  The surge in scientific publications challenges the use of publication counts
as a measure of scientific progress, requiring alternative metrics that
emphasize the quality and novelty of scientific contributions rather than sheer
quantity. This paper proposes the use of Relaxed Word Mover's Distance (RWMD),
a semantic text similarity measure, to evaluate the novelty of scientific
papers. We hypothesize that RWMD can more effectively gauge the growth of
scientific knowledge. To test such an assumption, we apply RWMD to evaluate
seminal papers, with Hirsch's H-Index paper as a primary case study. We compare
RWMD results across three groups: 1) H-Index-related papers, 2) scientometric
studies, and 3) unrelated papers, aiming to discern redundant literature and
hype from genuine innovations. Findings suggest that emphasizing knowledge
claims offers a deeper insight into scientific contributions, marking RWMD as a
promising alternative method to traditional citation metrics, thus better
tracking significant scientific breakthroughs.
