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Research Article

An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output

J. E. Hirsch
  1. Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0319

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PNAS November 15, 2005 102 (46) 16569-16572; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507655102
J. E. Hirsch
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  1. Communicated by Manuel Cardona, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany, September 1, 2005 (received for review August 15, 2005)

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  1. Fig. 1.
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    Fig. 1.

    Schematic curve of number of citations versus paper number, with papers numbered in order of decreasing citations. The intersection of the 45° line with the curve gives h. The total number of citations is the area under the curve. Assuming the second derivative is nonnegative everywhere, the minimum area is given by the distribution indicated by the dotted line, yielding a = 2 in Eq. 1.

  2. Fig. 2.
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    Fig. 2.

    Histogram giving the number of Nobel prize recipients in physics in the last 20 years versus their h index. The peak is at the h index between 35 and 39.

Footnotes

  • Copyright © 2005, The National Academy of Sciences

References

  1. ↵
    Laherrere, J. & Sornette, D. (1998) Eur. Phys. J. E Soft Matter B2 , 525–539.
    OpenUrl
  2. Redner, S. (1998) Eur. Phys. J. E Soft Matter B4 , 131–134.
  3. ↵
    Redner, S. (2005) Phys. Today 58 , 49–54.
    OpenUrl
  4. ↵
    van Raan, A. F. J. (2004) Scientometrics 59 , 467–472.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  5. ↵
    King, C. (2003) Sci. Watch 14 , no. 5, 1.
  6. ↵
    Hirsch, J. E. (2005) arXiv.org E-Print Archive (Aug. 3, 2005). Available at http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0508025.
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An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output
J. E. Hirsch
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2005, 102 (46) 16569-16572; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0507655102

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An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output
J. E. Hirsch
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2005, 102 (46) 16569-16572; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0507655102
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