HOW THE HIGHEST SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS DEPEND ON HIRSCH INDEXES OF THEIR AUTHORS

1. 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 development Moscow, 10-12 October 2013

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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;

5. 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.

6. distributions of scientists over h-index • no experimental measurements; • some reasonable speculations provide so-called stretch exponential (or Subbotin) distribution: • Where Ncis the number of scientists with such h-index = y.

7. 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

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

9. 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.

10. probability density function of h-index

11. 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 unsupportH.Hirsch proposals due to the strong drop for large h.

12. separated h-index:for the USA; for other countries NPW in chemistry 1980-2012 NPW in physics 1980-2012

13. 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.

14. Нобелевский лауреат 2013 г. Питер Хиггсявляется 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

15. В своей относительно недавней статье (Higgs, P, “PrehistoryoftheHiggsboson” 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 Николаевича 2. Ландау Льва Давидовича 3. Гинзбурга Виталия Лазаревича