Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks
Even as we advance the frontiers of physics knowledge, our understanding of how this knowledge evolves remains at the descriptive levels of Popper and Kuhn. Using the American Physical Society (APS) publications data sets, we ask in this paper how new knowledge is built upon old knowledge. We do so...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2018
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88036 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44528 |
| _version_ | 1811694015671697408 |
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| author | Liu, Wenyuan Nanetti, Andrea Cheong, Siew Ann |
| author2 | Xia, Feng |
| author_facet | Xia, Feng Liu, Wenyuan Nanetti, Andrea Cheong, Siew Ann |
| author_sort | Liu, Wenyuan |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Even as we advance the frontiers of physics knowledge, our understanding of how this knowledge evolves remains at the descriptive levels of Popper and Kuhn. Using the American Physical Society (APS) publications data sets, we ask in this paper how new knowledge is built upon old knowledge. We do so by constructing year-to-year bibliographic coupling networks, and identify in them validated communities that represent different research fields. We then visualize their evolutionary relationships in the form of alluvial diagrams, and show how they remain intact through APS journal splits. Quantitatively, we see that most fields undergo weak Popperian mixing, and it is rare for a field to remain isolated/undergo strong mixing. The sizes of fields obey a simple linear growth with recombination. We can also reliably predict the merging between two fields, but not for the considerably more complex splitting. Finally, we report a case study of two fields that underwent repeated merging and splitting around 1995, and how these Kuhnian events are correlated with breakthroughs on Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), quantum teleportation, and slow light. This impact showed up quantitatively in the citations of the BEC field as a larger proportion of references from during and shortly after these events. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:00:51Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/88036 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:00:51Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/880362020-02-26T14:40:56Z Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks Liu, Wenyuan Nanetti, Andrea Cheong, Siew Ann Xia, Feng School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences School of Art, Design and Media Complexity Institute Complexity Institute Physics Publication Even as we advance the frontiers of physics knowledge, our understanding of how this knowledge evolves remains at the descriptive levels of Popper and Kuhn. Using the American Physical Society (APS) publications data sets, we ask in this paper how new knowledge is built upon old knowledge. We do so by constructing year-to-year bibliographic coupling networks, and identify in them validated communities that represent different research fields. We then visualize their evolutionary relationships in the form of alluvial diagrams, and show how they remain intact through APS journal splits. Quantitatively, we see that most fields undergo weak Popperian mixing, and it is rare for a field to remain isolated/undergo strong mixing. The sizes of fields obey a simple linear growth with recombination. We can also reliably predict the merging between two fields, but not for the considerably more complex splitting. Finally, we report a case study of two fields that underwent repeated merging and splitting around 1995, and how these Kuhnian events are correlated with breakthroughs on Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), quantum teleportation, and slow light. This impact showed up quantitatively in the citations of the BEC field as a larger proportion of references from during and shortly after these events. Published version 2018-03-07T07:23:30Z 2019-12-06T16:54:37Z 2018-03-07T07:23:30Z 2019-12-06T16:54:37Z 2017 Journal Article Liu, W., Nanetti, A., & Cheong, S. A. (2017). Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks. PLOS ONE, 12(9), e0184821-. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88036 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44528 10.1371/journal.pone.0184821 en PLOS ONE © 2017 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 19 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Physics Publication Liu, Wenyuan Nanetti, Andrea Cheong, Siew Ann Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title | Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title_full | Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title_fullStr | Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title_short | Knowledge evolution in physics research: An analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| title_sort | knowledge evolution in physics research an analysis of bibliographic coupling networks |
| topic | Physics Publication |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88036 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44528 |
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