Can we 'feel' the temperature of knowledge? Modelling scientific popularity dynamics via thermodynamics

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244618

	Can we 'feel' the temperature of knowledge? Modelling scientific popularity dynamics via thermodynamics
	Fu, Luoyi 1; Lu, Dongrui 1; Li, Qi 1; Wang, Xinbing 1; Zhou, Chenghu 2
刊名	PLOS ONE
	2021-02-11
卷号	16 期号:2 页码:17
ISSN号	1932-6203
DOI	10.1371/journal.pone.0244618
通讯作者	Wang, Xinbing(xwang8@sjtu.edu.cn) ; Zhou, Chenghu(zhouch@lreis.ac.cn)
英文摘要	Just like everything in nature, scientific topics flourish and perish. While existing literature well captures article's life-cycle via citation patterns, little is known about how scientific popularity and impact evolves for a specific topic. It would be most intuitive if we could 'feel' topic's activity just as we perceive the weather by temperature. Here, we conceive knowledge temperature to quantify topic overall popularity and impact through citation network dynamics. Knowledge temperature includes 2 parts. One part depicts lasting impact by assessing knowledge accumulation with an analogy between topic evolution and isobaric expansion. The other part gauges temporal changes in knowledge structure, an embodiment of short-term popularity, through the rate of entropy change with internal energy, 2 thermodynamic variables approximated via node degree and edge number. Our analysis of representative topics with size ranging from 1000 to over 30000 articles reveals that the key to flourishing is topics' ability in accumulating useful information for future knowledge generation. Topics particularly experience temperature surges when their knowledge structure is altered by influential articles. The spike is especially obvious when there appears a single non-trivial novel research focus or merging in topic structure. Overall, knowledge temperature manifests topics' distinct evolutionary cycles.
资助项目	NSFC ; National Key R&D Program of China[2018YFB1004700] ; NSF China[62020106005] ; NSF China[61822206] ; NSF China[61960206002] ; NSF China[61829201] ; NSF China[62041205] ; NSF China[61532012]
WOS关键词	CITATION ; IMPACT ; COLLABORATION
WOS研究方向	Science & Technology - Other Topics
语种	英语
出版者	PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
WOS记录号	WOS:000618274000055
资助机构	NSFC ; National Key R&D Program of China ; NSF China
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.igsnrr.ac.cn/handle/311030/160655]
专题	中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所
通讯作者	Wang, Xinbing; Zhou, Chenghu
作者单位	1.Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Elect Engn, Shanghai, Peoples R China 2.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geog Sci & Nat Resources Res, Beijing, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Fu, Luoyi,Lu, Dongrui,Li, Qi,et al. Can we 'feel' the temperature of knowledge? Modelling scientific popularity dynamics via thermodynamics[J]. PLOS ONE,2021,16(2):17.
APA	Fu, Luoyi,Lu, Dongrui,Li, Qi,Wang, Xinbing,&Zhou, Chenghu.(2021).Can we 'feel' the temperature of knowledge? Modelling scientific popularity dynamics via thermodynamics.PLOS ONE,16(2),17.
MLA	Fu, Luoyi,et al."Can we 'feel' the temperature of knowledge? Modelling scientific popularity dynamics via thermodynamics".PLOS ONE 16.2(2021):17.