“This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as pale circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved black lines) were made between the paradigms that shared papers, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation forced every paradigm to repel every other; thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.” Credit: Research & Node Layout: Kevin Boyack and Dick Klavans (mapofscience.com); Data: Thompson ISI; Graphics & Typography: W. Bradford Paley (didi.com/brad); Commissioned Katy Börner (scimaps.org). Read ( a little) more over at Seed Magazine.

”Figure 3. (a) Network after the addition of 220 links. The initials correspond to characters that play an important role connecting communities: Spider-Man (SM), Thing (T), Beast (B), Captain America (CA), Namor (N), Hulk (H). (b) Network after the addition of 300 links, when a giant component has emerged. The black (white) circles indicate characters labeled as heroes (villains). The gray circles indicate other types of characters, such as people, gods or nodes with no classification.”

Read more about Pablo M. Geiser paper HERE.