It might be not very true for papers that almost nobody is going to cite ever again, but the idea in general is to have &quot;some kind of impact&quot; that outlives you.<p>Having kids fulfills the same, but does not &quot;scale&quot; very well (for lack of a better word), since you can only have so many, parenting is hard and you might screw it up irreversibly. Creating something novel and useful (even if only marginally so) has the potential to touch countless lives, even after yours is over.<p>It could be art, or software, or an algorithm, or a formula...