Visualizing the Knowledge Structure and Evolution of Entropy: A Scientometric Analysis

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to map the state-of-art of entropy, a knowledge domain which has drawn a great interest of researchers from a variety of academic fields in modern times. The journal Entropy, which focuses completely on entropy and is therefore regarded as the most prominent journal, has been purposefully chosen for this study in order to examine the intellectual structure of the field. Data from the Web of Science database for the years 2008 through 2021 were gathered. Scientometric indicators, literature growth, co-authorship, co-citation, keyword co-occurrences, co-word, citation, and bibliographic coupling, are studied using VOS Viewer. Highly cited papers, most prolific authors, countries and institutions are also identified. The results of the study admit that the linear growth trend of entropy articles has increased over the course of the investigation. Highest number of the publications were contributed from China, and the institution that contributed the most articles was the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A cluster analysis of the keywords shows that the research hotspots are primarily focused on “entropy,” with the highest frequency and link strength. The high density of the co-words of “entropy,” “information,” “model” and “Shannon entropy” has also proved them to be the most mature and centralized area of entropy field.

KEYWORDS:

• Citation analysis
• co-word analysis
• entropy
• knowledge structure
• scientometrics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).