2004/04/21 by James P. Bagrow, Hernan D. Rozenfeld, Hernán D. Rozenfeld +3
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Text Analysis Techniques #Art #Art history #Artificial intelligence #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Computer science #Contrast (vision) #Data mining #Figure of merit #Mathematics #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Optics #Physics #Power law #Relation (database) #Statistical physics #Statistics #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/epl/i2004-10104-y
published as Europhys. Lett. 67, 511-516 (2004)
arxiv created 2004/04/21 · openalex publication_date 2004/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Following a recent idea, to measure fame by the number of Google hits found in a search on the WWW, we study the relation between fame ( Google hits) and merit (number of papers posted on an electronic archive) for a random group of scientists in condensed matter and statistical physics. Our findings show that fame and merit in science are linearly related, and that the probability distribution for a certain level of fame falls off exponentially. This is in sharp contrast with the original findings about WW I ace pilots, for which fame is exponentially related to merit (number of downed planes), and the probability of fame decays in power law fashion. Other groups in our study show similar patterns of fame as for ace pilots.