Annals of Library Science and Documentation1983,30(3-4),177-184

CHANDRASEKHAR: WINNER OF THE 1983 NOBELPRIZE FOR PHYSICS: A CITATION ANALYSISSTUDY OF HIS WORKS

A brief reference is made of the rewardsystem in science and Nobel Prizes. Chandra-sekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for physicswith William A. Fowler. A brief biographicalaccount in respect of Cbandrasekbar is alsogiven. The data collected from ti.e comprehen-sive volumes and annual cumulative volumes ofthe Science Citation Index were analysed. In all401 works of Chandrasekhar were cited 10,359times during 1965-1980. Out of all the contri-butions six could be identified as citationclassics, having received about 53% of all thecitations. Chandrasekhar received several presti-gious awards during the last fifty years andreached to tl.e apex in 1983 having receivedNobel Prize. The study of this analysis is conclu-ded by stating that there is a high correlation inquantity, quality of works, citedness and receiu-ing honours and awards, and in the case ofCbandrasekbar the recognition appears to bebelated.

INTRODUCTION

Awards ana prizes are important part of the reoward systcrr of science and such rewards aredetermined primarily by merit, normally basedon the original works of excellence contributedby the scientists for the advancement of science.Social aspects of the reward svstem of scienceare discussed by Merton in several of his writings[6,7}. Cole .md Cole, based on their studiesconducted on American ",,'ademic physicistshave produced an excellent work on the opera·tion of the reward system in science [1].

The Noble PrizesThe Noble Prizes, institu tcd :'y Alfred Nobel,the inventor of dynamite arc tr.e most notable,

DAVENDRA K GUPTADepartment of Library StudiesUniversity of Ibadanlbadan (Nigeria)

dramatic and prestigious awards in science. Theprizes are unique in the reward system ofscience and have been awarded since 1901 inthree fields of science: Physics, Chemistry andthe composite of Physiology and Medicine. Itwas the only award that was known to all the1300 American physicists queried by Cole andCole and its. prestige was ranked First=-abovethat of all others in a long list of awards inphysics [1]. Zuckerman has done an extensivesociological and quantitative analysis of NobelPrize winners and mentioned that the prizesreflect the international character of science.They have been distributed on a larger and widerscale to 334 scientists from 26 different coun-tries [9,10].

Assessment of quality of contributionsEstimation and assessment of quality of scien-tists are not easy but to some reasonable extentthis could be based on the assumption that theawards in a reward system of science are givenon the quality of performance of scientists. Thequality of performance which is the sole deter-minant is based on the quality of publishedworks. Thus, the rewards, logically, closelyparallel the distribution of publications. Formeasuring the quality of publications, citationcounts as a measure of recognition, diffusion,the extent of diffusion and utilizatior. of scicn-tific works, have been Iound as useful andhelpful took The number of citations a c;nrri-bution has received is taken as a measure ofquality to represent the relative scientificsignificance among other contributions. Thequality assessment in this case is based on theassumption that the most sic.niiiGmt contribu-tions will be most frequently cited by sub-sequent investigators. The potential of citatio »

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analysis has been amply dcmonstrutcd by nu-merous studies reported on highly cited contri-hution(s), contributor(s) and joumal(s) etc.Garfields writings on the subject are very rich[4]. In recent papers, Garfield has reported thatthere is a high correlation between citedness,Nobel Prizes and membership of NationalAcademies [2,3]. Therefore, citation analysistechniques can be employed with reasonableconfidence' to assess the quality of scientificcontributions. For such analysis, Science Cita-tion Index (=SCI), a rich data base, providessufficiently good and reliable source of data.Utilizing the SCI, a citation analysis study wasconducted to study the citation trends of thecontributions of S. Chandrasekhar who wonthe 1983 Nobel Prize for physics.

A brief biographical account ofS. CbandrasekbarA brief biographical data of S. Chandrasekharwho won the 1983 Nobel Prize for physics isgiven here: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar wasborn in Lahore, then a part of India, on 19thOctober, 1910 in a prominent Hindu family(His uncle, Sir Chandrasekhar Raman wasawarded Nobel Prize in 1930). He had educationat the Presidency College, Madras (India) andTrinity College, Cambridge (U.K.) and obtainedFellowship of Trinity College, Ph.D. and Sc.D.He was Managing Editor of the AstrophysicalJournal from 1952-1971 and gave Nehru Memo-rial Lecture, India in 1968. He is Member ofthe National Academy of Sciences, USA; Memberof Americal Philosophical Society; Fellow, RoyalSociety London, U.K.; and Member of AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, USA. Dr Chandra-sekhar has received the following awards andprizes: Bruce Gold Medal (Astronomical Societyof Pacific), 1952; Gold Medal (Royal Astrono-mical Society, London) 1953; Rumford Medal(American Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA)1957; Royal Medal (Royal Society, London)1966; National Medal of Science (USA) 1966;Henry Draper Medal (National Academy ofSciences, USA) 1971; Honorary D.Sc. OxfordUniversity, 1972; Dannie Heineman Prize(American Institute of Physics, USA) 1974;andthe Nobel Prize, 1983.

Chandrasekhar went to America in 1936and he is Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics

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in the l.iniversii y of Chicago, USA since 1937.He was elected as Fellow of Royal Society,London in 1944 when he was only 31 years old.Chandrasekhar shared Nobel Prize with WilliamA. Fowler .on their work on the evolution ofstars in astrophysics which is the liveliest topicin Astrophysics.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

In this study, an attempt has been made toanalyse the citation trends of the citationsreceived by Chandrasekhar for all his contribu-.tions during the period between 1964 and 1980.The main purpose of the study was to collectcitation data of Chandrasekhar's contributionsand other details of awards received by him andthen to correlate them with each other to provethe hypothesis that there exists a correlation incitation density and awards received by ascientist.

METHODOLOGY

Data were collected from SCI data base byconsulting comprehensive volumes for the peri-ods, 1965-1969 and 1970-1974 and individualannual cumulative volumes for the years 1975to 1980. Year of publication, and number ofcontributions against that year were noted andtheir citations against the year(s) of citationswere noted. The data were computed and com-piled and are presented in Table 1. The totalnumber of cited items are shown against eachyear of publication with citations in specificyears and periods. Total number of cited itemsand total number of citations to these items arealso shown in the columns of specific years andperiods. Citations were counted for all thecontributions for all the years and periods. Afew items were identified during this exercisewhich had 15 or more citations for one year.These items were separated and frequency ofcitations for these were counted for specificyears and periods, as counting the frequencyfor all the items is a very tedious and time con-suming job. The data for these super-citeditems are given in Table 2 and bibliographicaldetails are given in the Appendix. Keeping inview the limitations of using SCI data base, all

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possible duplications were avoided, speciallyfor another physicist, S. Chandrasekhar, aspecialist on liquid crystals. The task would havebeen easier if the facilities for computer searchwere available. Searching and analysing morethan 10,000 citations manually is quite a toughjob to do.

CITATIOl'f ANALYSIS: RESULTS ANDDISCUSSIONS

Citation data collected from the SCI data basefor the period 1965-1980 for all the contribu-tions of Chandrasekhar from the first cited itemin 1929 to the last cited items in 1979 wereanalysed. The results of analysis are presented inTable 1. First citable publication appeared inSCI data base in 1929 which indicates thatChandrasekhar became a citable contributor atthe age of 19 years. But the impact started fromhis contributions of 1931. The items of 1931 areeven being cited currently. In all, three of hiscontributions of 1931 have been cited even in1979. A total of 33 items published during theperiod 1929-1940 were cited; 107 items duringthe period 1941-1950; 137 items during theperiod 1951-1960; 103 items during the period1961-1970 and a total of 40 items for the period1971-1979. The maximum citable items werecontributed during the period 1951-1960 i.e.137. A total and maximum for a year, 29 itemsfor the year 1943 were cited during the period1965-1969 and 1970-1974. Out of these this isthe largest number of contributions of any yearcited during one year.

A total of 401 contributions were citedduring 1970-1974, having received 3,416 cita-tions during that period, which gives an averageof 8.5 citations per item. The largest number ofcontributions cited in one single year is 193 forthe year 1979 having received a total of 76!icitations or an average of 4.0 citations per item(compared to 1.96 citations per item for 1980SCI data base) [5]. Chandrasekhar received atotal of 10,359 citations to his contributionsduring the period 1965-1980, compared to8,179 citations received by him during theperiod 1961-1975 [2] which makes a total of11,993 or say roughly about 12,000 for theperiod 1961-1980.

Vo! 30 No 3·4 Sept·Dee 1983

He received an average of 518 citations peryear during the period 1965-1969; 683 duringthe period 1970-1974; 726 during the period1975-1980; an average of 545 citations for theperiod 1961-1975 and 647 for the period 1965-1980 (period under study). The average numberof citations in the 1961 SCI to the life work ofNobel laureates who won prize in physics during1955-1965 was 58, compared to an average of5.5 citations to the other scientists cited in1961. Only 1% of the quarter million scientistswho appear in the 1961 SCI received 58 or morecitations [2]. According to Cole and Cole, theaverage number of citations to the work ofreceipients of Nobel Prize in the last ten yearswas 199 in the 1965 SCI [1]. Compared tothese figures, Chandrasekhar's standing is of avery high order.

Chandrasekhar's rank among the 250 mostcited authors during the period 1961-1975 is 38.According to number of citations received,among the Nobel Prize winners in physics duringthe period 1950·1977, his rank is fifth. L.D.Landau, a Soviet scientist who received hisNobel Prize in 1962 has to his credit the highestnumber i.e. 18,888 citations for that period;J.R.D. Jensen, a German scientist, 1963 NobelPrize winner has exceptionally low number ofcitations, having only 79 for the same period.Lowery and others have exceptionally largenumber of citations, 58,304 for this period, and50,016 for their single contribution:

LOWERY, O.H.; ROSENBROUGH, N.J.;FAFF, A.L. and RANDALL, R.J. Proteinmeasurement with the folin phenol reagent.J.Biol.Chem. 193; 256-265; 1951.

For more detailed descriptions and data,Garfield's recent papers which are most relevanton the topic can be consulted [2,3] .

Analysis of some heavily cited contributionsWhile analysing the data, a few heavily and con-sistently cited items were identified. Citationdata were collected and analysed separately indetail for these items. Analytical details arepresented in Table 2 and bibliographical detailsof these contributions are given in Appendix.At least six such items were identified and itwas found that this small fraction of the 401

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contributions cited, has received as many as5,488 citations out of 10,359 or say 53% of thecitations received by all the contributions. Atleast three out of these six can be classified ascitation classics. Item 3,4 and 5 have receivedmore than 1,000 citations each. In all, thesethree items have received a total of 4,472citations which is more than 81% of the sixheavily cited items or more than 41% of all thecitations received by all the works of Chandra-sekhar. Item no.2 and 3 have been cited withan annual average of 85 and item 3 with anaverage of 109 compared to 1.96 of SCI database of 1980 [5], and compared to only 800papers which have been cited over 500 timessince the SCI was initiated [2]. Item 2 was cited231 times during 1965-1969 or say at an averagerate of 46 citations per year; 379 times during1970-1974 or say 76 times annually; citationfrequency in recent years was 159 in 1979 orsay 125 citations per year during 1975-1980.This shows that the contribution has gained itsvisibility ann usability in recent years. Almostthe same thing is true with item 3. Anyway,to study the impact and influence of theseclassic papers further investigation is needed,and this is not the scope of this paper. Anotherfeature observed from this data is that citabilityof these classic papers suddenly increased duringthe years 1977 and 1978 when the averageincreased to 62.5 and 62.3 respectively from anaverage of 53. Chandrasekhar's paper publishedin 1943 (item 3 in Appendix) ranks 85 amongall the contributions of primary author's mostcited items during the period 1961-1975 [2].This item was most heavily cited among all hisworks in 1979 and 1980. His book publishedin 1961 (item 5 in Appendix) was listed at rank17 among all the most cited books in Physicsfor the period 1961-1972, having 235 citationsto its credit for that period. This contributionamong all the works is most cited having 1,748citations to its credit for the period 1965-1980.

CONCLUSIONS

Chandrasekhar became a scientific citable contri-butor in the field of Astrophysics in 1929 withhis original ideas about the dwarf star and evolu-tion of stars. In all,401 of his contributions

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received 10,359 for the period under study andabou t 12,000 citations since the initiation ofSCI. Six of his contributions can be classified ascitation classics.among them three are the mostcited ones. These items are being cited even inthe recent works. This confirms the theory thathis contributions received wide recognition andhave high visibility and usability. Chandrasekhar'sworks are not only cited heavily but consistentlyover the whole period of half a century.Chandra-sekhar was elected member of several NationalAcademies and earliest recognition was in 1944when he was elected as the Fellow of the RoyalSociety, London, only at the age of 34. Hereceived several awards of high visibility (visibi-lity; 79 in 1952; 44 in 1953; 37 in 1957; 16 in1974 on the visibility scale of 100 as given inAppendix B of Cole and Cole [1]). The recentaward of visibility rank First, received in 1983 andshared with Fowler can be said to be belated. Ashe himself expressed "Usually my work hasbecome appreciated only after some length oftime" [8]. This analysis confirms the hypothesisthat it is not only the quantity of contributions,but in this case, the quality of contributions hasbeen very widely recognized by the scientificcommunity. The contributions were recognizedto consider him for several prestigious awards,medals and other distinctions of high order,and these awards were given to him one afterthe other right from 1944 in very chronologicalorder and in the order of merit. Therefore, con-clusions can be drawn that there is a relationshipin quantity, quality and recognition of originalcontributions of excellence which get diffusedinto the common stock of scientific knowledge;and that there is a good relationship of suchcontributions and number and kind of awardsthe contributor gets from the reward system ofscience; and finally that there is a positiverelationship in rewards, citedness and quality ofcontributions. The study can be extended forfurther analysis to identify the network ofscientists working on the topic and also tcidentify the core journals by compiling a cito-graphy. A list of important and most citeditems with bibliographical details is provided asAppendix, which may be found useful forcollection d. velopment by the libraries andinformation centres :nterested on the aspect

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of evolution of stars - lively and current topic (4Jin astrophysics. It is further recommended thatsomebody may attempt to compile a compre-hensive bibliography for all the contributions ofChandrasekhar. [5J

REFERENCES [6 J

[lJ Cole, Jonathan R; and Cole, Stephen. Social [7 Jstratification in science. Chicago; University ofchicago Press, 1973; 283pp.

[8J

[21 Garfield, Eugene. The 250 most- cited authors1961-1975. Pt.I1. The correlation betweencitedness. Nobel Prizes and Academy member-ship. Current Contents. No.50 (December 12,1977)(Reproduced in Garfield's Essays ofInformation Scientists, p.337-47). [9 J

[3J ......... Are the 1979 Prizewinners of Nobelclass? Current Contents. No.38 (September 22,1980) (Reproduced in Garfield's Essays of [10 JInformation Scientist; Vo1.3).

Vol 30 No 34 Sept-Dee 1983

......... Essays of information Scientist. Volume1-4. Institute for Information Science, Philadel-phia, Pa, 1977; 1980.

Journal Citation Report 1980. Institute forInformation Science, Philadelphia, Pa; 1981.

Merton, Robert K. Priorities in scientific dis-coveries. p.639-4 7.

......... Sociology of science. Chicago, III.University of Chicago Press, 1973.

The 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics was shared bySubramanyan Chandrasekhar, 73, of the Uni-versity of Chicago and William. A. Fowler, 72,of Caltech for their work on the evolution ofstars. Time, October 31, 1983; No.44; pp.39.

Zuckerman, Harriet A. The Sociology of theNobel Prizes. Scientific American. No.217(November, 1967); pp.25-33.

......... Scientific elites, Nobel Laureates in theUnited States. Free Press, New York, 1977 ,302p.

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Table 1 : Cited publications of Cbandrasekbar during the period 1929-1980

Ie11

Year of Period during itemspublication were cited Year of publication

of cited ----_ ...---------------------------- .•.---- -- ..._---------------------------------_ .•._------_ .._------------------------------------------- TOTALitems 1965-69 1970-74 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 (Max)

1929 1 11930 1 11931 3 3 1 1 2 3 2 31932 1 2 1 2 21933 5 6 1 5 2 5 4 3 61934 7 6 2 2 1 1 1 71935 3 6 2 2 2 ·2 1 61936 2 1 21937 1 1 1 2 1 21938 3 5 2 2 1 1 51939 6 3 2 2 1 1 2 1 61940 - (32) - (33) - (10) - (14) - (9) 1 (12) - (20) - (14) 1 (33)1941 9 7 1 1 1 2 4 1 91942 8 5 2 2 3 3 3 4 81943 29 29 10 12 12 8 12 16 291944 8 7 5 2 3 1 2 2 81945 7 12 5 4 4 3 5 3 121946 9 14 3 4 4 2 1 1 141947 7 11 2 1 3 5 5 3 111948 7 3 1 1 2 1 2 2 71949 6 8 1 1 3 4 4 3 81950 8 (98) 11 (107) 3 (33) 2 (30) 5 (40) 6 (35) 9 (47) 4 (29) 11 (107)1951 6 10 2 2 1 3 1 1 101952 13 15 4 3 5 3 6 3 151953 17 16 9 4 3 7 4 8 171954 25 16 8 6 5 4 8 7 251955 15 12 2 4 5 2 1 4 151956 5 12 5 4 5 6 4 2 121957 19 12 8 3 4 4 5 2 191958 19 12 6 7 8 10 6 8 191959 5 2 1 2 1 2 1 51960 13 (137) 13 (119) 5 (50) 8 (43) 7 (44) 7 (48) 5 (40) 5 (41) 13 (137)1961 13 10 2 3 2 3 3 2 131962 17 19 6 6 7 5 8 4 191963 18 10 6 5 5 3 3 1 181964 15 12 7 7 6 7 2 6 151965 12 11 5 2 3 3 3 3 121966 6 8 1 2 2 1 1 81967 12 7 3 6 2 5 4 3 121968 5 6 5 4 4 5 5 2 61969 5 17 13 8 10 13 9 8 171970 - (103) 13 (98) 10 (58) 8 (51) 7 (48) 6 (51) 7 (43) 8 (37) 13 (103)

1971 9 7 7 1 2 3 3 91972 17 12 7 7 6 8 7 17

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Year of Period during itemspublication were cited Year of publicationI : cited

____ ••______ ••_ ••_ ••_ ••__ ••_~ _______ •••• ___ n _____ --- ....------- ..•.•----- ..--- ..-~..---------- ..-.•.•~------------------------------- .•.•..•.---_ .._-----_ ..... _ .._- TOTAL·;ems 1965-69 1970-74 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 (Max)

1973 5 (44) 5 9 3 5 1 6 9

1974 4 3 2 5 1 4 5

1975 3 (31) 5 4 5 9 6 9

1976 3 (34) 7 7 8 7 81977 2 (26) 6 4 3 6

1978 4 (40) 7 11 11

1979 4 (43) 10 10 (44)

Total items 370 401 182 172 167 186 193 178

Total citations 2,589* 3,416** 640 679 709 741 765 820 10,359+

Average per item 3.5 3.9 4.2 4.0 4.0 4.6

Within parenthesis is given the SUb-total for decades* ** +Average citations per year = 647Citations per year = 518 Citations per year = 683

Table 2 : Citation Analysis Data for some important contributions of Chandrasekhar

Period of citations Year of citations AverageItem No ------------------------------------------------------- ..------------------------------------ ..--------~-------------- Total citations

1965-69 1970-74 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 per year

1 155 144 36 18 26 28 25 35 467 (8.5) 29.2

2 71 80 14 17 29 26 15 16 268 (4.9) 16.8

3 231 379 93 102 118 "144 137 159 1,363 (24.8) 85.1

4 400 351 90 97 101 111 102 109 1,361 (24.8) 85.1

5 377 598 109 145 140 121 132 126 1,748 (31.9) 109.3

6 58 16 20 29 32 19 27 281 (5.1) 25.6

Total 1,234 1,610 358 399 443 462 430 472 5,488

Percentage 47.7 47.1 55.9 58.8 62.5 62.3 56.2 57.6 53.0

Note: Within parenthesis is given the percentage of the total

Vol 30 No 34 Sept-Dee 1983 183

Item CitationsNo. Received

1. 461

2. 268

3. 1,363

4. 1,361

5. 1,748

6. 281

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APPENDIX

Bibliographic details and citations analysis forsome important contributions of Chandrasekhar

for the period 1965-1980

Bibliographic details

An Introduction to the Study ofStellar Structures. New York;Dover; First published in 1939;2nd edition in 1967. 509pp.(Astrophysical monograph; Spon-sored by Astrophysical Journal).

Principles of Stellar Dynamics.Chicago, Ill. The University ofChicago Press; 1942; 251 pp.(Astrophysical monograph; Spon-sored by Astrophysical Journal).

Stochastic Problems in Physicsand Astronomy. ~~~~~~YJ:y~15; 1-89, 1943. (Also publishedby the American Institute ofPhysics for the American PhysicalSociety).

Radioactive Transfer. Oxford Uni-versity Press; 1950; publishedsecond edition by Dover in 1960;393 pp. (The International Seriesof monographs on Physics).

Hydrodynamic and HydromagneticStability. Oxford, Clarendon Press;1961.

Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium.New Heaven, Yale University Press,1969; 252pp. (Mrs Hepea ElyStillman Memorial Lectures, 1963).

Some other important contributions

1. The Density of White Dwarf Stars. Phil.Mag. 31; 592-595; 1931.

2. The Illumination and Polarization of theSunlit Sky on Rayleigh Scattering. Philadel-phia. American Philosophical Society, 1954;643-728.(Transactions of the American Philosophi-cal Society; New Series v 44; pt 6).

3. New Methods in Stellar dynamics. NewYork, 1943 (New York Academy ofSciences, Annals; Vol.XLV, part 3).

4. The Normal Reflection of a blast Wave.Aberdeen Proving Ground. Md. BallisticResearch Laboratories, 1943). (US BallisticResearch Laboratories Report No.439).

5. Plasma Physics: A Course given at the Uni-versity of Chicago. Notes compiled by S.K.Trehan. University of Chicago Press, 1960.(A Reproduction of Trehan's Note of 19lectures with only minor amplifications ata few places).