William Goffman's “Mathematical approach to the prediction of scientific discovery” and its application to logic, revisited

R. Wagner-Döbler
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R. Wagner-Döbler: Universität Augsburg

Scientometrics, 1999, vol. 46, issue 3, No 20, 635-645

Abstract: Abstract Based on the observation of regular “epidemic” recurrence of activity in the history of symbolic logic, a new wave of logic activity was predicted byGoffman in 1971 for the coming years. This prediction is examined and confirmed to some extent. It is shown, however, that the whole mathematics came in a wave-like fashion in the last 200 years, that the main fluctuations of logic were isochronic with the main fluctuations of mathematics, and, in addition, that fundamental logic contributions appeared on the top of the waves. After considering some problems of time-series analysis, relationships to business cycles of the Kondratiev, Kuznets, and Juglar types are discussed.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1007/BF02459617

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