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Top 100 Papers in Physics Ranked

Posted by simoniker on from the like-vh1-but-better dept.

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."

9 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. 503 Comment Not Available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Please try again later.

  2. ERROR 503 - Service Unavailable?? by joejoejoejoe · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I keep getting errors when trying to go to this site. I can sort of browse by IP, but the site seems messed up. Maybe related to trying to log me in with a cookie. Emm Cookies...

    -Joe^4

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  3. there must be some error. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    none of my papers is listed???

  4. Top 100 torrents ranked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    #1:
    OMG!!! Doom III Torrent :)
    Enjoy!

  5. Slashdot is deader than Steve Jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Why can't Slash be quality software? Why are we getting 503 errors AGAIN?

    Seriously, does anyone know?

  6. This story makes a difference from the usual.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    503 Service Unavailable.

  7. In Other News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Gordon Freeman tops the list in gaming papers.

    (Mod me half-topic if you can)

  8. mod doown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    can bE like

  9. URL text filtered by SeanDuggan · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Sadly, the filters here at work prevent me from reading the list, as it has "xxx" in the title. Meh, probably all the better for keeping me from wasting company time, right? 'Course they'd be better off filtering Slashdot for doing that...

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