Correlated Impact Dynamics in Science

TL;DR

This paper uncovers a paradox in scientific impact dynamics, revealing a long-term positive but short-term negative correlation in citations, and introduces a new 'capacity' measure to explain and predict high-impact discoveries across disciplines.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of 'capacity' to explain impact dynamics and demonstrates its universal relevance across multiple scientific fields.

Findings

Long-term citation correlation is positive.

Short-term citation correlation is negative.

Capacity measure improves impact prediction.

Abstract

Science progresses by building upon previous discoveries. It is commonly believed that the impact of scientific papers, as measured by citations, is positively correlated with the impact of past discoveries built upon. However, analyzing over 30 million papers and nearly a billion citations across multiple disciplines, we find that there is a long-term positive citation correlation, but a negative short-term correlation. We demonstrate that the key to resolving this paradox lies in a new concept, called "capacity", which captures the amount of originality remaining for a paper. We find there is an intimate link between capacity and impact dynamics that appears universal across the diverse fields we studied. The uncovered capacity measure not only explains the correlated impact dynamics across the sciences but also improves our understanding and predictions of high-impact discoveries.