This paper defines the ‘miraculous year’ as the most productive year in academics’ scientific careers. It tests the hypothesis that annual productivity is unevenly distributed with a Lotka-like distribution at both individual and group levels. To gain generalizability, we model distributions of annual publication productivity in three independent mini studies. The studies include Israeli star scientists, highly cited physicists, and economists in an elite American university. The findings show that most scientists enjoy a peak annus mirabilis with a minority having a few such peaks. Academic age at which the annus mirabilis takes place gravitates towards the center of a career, especially amongst older scientists. The results support the hypothesis that scientific careers are punctuated by exceptionally productive years. We discuss how administrative constraints may affect levels of productivity. The paper opens up a new empirical domain for further empirical tests of career productivity and calls for policy discussions around the implications of the idea of the annus mirabilis.

中文翻译：

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Annus Mirabilis 论文：科学职业中多年的最高生产力

本文将“奇迹年”定义为学术界科学生涯中最富有成效的一年。它检验了以下假设，即年生产力在个人和团体层面均呈 Lotka 样分布不均匀分布。为了获得普遍性，我们在三个独立的小型研究中模拟了年度出版生产力的分布。这些研究包括以色列明星科学家、被高度引用的物理学家和美国精英大学的经济学家。研究结果表明，大多数科学家都享有奇异果的高峰，少数科学家有几个这样的高峰。奇迹发生的学术年龄倾向于成为职业的中心，尤其是在年长的科学家中。结果支持了这样一个假设，即科学职业被异常富有成效的年份所打断。我们讨论行政约束如何影响生产力水平。该论文为进一步对职业生产力进行实证检验开辟了一个新的经验领域，并呼吁围绕奇迹年的想法进行政策讨论。