Related papers: The network structure of scientific revolutions
The growth of science and technology is a recombinative process, wherein new discoveries and inventions are built from prior knowledge. Yet relatively little is known about the manner in which scientific and technological knowledge develop…
Concepts in a certain domain of science are linked via intrinsic connections reflecting the structure of knowledge. To get a qualitative insight and a quantitative description of this structure, we perform empirical analysis and modeling of…
We suggest an underlying mechanism that governs the growth of a network of concepts, a complex network that reflects the connections between different scientific concepts based on their co-occurrences in publications. To this end, we…
How does scientific knowledge grow? This question has occupied a central place in the philosophy of science, stimulating heated debates, but yielding no clear consensus. Many explanations can be understood in terms of whether and how they…
This paper presents a method of understanding the growth of global science as resulting from a mechanism of preferential attachment within networks. The paper seeks to contribute to the development of indicators of knowledge creation and…
How does the collaboration network of researchers coalesce around a scientific topic? What sort of social restructuring occurs as a new field develops? Previous empirical explorations of these questions have examined the evolution of…
Scientific prizes are among the greatest recognition a scientist receives from their peers and arguably shape the direction of a field by conferring credibility to persons, ideas, and disciplines, providing financial rewards, and promoting…
The practice of scientific research is often thought of as individuals and small teams striving for disciplinary advances. Yet as a whole, this endeavor more closely resembles a complex system of natural computation, in which information is…
We propose an explanatory and computational theory of transformative discoveries in science. The theory is derived from a recurring theme found in a diverse range of scientific change, scientific discovery, and knowledge diffusion theories…
One of the most interesting scientific challenges nowadays deals with the analysis and the understanding of complex networks' dynamics. A major issue is the definition of new frameworks for the exploration of the dynamics at play in real…
To understand the formation, evolution, and function of complex systems, it is crucial to understand the internal organization of their interaction networks. Partly due to the impossibility of visualizing large complex networks, resolving…
The co-authorship network of scientists represents a prototype of complex evolving networks. By mapping the electronic database containing all relevant journals in mathematics and neuro-science for an eight-year period (1991-98), we infer…
Knowledge is a network of interconnected concepts. Yet, precisely how the topological structure of knowledge constrains its acquisition remains unknown, hampering the development of learning enhancement strategies. Here we study the…
Understanding the origins of complexity is a fundamental challenge with implications for biological and technological systems. Network theory emerges as a powerful tool to model complex systems. Networks are an intuitive framework to…
The past few centuries have witnessed a dramatic growth in scientific and technological knowledge. However, the nature of that growth - whether exponential or otherwise - remains controversial, perhaps partly due to the lack of quantitative…
Using data from co-authorships at the international level in all fields of science in 1990 and 2000, and within six case studies at the sub-field level in 2000, different explanations for the growth of international collaboration in science…
Science is built on the scholarly consensus that shifts with time. This raises the question of how new and revolutionary ideas are evaluated and become accepted into the canon of science. Using two recently proposed metrics, we identify…
Knowledge production is often viewed as an endogenous process in which discovery arises through the recombination of existing theories, findings, and concepts. Yet given the vast space of potential recombinations, not all are equally…
National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to national economic needs. However, accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through…
In this paper, we examine how patterns of scientific collaboration contribute to knowledge creation. Recent studies have shown that scientists can benefit from their position within collaborative networks by being able to receive more…