Scientific output in the third world

Although such indicators exhibit only certain aspects of the contribution of science to a country, the number of scientific authors in a given year is plotted for every year between 1971 and 1976, inclusive, and the number of scientific authors divided by the population of the country is also given for those years. The number of scientific authors is the number of scientists who published at least one article in a journal in that given year. The data were taken from a survey which, although it covers only about 4000 scientific journals, includes a large fraction of all articles published.The results are given in 43 graphs, the first 17 of which show the number of authors and the second 16 the authors per capita. The graphs are divided according to geographical areas: Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and within each region countries with roughly comparable output or output per capita are grouped together.The last ten graphs show the growth rates of authors and of authors per capita, compared to the 1971 values, for groups of countries aggregated according to various parameters with which correlation is being investigated. Continent, size of population literacy rate about 25 years before, the percentage of gross national product spent on military expenditures, and colonial past.