Lotka’s Law and Pattern of Author Productivity in the Area of Physics Research

Abstract

The paper aims to analyse authorship distribution in physics literature and to examine the validity of Lotka’s law of scientific publication productivity. A list of journal articles on various aspects of physics research cited in the doctoral theses of University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, South India was compiled for the study. Using ‘straight count’ of authorship, a total of 1,665 personal authors were identified and 3,367 authors were identified by using ‘complete count’. K-S statistical test and Chi-square test were applied to verify the applicability of Lotka’s law in the two approaches. The productivity distribution did not fit either set of data for two different author communities when Lotka’s law was applied in its original form. This confirms that law does not applicable to authors of the physics literature.

DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 2014, 33(6), pp. 457-466.

http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.33.5477