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Science 9 July 1971:
Vol. 173. no. 3992, pp. 164 - 166
DOI: 10.1126/science.173.3992.164
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Articles

Informal Contacts in Science: A Probabilistic Model for Communication Processes

Belver C. Griffith 1, Marilyn J. Jahn 1, and A. James Miller 1

1 Graduate School of Library Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Significant contacts among scientists within research specialties are generally infrequent and are distributed as an essentially random process, the pattern of most contacts conforming to a Poisson distribution. Extremely productive persons in a specialty, however, seem to form a separate distribution; they have a considerably higher number of contacts.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Coherent Social Groups in Scientific Change.
B. C. Griffith and N. C. Mullins (1972)
Science 177, 959-964
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)