Throughout history, a relatively small number of individuals have made a profound and lasting impact on science and society. Despite long-standing, multi-disciplinary interests in understanding careers of elite scientists, there have been limited attempts for a quantitative, career-level analysis. Here, we leverage a comprehensive dataset we assembled, allowing us to trace the entire career histories of nearly all Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine over the past century. We find that, although Nobel laureates were energetic producers from the outset, producing works that garner unusually high impact, their careers before winning the prize follow relatively similar patterns as ordinary scientists, being characterized by hot streaks and increasing reliance on collaborations. We also uncovered notable variations along their careers, often associated with the Nobel prize, including shifting coauthorship structure in the prize-winning work, and a significant but temporary dip in the impact of work they produce after winning the Nobel. Together, these results document quantitative patterns governing the careers of scientific elites, offering an empirical basis for a deeper understanding of the hallmarks of exceptional careers in science.

中文翻译：

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重新审视科学精英：生产力、合作、作者身份和影响的模式

纵观历史，相对较少的人对科学和社会产生了深远而持久的影响。尽管对理解精英科学家的职业生涯有着长期的、多学科的兴趣，但对定量、职业水平分析的尝试却很有限。在这里，我们利用我们组装的综合数据集，追溯过去一个世纪几乎所有诺贝尔物理学、化学、生理学或医学奖获得者的整个职业历史。我们发现，虽然诺贝尔奖获得者从一开始就是精力充沛的制作人，创作出的作品产生了异常高的影响力，但他们在获奖前的职业生涯与普通科学家的发展模式相对相似，特点是热火朝天，越来越依赖合作。我们还发现了他们职业生涯中的显着变化，通常与诺贝尔奖有关，包括获奖作品中的合著者结构的变化，以及他们在获得诺贝尔奖后创作的作品影响力的显着但暂时的下降。总之，这些结果记录了管理科学精英职业的定量模式，为更深入地了解科学领域杰出职业的标志提供了经验基础。