I am an antenna nerd! I am the kind of guy for whom the pure thought of solving Helmoltz equation in spherical coordinates make me happy! There are however not so many of us left, so in order not to get completely extinct, we set up a cunning plan to make our community bigger:
“Let’s arrange conferences in really nice places and let everybody who submits a paper be accepted”!
This year’s IEEE Antenna and Propagation Symposium was no exception: held in the exotic Waldorf Astoria resort in Fajardo in Puerto Rico, the conference hosted more than 1500 oral and poster presentation, a handful of invited speeches, visits to Arecibo and a dozen short courses
You may suggest that it is bad for science with conferences that accepts almost any paper and does not maintain the highest possible scientific standard (all papers are still peer reviewed tough)? I think it is the opposite: in contrast to the MTT and COMSOC societies, APS every year allows hundreds of young students come to a scientific meeting within their chosen field, to get to present papers, listen to and meet with all the world leading experts, and be inspired to do research! This is the way to ensure the future of our nerdy business!
