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Top 100 Papers in Physics Ranked
Rob Carr writes "What do physicists care about most? Who are the greatest minds of our time? What physics papers have had the greatest impact? Sidney Redner attempts to answer that question by looking at the citations of all journals in the Physical Review Journals since 1893. He ranked the top 100 papers based on their 'impact': the number of citations times the average age of the citations. Einstein's Relativity papers, which were not in Physical Review journals, are the most stunning absence. 'Fan Favorites' are there - Einstein does make the list for the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paper. Feynman, Dirac, Bethe, Wheeler are on the list. Stephen Hawking does not make the list. Yet Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn, who is virtually unknown to the general public, is an author on five of the 100 papers, including the top two and one of the top 15 'hot' papers. The paper goes into the statistics of the citations, a fascinating area in it's own right. Some papers make an immediate splash, while others might wait 50 years before their importance becomes apparent. The vast majority die a quick and quiet death. It's tempting to wonder if Redner's paper conclusively proves Sturgeon's Law."
Anyone find a non-pdf version. Here is the list of top 100 papers in text form, converted using pdftotext. Skip down a bit for the actual list of the top 100 papers.
One of the many reasons Kohn is highly referenced is due to the Kohn Variational Method* which is used in scattering calculations. A large number of papers have been written on scattering theory.
:-)
* The Hulthen Kohn variational methods are a family of variational principles based on the stationary properties of the reactance or Kohn matrix K.
~
Note: I wasn't questioning Walter Kohn. I was questioning the theory behind the original article. How does counting citations become classified as "research".
Possibly of interest is the physicist Edward Witten. He's arguably the most famous string theorist. He won a Fields medal, which is like the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel Prize. Beyond his numerous original contributions to string theory, field theory, and gravity, he more recently started the so-called "second superstring revolution" leading to M-theory.
In fact, based on a study of papers published between 1981 and 1997, he was the most-cited physicist in the world: in that period, he published 138 papers, with 23,235 citations: each paper he published was cited an average of 168 times. (The next closest to Witten was the semiconductor physicist Gossard, with 16,994 citations of 419 papers.) Most physicists would be overjoyed to publish one paper cited over 100 times.
Here's something kinda similar for CS papers, curtosy of the excellent citeseer:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/articles.html
Dave
The similarity is what caught my eye. "Impact Factors" have had an interesting effect on medicine: fighting has increased for the "right" journal to publish an article in seems to have increased, tenure, salary, and position can be affected by ranking, and I suspect it's had undue influence on what is researched. As Niven would say, "Think of it as evolution in action." Evolution, unfortunately, has a nasty habit of getting caught in local minima or trapped by past choices.
If this type of ranking catches on, physics will experience similar effects - both good and bad.
BTW: I had a copy of a VH1 joke in the draft of this article, but I cut it out. I'm glad - it works far better as a department. Short and funny always beats a long setup.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
The papers listed are all given with full citations, including year. Go to your local library, or anywhere that has a subscription to PROLA (prola.aps.org) (you can also get one if you join APS, but it can be expensive). There, you can get full text of all of the articles listed in this paper, and many many more. Though most will likely be beyond the grasp of someone without at least some treaining in physics, the early seminal papers are illuminating, EPR being an excellent example.
Good luck studying, and just because you're not a physics major now doesn't mean you can't become one with a little hard work if you want to!
"What the masochist doesn't know can't hurt him."
try the feynman lectures. they are lectures from his actual class. much better than his books like 'six easy pieces' if you are actually trying to learn physics.
these papers are usually only readable by people in that field. even other physicists don't understand papers outside of their field.
The best place to learn, FOR FREE, from one of the best universities for science, goto MITs Open Courseware. Enjoy!
Feynman also gained a bit of public recognition because of his work on the commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
They left out review papers - RMP is all review papers, as are occasional papers in the other journlas. Review papers have very distinct citation histories that would completely mess up this sort of analysis (and yes, they are generally much more highly cited than regular papers).
Energy: time to change the picture.
I respectfully disagree with the recommendation of the Feynman lectures for someone just beginning to learn physics. While the Feynman lectures are well written and full of interesting insights, I find that they are only useful as a refresher or study guide for someone who has a working knowledge of basic physics and calculus (equivalent to the first two years of a four year program).
The main problems are lack of detailed examples and lack of revision sets. Without detailed examples, it is hard to do anything useful with the physics presented. And without revision sets, there is no way to learn the physics or math presented except by rote. For instance, in the second volume, there is a lengthy discussion on statics. You will develop a feel for the material, but any attempt to work outside the problems presented will find you groping for a more detailed electrodynamics book that presents a somewhat algorithmic approach to the calculations involved. Afterall, if you can not understand and apply the mathematics invovled, you will not understand the physics.
I suggest anyone without a decent background would do better to pick up whatever textbook is used at their local university, and work through it first.
As an aside, I would have gladly paid $50 extra for my set of the lectures if the editors had included the problems assigned.