Lotka's principle

Lotka's principle, also known as Lotka's law, describes the distribution of scientific productivity among researchers. It states that a small number of scientists contribute a large portion of the total research output, while many produce only a few publications. Specifically, the number of authors publishing a certain number of papers tends to follow a predictable pattern: for example, the number of authors with one publication is roughly twice those with two, three times those with three, and so on. This pattern reveals how scientific efforts are concentrated and helps understand patterns in scholarly productivity across fields.