The introduction of wavelets in the mid 80's has significantly reshaped some areas of the scientific landscape by establishing bridges between previously disconnected domains, and eventually leading to a new paradigm. This generally accepted-yet loose-claim can be given a more precise form by exploiting bibliometric databases such as the ISI Web of Science. Preliminary results in this direction will be reported here, based on multiple entries where authors, references, keywords and disciplines are used as nodes of a network in which the links correspond to their co-appearance in the same paper. While the evolution in time of such an « heterogeneous net » gives a quantified perspective on the birth and growth of wavelets as a well-identified scientific field of its own, it also raises many interpretation issues (related, e.g., to automation vs. expertise) whose implications go beyond this peculiar case study.

Keywords : wavelets - history - bibliometry - network, paradigm[-]