New directions in science emerge from disconnection and discord

Highlights：

• Novelty, Disruption, and the Evolution of Scientific Impact.

• We theorize that new directions for science are created from a lack of consensus, and demonstrate how novel papers are much more likely than conventional papers to disrupt prior literature.

• We find that novel papers often become “sleeping beauties”, accumulating surprising attention and citation impact over the long run.

• We show how novelty can be reformulated as the combination of ideas across knowledge space to reveal the combinatorial nature of advance. The evolution of knowledge space over time characterizes how yesterday's novelty forms today's scientific conventions, which condition the novelty and surprise of tomorrow's breakthroughs.

摘要

•Novelty, Disruption, and the Evolution of Scientific Impact.•We theorize that new directions for science are created from a lack of consensus, and demonstrate how novel papers are much more likely than conventional papers to disrupt prior literature.•We find that novel papers often become “sleeping beauties”, accumulating surprising attention and citation impact over the long run.•We show how novelty can be reformulated as the combination of ideas across knowledge space to reveal the combinatorial nature of advance. The evolution of knowledge space over time characterizes how yesterday's novelty forms today's scientific conventions, which condition the novelty and surprise of tomorrow's breakthroughs.

论文评审过程：Received 2 March 2021, Revised 11 November 2021, Accepted 18 November 2021, Available online 30 December 2021, Version of Record 30 December 2021.