19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Open Communication

Growth of literature and data from the seventeenth century to today

Heinrich Behrens (Heinrich.Behrens@t-online.de), Stutensee, Germany
Irmgard Lankenau, Universitätsbibliothk, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany


The growth of Science is investigated for the disciplines of Astrophysics/Astronomy, of Physics and of Chemistry. This is illustrated by the growth of the corresponding literature, of important books, of essential inventions and of some other data in the last four centuries by considering all available data.. This includes the derivation of the laws of growing by applying different mathematical models for the growth. The results for this different growth models (linear, quadratic, exponential, hyperbolic etc.) will be compared. It is shown that the exponential growth model which is normally applied is not necessary the best to describe the growth of the data. Other models are often and in certain epochs better suitable to explain the growth.