What is the dimension of citation space?

2014/08/31 by James R. Clough, Tim Evans, Tim S. Evans
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Causal sets #Citation #Computer science #Dimension (graph theory) #Geometry #Mathematics #Minkowski space #Multidimensional scaling #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Philosophy and History of Science #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum #Quantum field theory in curved spacetime #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Scaling #Set (abstract data type) #Space (punctuation) #Spacetime #Statistics #Theoretical computer science #cs.DL #cs.SI #physics.soc-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2015.12.053

published as Physica A, 448 (2016) 235-247 · 20 pages, 11 figures + appendix, 3 pages, 2 figures

arxiv created 2015/04/30 · openalex publication_date 2015/12/23 · arxiv updated 2016/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Citation networks represent the flow of information between agents. They are constrained in time and so form directed acyclic graphs which have a causal structure. Here we provide novel quantitative methods to characterise that structure by adapting methods used in the causal set approach to quantum gravity by considering the networks to be embedded in a Minkowski spacetime and measuring its dimension using Myrheim-Meyer and Midpoint-scaling estimates. We illustrate these methods on citation networks from the arXiv, supreme court judgements from the USA, and patents and find that otherwise similar citation networks have measurably different dimensions. We suggest that these differences can be interpreted in terms of the level of diversity or narrowness in citation behaviour.

Citations

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• Read before you cite!
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