arXiv cs.CY· Jiajie Luo, James A. Evans·· 3 天前AI 评分22
研究：填补科学空白能吸引集体关注，但多数高阶空白仍无人探索
Filling holes in science draws collective attention, but most higher-order holes remain unexplored
AI 导读
研究者将知识表示为高维概念嵌入，用持续同调检测从低阶断连到高阶空洞的科学空白，并识别填补这些空白的研究。填补空白的研究者获得超额集体关注，其新颖性被引用文献奖励，在发现导向领域最强、设计导向领域最弱；填补后同一概念组合的后续研究以数倍于未填补空白的速率持续进行。但随着知识增长，高阶空洞激增而填补比例骤降，多数高阶概念组合仍未被探索。
正文 · 原文
Abstract:Most scientific discoveries justify their significance by filling holes between existing ideas and arguments. Representing knowledge as high-dimensional concept embeddings, we use persistent homology to detect scientific holes of increasing order, from lower-order gaps between disconnected ideas to higher-order cavities within unevenly connected ones; then we identify the research that fills them. Researchers who close holes draw outsized collective attention, staging novelty that the citing literature rewards, most strongly in discovery-oriented fields and least in design-oriented fields. Closing a hole is followed by persistent work on the same combinations of concepts at many times the rate of comparable holes left open. Yet as knowledge grows, higher-order holes explode while the fraction of research that fills them collapses, leaving most higher-order combinations unexplored. These results call for a richer science of holes and mark a frontier where contemporary AI might help fill the gaps human science opens.
| Comments: | 26 pages of main text, 155 with all the supplemental information. 4 main figures, many more in the supplemental information |
| Subjects: | Computers and Society (cs.CY); Digital Libraries (cs.DL); Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2608.28822 [cs.CY] |
| (or arXiv:2608.28822v2 [cs.CY] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.28822 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite |
Submission history
From: Jiajie Luo [view email]
[v1]
Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:48:28 UTC (13,930 KB)
[v2]
Wed, 14 Oct 2026 03:12:59 UTC (14,051 KB)
来源：arXiv cs.CY · arxiv.org