The exhibit is a 10-year effort. Each year, 10 new maps are added resulting in 100 maps total in 2014.
1st Iteration (2005): The Power of Maps
2nd Iteration (2006): The Power of Reference Systems
3rd Iteration (2007): The Power of Forecasts
4th Iteration (2008): Science Maps for Economic Decision Makers
5th Iteration (2009): Science Maps for Science Policy Makers
6th Iteration (2010): Science Maps for Scholars
7th Iteration (2011): Science Maps as Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries
8th Iteration (2012): Science Maps for Kids
9th Iteration (2013): Science Maps Showing Trends and Dynamics
10th Iteration (2014): Science Mapping Frontiers
Additional Elements
The Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things [Dynamic Format]
Hands-on Science Maps for Kids
1st Iteration (2005): The Power of Maps
The first iteration of this exhibit aims to show the power of maps to help understand, navigate, and manage both physical places and abstract knowledge spaces.
The first maps of our planet were neither complete nor entirely accurate. Yet, they were invaluable for navigation, exploration, and communication. They helped explorers avoid monsters and find promising lands. Maps of science developed today are not perfectly precise either since they are generated based on only a small portion of humanity’s scholarly knowledge. The generation of comprehensive and accurate maps requires the proper interlinkage of multilingual, multidisciplinary, and multimedia scholarly knowledge.
Note that each of the six early maps of science displayed uses a different metaphor. What metaphor is most effective in designing a visual index of humanity’s knowledge and expertise?
Click on any map below for more information.
2nd Iteration (2006): The Power of Reference Systems
The second iteration aims to inspire discussion about a common reference system for all of humanity’s scholarly knowledge.
Throughout history, scientists have struggled to reach agreement upon standardized reference systems for their respective fields of research. The results include the electromagnetic spectrum, the periodic table of elements, geographic projections, and the celestial reference systems, all of which appear in this iteration. These standards are invaluable for indexing, storing, accessing, and managing scientific data efficiently.
Shown in comparison are six potential reference systems for scholarly knowledge. Each reference system—from the one-dimensional timeline, to the geospatial system, to the semantic system—could be used to identify the location of an author, paper, patent, or grant. This would highlight the dynamics of an author’s, institution’s, or country’s contributions or the impact of a particular work.
Click on any map below for more information.
3rd Iteration (2007): The Power of Forecasts
The third iteration compares and contrasts maps of seismic hazards, resource depletion, economic models, and epidemic forecasts with maps forecasting the structure and evolution of science.
Real-time weather forecasts are served by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Computational models of the movements of tectonic plates help reduce losses due to earthquakes, volcanic activity, or tsunamis. Economic models let us simulate either catastrophic or sustainable futures for humanity. Epidemic models allow us to understand how interconnected we all are and how actions far away affect us right here.
Daily science and technology forecasts would show science maps with overlays of top experts, institutions, countries, major activity bursts, or emerging research frontiers augmenting our knowledge and decision-making capabilities. Given the importance of such forecasts, one might question why they are not available on TV, in the press, or online.
Click on any map below for more information.
4th Iteration (2008): Science Maps for Economic Decision Makers
This is the first of six iterations that explore the utility of science maps for different stakeholders. The maps presented here meet the needs of economic decision-makers. They answer questions such as:
What is the impact of war on global trade flows?
How do accelerating communication and transportation speeds impact our lives?
What events and time lags occur from basic research to product sale?
What are the (social) networks behind illicit deals and laundered money?
What intellectual property space is claimed by whom, and what growth is expected?
What is the ecological footprint of a country, and how sustainable is it?
How does the ‘Product Space’ determine the economic development of nations?
How to visually empower strategy formation and value creation in organizations?
How are publications linked to patents in different areas of science?
What factors impact the happiness of citizens, and which countries experience the most happiness?
Click on any map below for more information.
5th Iteration (2009) Science Maps for Science Policy Makers
This iteration shows science maps for science policy-makers as well as citizens interested in understanding national priorities, spending, and achievements. Featured are two early maps, two maps of observation and sensor data, and six maps of scholarly data. The maps communicate:
The steady increase of scientists in the total population, versus a decline of R&D investment as a fraction of GNP.
Categories for evaluating and comparing evolving scientific collaboration.
Needed changes in the Boston Traffic Separation Scheme to reduce the risk of ships striking whales.
Urban mobility patterns to improve the design and management of cities.
The U.S. federal discretionary budget.
Return on investment for U.S. chemistry R&D including a timeline and investment cycles.
Funding portfolios of the National Institutes of Health.
The structure of science based on download (rather than publication) activity.
Research leadership of the U.S. compared with the top-12 competitive nations.
Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015.
Click on any map below for more information.
6th Iteration (2010): Science Maps for Scholars
This iteration explores the utility of science maps for scholars and answers questions such as:
Who are our ancestors, and how are we related to other species?
How do human brain regions interlink and impact our thoughts and behaviors?
What drugs target what diseases, and how do disease phenotypes interact?
How do children learn language in complex social environments, and how can language disorders be treated?
What communities and interdisciplinary connections exist across the field of media art?
How are scholars linked to texts, people, projects, events, their relationships, as well as personal comments?
Which literary writers used what temporal and spatial settings in Victorian poetry?
How do multiple scientific specialties merge to form a new area of science?
How do scientists weave the fabric of science via collaborations and citations?
Where are the academic jobs?
Click on any map below for more information.
7th Iteration (2011): Science Maps as Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries
This iteration explores the utility of science maps as visual interfaces to digital libraries to support the selection, navigation, management, and usage of resources by communicating:
Early visions of a multimedia work station and the Internet.
A hand-drawn map of natural sciences and technology with overlays of different index and abstracting services.
A visualization of textual cross-references in the Bible.
Differences in the coverage and search functionality of four major publication databases and their impact on search result sets.
A comparison of Wikipedia's category structure and the Universal Decimal Classification.
Expert locations and worldwide scientific collaboration patterns.
The complete structure and interlinkage of different data types from a scholarly database to judge data quality and coverage.
An overview of key metadata standards in the cultural heritage sector to assist planners with the selection and implementation of these standards.
The hierarchical structure of over 2,800 terms for tagging digital resources in architecture in different languages.
The history of science fiction rendered as graphical chronology.
Click on any map below for more information.
8th Iteration (2012): Science Maps For Kids
This iteration features science maps designed for children aged 5-14. The maps communicate:
4.5 billion years of Earth’s evolution and the life forms that inhabit it.
The intertwining journeys of favorite characters from recent fantasy and science-fiction films.
A floor plan of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that shows a subset of its two million works of art spanning five thousand years of world culture.
The political spectrum via a comparison of different stances on society and culture, family relationships, adulthood, and beliefs.
The interplay of life expectancy and income per person for each country.
How inventions and inventors are embedded in a vast web of human knowledge.
Stylistic variations among 1,074,790 manga pages in 883 distinct series from Japan, Korea, and China.
The fundamental interconnectedness of science and stories of how animals and accidents help discovery.
The impact of language on human networks and communication patterns.
The topical composition and length of over 3,000 educational videos and their usage by students around the globe.
Click on any map below for more information.
9th Iteration (2013): Science Maps Showing Trends and Dynamics
This iteration features science maps that show general trends and dynamics in science and technology. The maps communicate:
Ocean circulation estimates to quantify the ocean’s role in the global carbon cycle and to monitor its evolving heat, water, and chemical exchanges over time.
Over 160 years of recorded tropical storms and hurricanes by their paths and intensities.
Global polar bear abundance figures, harvest rates, circumpolar pollution levels, and the shrinking Arctic sea ice.
The mood of the U.S. based on an analysis of over 300 million public tweets sent between September 2006 and August 2009.
Complexity science's major intellectual traditions, leading scholarly themes and methods, as well as key scholars who founded or pioneered work.
The development of science during the period 1980–2010 based on key terms and phrases.
Hewlett Foundation funding distribution and impact in support of future funding applications and grant-making decisions.
Popular living people profiles and their interlinkages from eight different-language Wikipedias showing cultures and their evolution.
An identification of scientific discoveries and technological innovations using 23 million papers and patents.
The evolving structure of scientific fields, exemplified for prosthetic science.
Click on any map below for more information.
Inside the Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by John KerschbaumNEW YORK, NY, 2008
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Do you like Where's Waldo? If you do, then you'll love this complement to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Family Map floor plan map in this exhibit! Illustrator John Kerschbaum and the Met’s Senior Publishing and Creative Manager Masha Turchinsky created this Inside the Museum map that emphasizes the vastness of the Metropolitan’s holdings and spaces. It is intentionally jam-packed with approximately 3,000 illustrations of objects, which were researched, sketched, and drawn over a period of three years. The illustrated poster conveys the endless opportunities to discover and connect the treasures of the Museum. A scavenger hunt game in the border offers fun clues that remind visitors that art rewards close looking. Can you find the elephant with a clock on its back? Do you see the dog, dressed like a man, barking at an old black cat? Where is William, the MET’s unofficial mascot? Compile your score and look up your rating. Finally, plan your trip well and come back often to put the “art” in “smart.” The map is available for free at all Museum information desks and online here.
The Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things [dynamic format], by Matthew Richardson, Judith Kamalski, Sarah Huggett, and Andrew PlumeOXFORD, UK & AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, 2012
Courtesy of Elsevier Ltd
How can we fully explore different disciplinary perspectives? This dynamic version of The Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things, also developed by bibliometrics specialists Matthew Richardson, Judith Kamalski, Sarah Huggett, and Andrew Plume, allows you to forge your own path through the interconnected domains of knowledge. The map positions 19,562 journals according to their citation relationships using a journal–journal citation matrix from Elsevier’s Scopus database. Journal nodes are colored using a simplified version of the Scopus journal classification system, and journals in any given subject can be seen to cluster together. The network was laid out using the Force Atlas 2 algorithm in Gephi 0.8 beta, which draws related journals towards one another in the map until a balanced state is achieved. Any area can be selected by clicking on the map or label to find out more about it. Themed stories above and below the map show what we can learn from animals and the importance of accidents for discovery. The scientific fields these stories illustrate are highlighted on the map and show how multiple areas of knowledge can be relevant to a particular topic—and how collaboration across subjects can help to drive new knowledge.
Gapminder Card Game
About the Sorting Game: Students are given a number of “country cards”. They are asked to group/arrange the cards in a way that they think reflect the gaps in the world today. Afterwards they compare their arrangement with the “Gapminder World Map” graph.
Key messages of the exercise: This exercise helps students think about the gaps in the world today and helps challenge preconceived ideas about how the contemporary world looks. The exercise can also be used to stimulate an interest in using statistics to understand the world.
Download the game here.
WorldProcessor Globes
Foreign US Patent Holders [WorldProcessor #294]
This globe represents half of all patents in the US - those registered to foreign holders. Countries with more than 1000 patents registered in the US are indicated by name, with the point size of the representative text scaled according to the square root of the total number of US patents held. Were the number of domestically held US patents to be indicated according to this logic, the entire surface of the globe would be covered. Special thanks to John Burgoon, Monika Zhu, and Stephen Oh © 2006 Ingo Gunther
Patterns of Patents & Zones of Invention [WorldProcessor #286]
This globe plots the total amount of patents granted worldwide, beginning in 1883 with just under 50,000, hitting 650,000 in 1993 (near the North Pole), and (shifting the scale to the southern hemisphere) continuing to 2002 on a rapid climb towards 1 million. Geographic regions where countries offer environments conducive to fostering innovation are represented by topology. Additionally, nations where residents are granted an average of 500 or more US patents per year are called out in red by their respective averages in the years after 2000. © 2005 Ingo Gunther
Shape of Science
This rendering is of a prospective tangible sculpture of the Shape of Science, based on the research of Richard Klavans and Kevin Boyack, spatializing the quantified connectivities and relative flows of inquiry within the world of science. © 2006 Ingo Gunther w/ Stephen Oh
Illuminated Diagram Display
The Illuminated Diagram maps and installations were created by Kevin W. Boyack (scientometrics and data shaping), John Burgoon (geographic mapmaking), Peter Kennard (system design and programming), Richard Klavans (scientometrics and node layout), W. Bradford Paley (typography, graphics, and interaction design); data courtesy of Thomson ISI; images © 2006. W. Bradford Paley, all rights reserved.
The Illuminated Diagram displays come in two different versions (see below).
New LCD Version in both hi and low-resolution version available below.
Uses 2 LCDs with printed maps overlayed onto screens.
[Low resolution clip (9 MB)] [High resolution clip (500 MB)]
Original LCD Version (shown above)
Uses 2 LCDs with printed maps stuck onto screens.
[Low resolution clip (19.6 MB)] [High resolution clip (147.62 MB)]
[10 second low resolution clip (617 KB)]
Projection Version
Uses 2 projectors with printed maps mounted on the wall. The video clips below feature a demo with W. Bradford Paley at the New York Public Library exhibit (April 3 - August 30, 2006).
[Video (2.29 MB)] [YouTube]
Topic Map
The word "science" covers a huge diversity of topics: from mathematics and astronomy to medicine, even to certain approaches to the humanities. This map begins to show how distinct areas of study are defined and how they are related.
Seven hundred seventy-six nodes are distributed around a generally ring-like structure. They represent scientific topics, more properly called paradigms, and are essentially groups of recently published papers. Each node represents tens or thousands of papers; this map was created by scrutinizing more than 1.3 million of them.
The writers of scientific papers are careful to reveal all the work they build on, so we can think of each paper's author as a micro-librarian: gathering all the other papers relevant to his or her topic. In this map we put two papers in the same node if four authors gathered them into a later paper. Nodes are labeled with the unique terms that occur most often in the papers, provided those terms can be understood in a wider context. Thus you can read the actual language used by the scientists exploring each topic.
The circular structure is no accident, nor is it arbitrarily imposed on the data; it comes from the structure of science itself. If you imagine that every link is a rubber band (stronger when it's darker), and every node has a small force field around it, pushing away nearby nodes, this dynamic balance of forces automatically creates the layout. Thus we can see that Physics (at approximately 1:00) relates through Astrophysics to Astronomy (around 12:30), but it also relates to Chemistry (more toward 2:00). And the jutting peninsula of Organic Chemistry at 3:00 has unexpectedly few connections to the thicket of Medicine, spread from 5:30 to 7:00. Instead, it connects to Medicine through Analytical Chemistry: the tool base of applied chemistry actually used in medicine, which studies techniques like Spectroscopy and Proteomics (the large node at the base of the peninsula).
Geographic Map
Here we have arranged the same papers on a more familiar map. Each tiny glyph on the map represents not cities, but a number of papers that have an author in that location. In the field of Information Visualization there is an expectation that if you show the same data in two different views you can get a better feel for it, much as an architect will look at both floor plan and elevations to understand a building. But how can we tell where in the world papers in one topic node were published? Or what topics are studied in a specific geographic location? We simply paint them to look the same in both views. The InfoVis technique called "brushing and linking" lets you do exactly that. Paint a location (by brushing your finger over an area on the lectern's touchscreen) and it will glow on the geographic map. Since the views are linked by the computer, it can paint topics studied in that area on the topic map: the brighter a topic glows, the more papers on that topic originated in your brushed area. Conversely, touching a topic node will tell you where in the world that topic is studied. We use a display technique called "Illuminated Diagrams" to add the flexibility of an interactive program to the incredibly high data density of a print.
This technique is generally useful when there is too much pertinent data to be displayed on a screen but the data is relatively stable. The computer can direct the eye to what's important by using projectors as smart spotlights, animating stories in the static data (such as the spread of an idea's influence), giving a radar-like "grand tour" of science, or highlighting query results (as when you touch the lectern) with an overlay of moving light.
Hands-On Science Maps for Kids
The Hands-on Science Maps for Kids were created by Fileve Palmer (painting), Julie Smith (data acquisition), Elisha Hardy and Katy Börner (graphic design).
We would like to thank Stephen Miles Uzzo (Director of Technology) and Michael Lane (Director of Exhibit Services) at the New York Hall of Science for manufacturing the physical maps.
These maps invite children to see, explore, and understand science from above. One map shows our world and the places where science gets done. The other shows major areas of science and their complex interrelationships. Both maps also appear in the Illuminated Diagram display, see above. Drawings by Fileve Palmer were added to make different continents as well as different areas of science more tangible. Children, and adults alike, are invited to help solve the "puzzle" by sliding major scientists, inventors, and inventions into their proper places. Start by selecting either of the two maps. Decide if you want to place famous people or major inventions first. Turn the map over when you are done and start again. Look for the many hints hidden in the drawings to find the perfect place for each puzzle piece. At the exhibit, pick-up one of the handouts and make your very own map of science.
Download the Learning Objective for the exhibit.
Download the Clue Sheet for the Hands-on Science Maps for Kids.
View more information about the Hands-on Science Maps for Kids.
Exhibit Video
This DVD contains a guided tour of the Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit when it was featured at the New York Public Library. It also contains images of all of the exhibit maps, additional elements featured as part of the exhibit, and information about each of the map makers.
More information about the exhibit video »
