Paperscape: A map of 1,089,837 scientific papers from the arXiv

A map of 1,089,837 scientific papers from the arXiv

Paperscape is a tool to visualise the arXiv, an open, online repository for scientific research papers. The Paperscape map currently includes all (non-withdrawn) papers from the arXiv and is updated daily.

Each paper in the map is represented by a circle, with the area of the circle proportional to the number of citations that paper has. In laying out the map, an N-body algorithm is run to determine positions based on references between the papers. There are two “forces” involved in the N-body calculation: each paper is repelled from all other papers using an anti-gravity inverse-distance force, and each paper is attracted to all of its references using a spring modelled by Hooke’s law. We further demand that there is no overlap of the papers.

From Paperscape