Knowledge emergence in scientific communication: from “fullerenes” to “nanotubes”

Abstract

This article explores the emergence of knowledge from scientific discoveries and their effects on the structure of scientific communication. Network analysis is applied to understand this emergence institutionally as changes in the journals; semantically as changes in the codification of meaning in terms of words; and cognitively as the new knowledge becomes the emergent foundation of further developments. The discovery of fullerenes in 1985 is analyzed as the scientific discovery that triggered a process which led to research in nanotubes.