2021 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Identification of milestone papers in physics via reference publication year spectroscopy
AUTHOR
Yu Liao, Zhesi Shen, Liying Yang
ABSTRACT
In the modern time of the high speed development of physics, the citation analysis facilitates us to trace the brilliant ideas and works in the past. Here we use the Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) to identify the historical roots that announce significant discoveries in physics and compare them with the milestone papers selected by physicists. Among the 123 milestones, 64 milestone papers are successfully identified by RPYS. Some papers are identified simultaneously in multiple subfields, implying their broad impact across the fields of physics. The RPYS analysis shows promise in detecting the historical roots and identifying fundamental papers. There are still some open questions that need to be investigated.
KEYWORDS
Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy; RPYS; Milestone Papers; Citation Analysis