aha! just as I suspected... during 1951-1964, he published 16 papers, better than one per year.
But, after his breakthrough, he eased back to 9, over 1965-2013... and only the first 3 look to be research papers (the remaining 6 seem to be historical recountings).
Now, I don't blame him - do something incredible, why not slack off? He's way more accomplished than I could ever hope to be.
But if you want an exemplar of doing great work, the pace before his breakthrough, leading up to it, seems the better guide. i.e. one per year.
Why is it slacking off? Is it instead not normal for scientists to publish 3 papers over ~40 years? How do we know whether or not this is normal or abnormal?
I'm inclined to believe we don't. And that we only assume so because of the incentive structures in place in our grant-first, publish-always system.
Nowadays his 'prime year' 1 paper per year would be considered an unacceptably low rate and result in him being thrown off long before his breakthrough.
Now, I don't blame him - do something incredible, why not slack off? He's way more accomplished than I could ever hope to be.
But if you want an exemplar of doing great work, the pace before his breakthrough, leading up to it, seems the better guide. i.e. one per year.