physics

Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System

Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System rather than just read about it. In short: The Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) is a database management system developed by Stanford University. It is used by universities, colleges and research institutions.

Key takeaways

Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) is a database management system developed by Stanford University. It is used by universities, colleges and research institutions. The first website in North America was created to allow remote users access to its database.

History SPIRES was originally developed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 1969, from a design based on a 1967 information study of physicists at SLAC. The system was designed as a physics database management system (DBMS) to deal with high-energy-physics preprints. Written in PL/I, SPIRES ran on an IBM System/360. In the early 1970s, an evaluation of this system resulted in the decision to implement a new system for use by faculty, staff and students at Stanford University. SPIRES was renamed the Stanford Public Information Retrieval System. The new development took place under a National Science Foundation grant headed by Edwin B. Parker, principal investigator. SPIRES joined forces with the BALLOTS project to create a bibliographic citation retrieval system and quickly evolved into a generalized information retrieval and data base management system that could meet the needs of a large and diverse computing community. SPIRES was rewritten in PL360, a block structured programming language designed explicitly for System/360-compatible hardware. The primary authors were Thomas H. Martin, Dick Guertin and Bill Kiefer. John Schroeder was the manager of the SPIRES project during this early phase of development. Eventually, BALLOTS split off from SPIRES and the Research Libraries Group adopted SPIRES as its data base engine while providing a graphical interface to its clients. Socrates was a library circulation management system rooted in SPIRES. SPIRES became the primary database management system for Stanford University business and student services in the 1980s and 1990s. It was also adopted by about two dozen other universities, including installations using the Michigan Terminal System (MTS), and VM/CMS. These universities collaborated through annual meetings of the SPIRES Consortium. In 2004, SPIRES was migrated off the mainframe onto Unix platforms by means of a System/360 emulator developed by Dick Guertin. The DBMS now runs on Unix, Linux or macOS and is available under Mozilla Public License.

SPIRES High Energy Physics database (SPIRES-HEP) The SPIRES High Energy Physics database (SPIRES-HEP), installed at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the 1970s, became the first website in North America and the first database accessible through the World Wide Web in 1991. It has since expanded into a joint project of SLAC, Fermilab, and DESY, with mirrors hosted at those institutions as well as at the Institute for High Energy Physics (Russia), the University of Durham (UK), the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University (Japan), and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences LIPI (Indonesia). This project stores bibliographic information about the literature of the field of High Energy Physics and is an example of academic databases and search engines. SPIRES is, as of 2012, being replaced by INSPIRE-HEP, a modern system based on Invenio software. INSPIRE is run by a collaboration of the physics labs at CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, and interacts closely with HEP publishers, arXiv.org, NASA's Astrophysics Data System, Particle Data Group, and other information resources.

Operating platforms SPIRES currently runs on Unix, Linux and macOS platforms. Its primary use today is for the world physics communities, and "legacy" data at Stanford University. SPIRES runs under emulation of the original ORVYL operating system. The emulators are written primarily in "C" compiled by 32-bit "gcc" or "g++" depending upon architectures (ppc or i386). The SPIRES engine is less than one-megabyte in size, but performs all the searching, maintenance, and formatting of databases. A 270k emulator runs a 973k SPIRES. In 2017, the Emulators were adapted by Dick Guertin to become 64-bit programs dealing with 32-bit SPIRES.

References

External links SPIRES software at Stanford ITS

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System

In research: Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Full-text scholarly databases, Stanford University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System in simple terms?

The Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) is a database management system developed by Stanford University. It is used by universities, colleges and research institutions.

Why does Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System.