Popular Writing
Explain It to Me Again, Computer: What if technology makes scientific discoveries that we can’t understand? Slate, February 25, 2013
Math as Myth Nautilus, Issue 0, 2013
Stop Hyping Big Data and Start Paying Attention to ‘Long Data’ Wired Opinion, January 29, 2013
Why Do Great Ideas Take So Long to Spread? Harvard Business Review, November 27, 2012
Be Forewarned: Your Knowledge is Decaying Harvard Business Review, November 5, 2012
The hidden rules that shape human progress BBC Future, October 18, 2012
From Insight to Naches Arc 1.3, Fall, 2012
The Importance of Computational Discoveries in Health, The Atlantic, October 3, 2012.
Big data: Mind the gaps Boston Globe, September 30, 2012. Ideas.
Paradox of Hoaxes: How Errors Persist, Even When Corrected Wired Opinion, September 27, 2012
Change: The One Enduring Principle Forbes, September 27, 2012
Facts change, people don’t Salon, September 25, 2012
Truth decay: The half-life of facts New Scientist, September 19, 2012
Lonely invention WLTM clever stranger for fun and profit Research Fortnight, July 11, 2012
New Ways to Measure Science Wired, January 9, 2012.
Scientists, Share Secrets or Lose Funding Bloomberg, January 9, 2012.
In Praise of Mediocre Research Longshot Magazine, Issue 2, July 31, 2011.
Gaussian Genealogy: Math Masters Trace Their Intellectual Lineage Wired Magazine, June 2011.
The Copernican Principle The Edge Annual Question, January 15, 2011.
2011 preview: Million-dollar mathematics problem. New Scientist, December 25, 2010/January 1, 2011. (with Rachel Courtland).
2011 preview: Expect Earth’s twin planet. New Scientist, December 25, 2010/January 1, 2011. (with Rachel Courtland).
2011 preview: No ‘magic’ element just yet. New Scientist, December 25, 2010/January 1, 2011. (with Rachel Courtland).
2011 preview: Peak internet comes into view. New Scientist, December 25, 2010/January 1, 2011. (with Rachel Courtland).
Hard to find: Why it’s increasingly difficult to make discoveries – and other insights from the science of science. Boston Globe, July 18, 2010: C1, Ideas.
Warning: Your reality is out of date: Introducing the mesofact. Boston Globe, February 28, 2010: C3, Ideas.
Research
Demographics and the Fate of the Young Scientist.
Arbesman S, Wray, KB. Social Studies of Science. 2013.
The rise of fractional scholarship.
Arbesman S*, Wilkins, JF*. Kauffman Foundation Report. 2012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2048780
Eurekometrics: Analyzing the Nature of Discovery.
Arbesman S, Christakis NA. PLoS Computional Biology 7(6): e1002072. 2011. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002072
- Press: Ars Technica, Times Higher Education
Quantifying the ease of scientific discovery.
Arbesman S. Scientometrics 86(2):245. 2011. Available on the arXiv: 0912.1567 [Physics and Society].
- Press: Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Independent, Radio New Zealand, New Zealand Herald
A Scientometric Prediction of the Discovery of the First Potentially Habitable Planet with a Mass Similar to Earth.
Arbesman S and Laughlin G. PLoS ONE 5(10): e13061. 2010. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013061. Also available on the arXiv: 1009.2212 [Earth and Planetary Astrophysics].
- Press: New Scientist, The Atlantic, Wired, National Geographic, Popular Science, CBC News, MIT Technology Review, Physics World, National Affairs
[* joint first authorship]