HOW THE HIGHEST SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS DEPEND ON HIRSCH INDEXES OF THEIR
AUTHORS
N.L.Istomina, A.M.Romanov, and M.Yu.RomanovskyPhysical Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
International conference
Scientometrics: status and prospects for developmentMoscow, 10-12 October 2013
contents
• What was proposed by H.Hirsch• Distribution of scientists over h-index?• H.Hirsch distribution of Nobel Prize
Winners h-index• Method of investigations• Results• Some conclusions
the highest scientific achievements are represented by
• Nobel Prize for physics, chemistry, medicine and physiology (“biology”)
• Abel and Fields Prizes for mathematics
in this study
h-index
• h-index: h articles of the author with the number of citation ≥ h.
• h-index of Nobel Prize Winners for 1985-2004 in physics is between 22 and 79 [Hirsch 2005]: 39 his versus 49 right
• Hirsch hypothesis:• h ~ mn• n is the number of
working years• m is the coefficient
introduced by H.Hirsch;
proposals of J.Hirsch• h-index of 20 after 20 years of scientific activity, characterizes a
successful scientist.• h-index of 40 after 20 years of scientific activity, characterizes
outstanding scientists,• likely to be found only at the top universities or major research
laboratories.• h-index of 60 after 20 years, or 90 after 30 years, characterizes
truly unique individuals. • for faculty at major research universities h 10 to 12 might be a ∼
typical value for advancement to associate professor, h 18 for ∼advancement to full professor. Fellowship in the American Physical Society might occur typically for h 15 to 20. Membership in the ∼US National Academy of Sciences may typically be associated with h 45 and higher.∼
distributions of scientists over h-index
• no experimental measurements;• some reasonable speculations provide so-
called stretch exponential (or Subbotin) distribution:
• Where Nc is the number of scientists with such h-index = y.
real situation with h-index
• h-index was introduced by the sloppy article:
• 39 NPW instead of real 49;
• empty close-to-zero area;
• m-coefficient has not been accepted
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80012345678
empirical approach
• Distributions of Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, and “biology” for 1980-2012 as well as distribution of Abel and Fields Prices winners in mathematics for 1970-2013 were generated using WoS data.
• Special attention was paid for small values of h-index as well as for large ones. Examples:– 7 physicists with small h-index of were specially
checked; – h-index Raymond Davis Jr. was firstly detected as 121.
“Cleaning” dropped it to 30
our distributions• h-index of Nobel prize
winners in physics for 1980-2012 and Fields and Abel Prizes winners for 1970-2013 in mathematics were determined using WoS data for these years;
• Results were refined in comparison with the Abstract of the talk.
• h-index of Nobel prize winners in chemistry as well as in physiology or medicine for 1980-2012 were determined using WoS data for these years;
• Results were new and not presented in the Abstract of the talk.
probability density function of h-index
some conclusions• all distributions demonstrate
clear drop with large values of h-index;
• NPW distributions in chemistry and “biology” have maximum at h ~ 40;
• the distribution for A&FPW in mathematics demonstrates dramatic (looks like exponential) drop for large h.
• our measurements strictly unsupport H.Hirsch proposals due to the strong drop for large h.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 350
5
10
15
20
A&FP
W d
istri
butio
n
h-index
A&FPW distribution ExpDec1Fit of distribution
Model ExpDec1
Equation y = A1*exp(-x/t1) + y0
Reduced Chi-Sqr
0,477
Adj. R-Squ 0,99147Value Standard E
A&FPW dis y0 0 0A&FPW dis A1 24,442 1,10636A&FPW dis t1 10,229 0,70629
separated h-index:for the USA; for other countries
NPW in chemistry 1980-2012 NPW in physics 1980-2012
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 800
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
distri
butio
ns o
f Nob
el Pr
ize W
inner
s inp
hysic
s:in
the
USA;
in o
ther
coun
tries
h-index
others USA
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 1800
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
USA
oth
ers
h-index
0thers USA
What does it mean?
• USA distributions of NPW demonstrate some features of H.Hirsch proposals;
• Distributions of NPW in other countries strictly opposite H.Hirsch proposals;
• H.Hirsch proposals to estimate the individual scientific yield could be applied to the USA scientists at least roughly;
• It cannot be applied for other countries.
Нобелевский лауреат 2013 г. Питер Хиггс является прекрасным примером того, что оценивая деятельность исследователей, нельзя
опираться на формальные показатели, такие как индекс цитирования и/или индекс Хирша.
«Самое главное — это то, что нужно экспертное мнение, ни в коем
случае нельзя основываться только на формальных показателях. Наука настолько многообразна и настолько по-разному делается в
разных областях, что одними критериями ее оценивать неправильно. Вот пример. Питер Хиггс имеет всего девять работ, но две из них попали в точку, и бозон назван его именем. Остальные
работы малозаметны». Академик РАН Валерий Рубаков.
Из интервью «Газете.Ru» 21 августа 2013 г. 8 октября 2013 г. Нобелевский комитет согласился с
мнением экспертов
В своей относительно недавней статье (Higgs, P, “Prehistory of the Higgs boson” COMPTES RENDUS PHYSIQUE Volume: 8 Issue: 9 Pages: 970-972 (2007))П. Хиггс описывает свою историю создания его ныне знаменитой статьи, в которой и был предсказан «бозон Хиггса». Список литературы к этой статье состоит всего из 20-ти ссылок и содержит работы, по мнению П. Хиггса, оказавшие на него наибольшее влияние, а также статьи которые он использовал в своей работе. В частности он цитирует трёх российских авторов:
1. Боголюбова Николая Николаевича2. Ландау Льва Давидовича3. Гинзбурга Виталия Лазаревича