Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 4: Focus Session: Science of Science

SOE 4.4: Invited Talk

Monday, March 22, 2010, 15:15–15:45, H44

Statistical physics of citation behavior — •Santo Fortunato — ISI Foundation, Torino, Italy

Citation behavior has been subject of intense investigations over the last years. The availability of detailed databases and of modern computers enables one to perform careful statistical analyses of citation data and their patterns. One of the results of these investigations is the fact that pure citation scores are not reliable to provide fair rankings between papers and/or scientists, for several reasons. One of these reasons is the role played by the specific scientific discipline of a paper/author. Here I show that the citation patterns of papers of different disciplines are actually identical, provided the citation scores are properly normalized. This provides a criterion for an objective comparison of papers and scientists belonging to different disciplines. Another improvement may come from a self-consistent weighing of citations, based on the role of scientists in the spreading of reputation to their peers, alike to Google's PageRank process.