Here’s a map of science*!
The work, by Richard Klavans and Kevin Boyack, shows aspects of the connectivity of relations between scientific disciplines (colour key to the left), based on analysis of about 1.6 million scientific articles. Rather pretty isn’t it? And, yes, of course, very interesting to see the connectivity visualized like that.
Please visit their website to see how to visually slice all of this to highlight areas of the map by (a limited selection of) countries, regions, institutions, blue vs red state (!), etc.
There’s more information about the relationships in this Seed article, where there’s a more extended explanation of the meaning of the nodes, and how to draw links between the nodes. You can find out more about the authors, the algorithms used, and other information by going to this page.
-cvj
(*Thanks Amara!)
I wonder if that gaping huge hole in between Earth sciences and social sciences accounts for all the difficulties assoiated with Earth science-related policy issues such as disaster planning and global warming.
Or one could surmise that the central void renders a view of the scientific study of consciousness (given Tristam’s link to the labeled version); then again, perhaps that subject is reflected by the whole of the map.
Perhaps the science of analyzing connections between scientific disciplines would go into the middle bit. Somewhat ironically.
-cvj
I also wonder about the “middle”. Perhaps complexity science or some as yet undiscovered principles regarding emergence of structure will come into play as well. (right next to astrobiology of course ;))
Elliot
I wonder if astrobiology can fill the hole in the moddle of the network? This field ten years ago was not considered a proper field, but instead, it was considered an almagam, interdisciplinary endeavor. However, now it has its own journals and institutes, so I would expect to see its node emerge near Earth Physics and Biology, but with long tendrils pointing toward astrophysics. Let’s see in 10 years…
Math is included! In the labelled version it is in the pink area between physics and engineering.
I wonder why it doesn’t include math? Anyhow that really is very interesting.