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Scientific production: A statistical analysis of authors in mathematical logic

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Abstract

We show that scientific production can be described by two variables: rate of production (rate of publications) and career duration. For mathematical logicians, we show that the time pattern of production is random and Poisson distributed, contrary to the theory of cumulative advantage. We show that the exponential distribution provides excellent goodness-of-fit to rate of production and a reasonable fit to career duration. The good fits to these distributions can be explained naturally from the statistics of exceedances. Thus, more powerful statistical tests and a better theoretical foundation is obtained for rate of production and career duration than has been the case for Lotka's Law.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Invention and Innovation, Austin, TX, (USA)

    John C. Huber

  2. Institute for Philosophy, Augsburg University, Augsburg, (Germany)

    Roland Wagner-Döbler

Authors
  1. John C. Huber
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  2. Roland Wagner-Döbler
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Huber, J.C., Wagner-Döbler, R. Scientific production: A statistical analysis of authors in mathematical logic. Scientometrics 50, 323–337 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010581925357

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