A Quantitative Measure of Theoretical Scientific Merit

Program review in the physical sciences may benefit from a framework within which to quantitatively discuss the scientific merit of a proposed theoretical program of research, and to assess the scientific merit of a particular theoretical paper. This article interprets a previously proposed measure of experimental scientific merit in a manner appropriate for quantifying the scientific merit of completed and proposed theoretical research. With this interpretation, the resulting figure of merit represents a proposal for a quantitative measure of total scientific merit.