Papers (and ReadCube) appeared first on Papers.

Following our own internal tests and trials, we’re here – thrilled to be able to give a sneak peek to a group of current Papers users who are keen to experience a completely new way to:

• Extract key insights
• Contextualize complex jargon
• Define specific terminology
• Grasp context – and implications
• Identify research gaps
• Elevate academic proficiency

We’re opening up our AI Assistant beta test through the month of August. To apply, submit your request and if your application is selected, the AI Assistant will be added to your Papers account. 

As a beta tester, you’ll receive:

• Early Access: Get a sneak peek into our revolutionary Papers AI features and explore its groundbreaking features before the official launch.
• Influence Development: Your feedback and insights will play a vital role in shaping the final version. Help us refine the Papers AI functionality to make it even more impactful on your research workflows.
• Exclusive Rewards: As a token of appreciation for your valuable input, you’ll be eligible to receive exclusive rewards and perks once the beta test concludes.

Joining our beta test waitlist is your chance to be at the forefront of reference management innovation and have a real impact on the future of Papers. While we can’t offer this functionality to everyone just yet,  we could not be more excited to be able to gather your feedback and input to roll out more functionality and features this fall.

If you’re not a Papers user currently, we still want to hear from you so we can stay in touch and let you know as soon as the AI Assistant is publicly available. 
We hope to see your application to be a beta tester soon. Have questions? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions for the AI Assistant to learn more.

The post Beta Waitlist: Get ready for Papers AI appeared first on Papers.

These citation styles are powered by the open-source Citation Style Language project, a community-wide effort to build a comprehensive database of citation styles needed for academic journal manuscripts. It includes the standard citation styles you probably already know, such as APA (American Psychological Association). But it also includes publisher and journal-specific styles that often have minute variations that are nonetheless important to use correctly.

Getting started: Finding the citation style you need

So, how do you find the citation style you need? First, if you’re submitting to a journal, be sure to read through the journal’s author submission guidelines because each journal should specify the exact citation style you’re required to use. You can also contact the editor if it’s missing those guidelines or peruse recent issues and examine article bibliographies. 

Be aware that general styles like APA, MLA (Modern Language Association), and Vancouver have different “editions,” so be sure to note what version you need because each will also slightly differ. For example, APA 4th edition has substantial differences compared to APA 7th.

Having trouble finding a style?

Try searching by the full name of the style rather than an acronym. For example, you won’t find APA in the style list because it’s listed under its full name of American Psychological Society of America. You may also see different styles for the same journal because this database is community-generated from user submissions.

You may need to go look at the CSL repository directly and search for a style by entering in a formatted citation for the database to match.

Need a new style?

The last resort is to create a custom style yourself. The CSL visual editor gives you full power over nearly every aspect of the citation formatting. This is going to take a bit of work but I’ve found the easiest method is to start with an existing style that’s very similar to what I need and then only small changes are required.

Once you save that custom style, just import it using the “Options” menu in SmartCite and you’ll be ready to cite using whatever style is right for your paper.

Happy writing!

The post Papers Offers Nearly 10,000 Citation Styles. Here’s How to Use Them. appeared first on Papers.