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A century of physics

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 791–796 (2015)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 03 November 2015

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An analysis of Web of Science data spanning more than 100 years reveals the rapid growth and increasing multidisciplinarity of physics — as well its internal map of subdisciplines.

The conventional narrative of physics is one of paradigm shifts1: from the Copernican Revolution to Einstein's annus mirabilis2. And for many, the stories would seem to involve genius in isolation — the lone physicist divorced from other sciences, unperturbed by societal beliefs. But the reality is quite different: physics has always been in a constant dialogue with other disciplines, be it mathematics, chemistry or theology. This dialogue is largely driven by methodology: what traverses disciplinary boundaries is the idea that complex phenomena can be understood in terms of a small number of universal laws3.

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Figure 1: The evolution of physics.
Figure 2: The evolution of impact.
Figure 3: The anatomy of physics.

Change history

  • 05 October 2015

    In the Perspective 'A century of physics' (Nature Physics 11, 791–796; 2015), the text in the legend in Fig. 3a was obscured. This error has now been corrected online 5 October 2015.

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Acknowledgements

R.S., M.S. and A.L.B. are supported by the AFOSR grant FA9550-15-1-0077. P.D. is supported by the National Foundation for Scientific Research (FNRS) and by the Research Department of the Communaute Francaise de Belgique (Large Graph Concerted Research Action). D.W. is supported by the AFOSR, grant FA9550-15-1-0162. R.S. is also supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation. A.L.B. is also supported by the Future and Emerging Technologies Project 317 532 'Multiplex' financed by the European Commission. We wish to thank I. Georgescu for many fruitful discussions and ideas throughout this project and J. De Nicolo for support with handling the WoS data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael Szell and Albert-László Barabási are at the Center for Complex Network Research and Physics Department, Roberta Sinatra, Pierre Deville, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA,

    Roberta Sinatra, Pierre Deville, Michael Szell & Albert-László Barabási

  2. Dashun Wang is at the College of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16801, USA,

    Dashun Wang

  3. P.D is also in the Department of Applied Mathematics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve 1348, Belgium,

    Pierre Deville

  4. and in the Department of Medicine, A.L.B. is also at the Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA, and at the Center for Network Science, Central European University, Budapest 1051, Hungary,

    Albert-László Barabási

Authors
  1. Roberta Sinatra
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Correspondence to Roberta Sinatra or Albert-László Barabási.

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Sinatra, R., Deville, P., Szell, M. et al. A century of physics. Nature Phys 11, 791–796 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3494

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