HOW THE HIGHEST SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS DEPEND ON HIRSCH INDEXES OF THEIR

AUTHORS

N.L.Istomina, A.M.Romanov, and M.Yu.Romanovsky

Physical 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 70 800

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

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&

FPW

dis

trib

ution

h-index

A&FPW distribution ExpDec1Fit of distribution

Model ExpDec1

Equationy = A1*exp(-x/t1) + y0

Reduced Chi-Sqr

0,477

Adj. R-Squ 0,99147

Value Standard E

A&FPW dis y0 0 0

A&FPW dis A1 24,442 1,10636

A&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

dist

ribut

ions

of N

obel

Priz

e W

inne

rs in

phys

ics:

in th

e U

SA

; in

othe

r co

untrie

s

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