Toward a computational history of science: The dynamics of socio-epistemic networks and the renaissance of general relativity

The exploding amount of available historical data provides intriguing possibilities as well as major challenges to historians of science. In the last years, several quantitative methods have been developed in order to analyze historical data. At the same time, new analytical frameworks need to be developed to bring together quantitative methods with the more traditional historians’ toolkit. The present paper has a twofold aim. The first one is to briefly review major quantitative approaches that have been developed in the history of science in two areas: data modeling and network analysis. The second part of the contribution focuses on applications of social network analysis to the evolution of knowledge systems. We propose a methodological and conceptual framework aiming at uncovering the dynamical transformations of intra- and inter-connections within and between different layers of the scientific enterprise. We define knowledge networks as being composed of three different layers: the social network, the semiotic network, and the semantic network. The first is defined as the collection of relations involving individuals and institutions. The semiotic network is defined as the collection of the material or formal representations of knowledge. The semantic network is the collection of knowledge elements and their relations. We call socio-epistemic networks the interlinked set of these three levels. As an illustration of this methodology results drawn from our own work on social and conceptual changes in the history of general relativity in the 20th century will be presented

The dynamics of collaboration networks and the history of general relativity, 1925–1970

This paper presents a novel methodology for defining and analyzing the dynamics of the collaboration networks of scientists working on general relativity from the mid-1920s–1970. During these four and a half decades the status of the theory underwent a radical transformation: from a marginal theory before the mid-1950s to a pillar of modern physics. To investigate this passage—known as the renaissance of general relativity—we used a definition of collaboration networks broader than the co-authorship relations retrievable from online datasets. We constructed a multilayer network, in which each layer represents a different kind of collaboration. After having analyzed the evolution over time of specific parameters of the co-authorship network, we investigated the effects of adding one type of collaboration edge at a time, in a cumulative fashion, on the values of these parameters and on the topology of the collaboration network through time, including rapid shifts in the dynamic evolution of the largest component. This analysis provides robust quantitative evidence that a shift in the structure of the relativity collaboration network occurred between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, when a giant component started forming. We interpret this shift as the central social dynamic of the renaissance process and then identify its central actors. Our analysis disproves common explanations of the renaissance process. It shows that this phenomenon was not a consequence of astrophysical discoveries in the 1960s, nor was it a simple by-product of socio-economic transformations in the physics landscape after World War II

Digital Scrapbook – can we enable interlinked and recursive knowledge equilibrium?

We investigate possible tools and approaches to develop a Digital Scrapbook, a virtual research environment inspired by the recursive nature of research for scholars where they can combine web and own resources into a new scholarly edition readily enabled for Open Access. Web resources are interlinked in the digital scrapbook by content capture and detail selection, rather than sole bookmark or link to resource URL, along with necessary accompanying metadata. We analyse several open source and commercial tools, with special focus on a Scrapbook-X Firefox Add-On, in order to match to desired Digital Scrapbook features. We further address the wider requirement context for development of such Digital Scrapbook environment, discussing both technical and user experience dimensions. We conclude with a recommendation on how to approach the development and operation of a Digital Scrapbook environment

Digital Scrapbook: can we enable interlinked and recursive knowledge equilibrium?

We investigate possible tools and approaches to develop a Digital Scrapbook, a virtual research environment inspired by the recursive nature of research for scholars where they can combine web and own resources into a new scholarly edition readily enabled for Open Access. Web resources are interlinked in the digital scrapbook by content capture and detail selection, rather than sole bookmark or link to resource URL, along with necessary accompanying metadata. We analyse several open source and commercial tools, with special focus on a Scrapbook-X Firefox Add-On, in order to match to desired Digital Scrapbook features. We further address the wider requirement context for development of such Digital Scrapbook environment, discussing both technical and user experience dimensions. We conclude with a recommendation on how to approach the development and operation of a Digital Scrapbook environment