ABSTRACT
Techniques developed for measuring complexity have jumped from one area of study to another, like a smooth flat stone skipping over calm water, often leaving native investigators dizzy and ill equipped to apply the new methodologies at any depth or to connect the points of contact. Perhaps the growth of science has always appeared this way to those involved in its development. This was the conclusion reached by de Solla Price [27]; after studying centuries of data on the number of papers published, the number of new journals formed and the number of citations to those publications:
Science has always been modern: it has always been exploding into the population, always on the brink of its expansive revolution. Scientists have always felt themselves to be awash in a sea of scientific literature that augments in each decade as much as in all times before.
