Fame in the sciences: a culturomics approach

Fame has multiplied in virtually all endeavors and has taken on many new forms, of which celebrity is only one manifestation. We have famous musicians, artists, writers, designers, architects, scientists, inventors, charitable benefactors, cooks, critics, fashion models, CEOs, and even economists. Although top scientists cannot compete with Harrison Ford for widespread visibility, they receive recognition from newspapers, scientific journals, peers and colleagues, graduate students, the next generation of scientists, and, occasionally, the general public.

Cowen (2000).

What is fame? Like energy of life, fame is an everyday concept that we all intuitively grasp but find extremely hard to define.

Aiden and Michel (2014, p. 89).

Abstract

Although scientists, like many other professionals, aspire to fame and recognition, research in the emergent field of fame and celebrity has as yet neglected to explore their fame trajectories. This study therefore uses the frequency with which scientists’ names appear in English language books between 1800 and 2000 to trace the fame of a large number of eminent scholars from different fields. The analysis suggests that, on average, fame grows substantially between the approximate ages of 30 and 50, at which point its growth slows before peaking at around 70. Beyond this point, the growth of fame is more volatile, although we observe no clear decreasing trend. In fact, fame grows again after scientists’ death, but with the fame of those born in the twentieth century exceeding that of their nineteenth century counterparts.