# The Anatomy of a Scientific Rumor

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2952 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.2952/

## Key facts

- Cited by 22 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jan 2013.

## Built on by (most cited first, 22 of 22)

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- [Embedding Learning on Multiplex Networks for Link Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.01922/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The announcement of the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle at CERN will be remembered as one of the milestones of the scientific endeavor of the 21st century. In this paper we present a study of information spreading processes on Twitter before, during and after the announcement of the discovery of a new particle with the features of the elusive Higgs boson on 4th July 2012. We report evidence for non-trivial spatio-temporal patterns in user activities at individual and global level, such as tweeting, re-tweeting and replying to existing tweets. We provide a possible explanation for the observed time-varying dynamics of user activities during the spreading of this scientific "rumor". We model the information spreading in the corresponding network of individuals who posted a tweet related to the Higgs boson discovery. Finally, we show that we are able to reproduce the global behavior of about 500,000 individuals with remarkable accuracy.