On scientometrical characteristics on information activities of leading scientists

Abstract

A comparative analysis of the information activities of leading scientists has been carried out, including 5 Soviet chemists and 5 foreign ones, and 8 Soviet physicists, specialist in low temperature physics. Within chemists there has appeared a tendency to a new form of scientific activities, namely ephemeron teams which favour the “production line” mode of getting new information. In physics, the traditional scheme is preserved: leading scientists publish few articles and have few co-authors. The ephemeron teams produce an expanding information: new objects and processes are studied from the previously elaborated point of view. The specific average citation rate (number of references per number of papers) is a criterion for separating the publications of the “intellectual industry” from the pilot studies full of novel ideas.