5 papers
Innovation by Displacement
Linzhuo Li, Yiling Lin, Lingfei Wu
New ideas are often thought to arise from recombining existing knowledge. Yet despite rapid publication growth - and expanding opportunities for recombination - scientific breakthr…
Can Recombination Displace Dominant Scientific Ideas
Linzhuo Li, Yiling Lin, Lingfei Wu
The combination of diverse, pre-existing knowledge is a common explanation for scientific breakthroughs. However, a paradox exists: while scientific output and the potential for su…
The Disruption Index Measures Displacement Between a Paper and Its Most Cited Reference
Yiling Lin, Linzhuo Li, Lingfei Wu
Initially developed to capture technical innovation and later adapted to identify scientific breakthroughs, the Disruption Index (D-index) offers the first quantitative framework f…
Team Size and Its Negative Impact on the Disruption Index
Yiling Lin, Linzhuo Li, Lingfei Wu
As science transitions from the age of lone geniuses to an era of collaborative teams, the question of whether large teams can sustain the creativity of individuals and continue dr…
Is Science Inevitable?
Linzhuo Li, Yiling Lin, Lingfei Wu
Using large-scale citation data and a breakthrough metric, the study systematically evaluates the inevitability of scientific breakthroughs. We find that scientific breakthroughs e…