The article examines the inflation in the number of authors that now affects several disciplines such as particle physics and biomedical sciences. Deepening the example of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN, which discovered the Higgs boson in 2012, the article details the signing procedures in this field, reviews the factors responsible for the inflation in the number of authors, asks whether this inflation has caused the emergence of novel phenomena, characterizes these novelties, and specifies the time and number thresholds at which they appeared. The article concludes that the inflation in the number of authors in particle physics is an emergent (not additive) process, proved, in particular, by the normative activity engaged in the field.
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