REGULARITY AND IRREGULARITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES - THE CASE OF MATHEMATICAL LOGIC

We report on results from an analysis of mathematical logic from 1874 to the present time, covering about 15,000 authors with 50,000 publica tions. Frequency distributions in terms of contributions or in terms o f the number of special areas dealt with exhibited a well-known lognor mal form. A dynamic version of Price's inverse square (or power) law o f elitism seems to be corroborated. The idea of a general exponential growth law is not convincing, however. All forms of growth of logic ar eas occur. In this contribution we apply, in addition, Goffman's epide mic model, contained in one of the rare theories of scientific dynamic s, to the development of logic and formulate ex-post-ante prognoses of some areas of logic. The outcome casts doubts on the applicability in scientometrics of the epidemic theory in the form suggested by Goffma n.