A Quantitative Measure of Theoretical Scientific Merit

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantitative framework to assess the scientific merit of theoretical research in physical sciences, adapting measures from experimental science to evaluate theoretical work objectively.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of an existing experimental merit measure for application to theoretical research, creating a comprehensive quantitative merit metric.

Findings

Provides a new method to quantify theoretical scientific merit.

Facilitates objective comparison of theoretical research proposals and papers.

Lays groundwork for standardized evaluation in scientific review processes.

Abstract

Program review in the physical sciences may benefit from a framework within which to quantitatively discuss the scientific merit of a proposed theoretical program of research, and to assess the scientific merit of a particular theoretical paper. This article interprets a previously proposed measure of experimental scientific merit in a manner appropriate for quantifying the scientific merit of completed and proposed theoretical research. With this interpretation, the resulting figure of merit represents a proposal for a quantitative measure of total scientific merit.