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I would also add that by and large this isn't done because of ego, but simply brevity. Seminal papers are often already hundreds of pages long, so to add every
by throwaway080383 8y ago
I would also add that by and large this isn't done because of ego, but simply brevity. Seminal papers are often already hundreds of pages long, so to add every detail would bloat them to thousands of pages. And in any case, "skipping steps" is exactly how the top mathematicians think about the proofs when creating them.
- loup-vaillant 8y agoYeah, well, paper sucks. http://worrydream.com/#!/ScientificCommunicationAsSequentialArt http://worrydream.com/#!/ScientificCommunicationAsSequential... No mathematician today doesn't have access to a computer. Just fold the proof to some appropriate coarse level by default, and let the reader expand any part they want to read. It's not like our computers had any meaningful limit on how big a mathematical proof could be.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoI think the limit may be the author, not the tool the author writes with.
- loup-vaillant 8y agoHistorically, there was always a limit to how big a paper could be to make it into a journal. Papers that aren't meant to make it into a journal are often way bigger.