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The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words
- joshrotenberg 12y agoHere's my entry: "It's hard."
- est 12y agoFor Americans?
- madez 12y agoDo you think brazilians, argentinians, ..., mexicans are cognitively underqualified?
- biot 12y agoI don't know about math journals, but you could try getting that published as the world's shortest article in Playboy.
- anigbrowl 12y agoNeeds motivation.
- Dylan16807 12y agoHmm, I think I would make mine referential. "Baby shoes" Let 2 words imply 6.
- ctdonath 12y agoImpressive. I will long remember your post. [Background for those not getting it: what's touted as the world's shortest story is "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." attributed to Ernest Hemingway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_wor... Makes me tear up just recounting it.]
- Pinckney 12y agoThe paper doesn't make any sense without the title: "Can n^2 + 1 unit equilateral triangles cover an equilateral triangle of side >n, say n+\epsilon?"
- acadien 12y agoAlso why didn't the article include both of the figures? It can all be found here for those interested; http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf
- pron 12y agoToo long.
- flashman 12y agoAh, this is like cheating on a compression test by encoding information in the filename.
- raverbashing 12y agoOr splitting it into several files
- rahimnathwani 12y agohttp://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php
- Lorento 12y agoThis is a fascinating story about a smug smarty pants being outsmarted!
- Sarkie 12y agoGreat reference!
- anigbrowl 12y ago
- geofft 12y agoCan someone explain Figure 2 from this paper? (If you didn't catch the link, it's inlined at http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf .) Figure 1 makes sense to me: it's (n-1)² unit equilateral triangles, plus a row at the bottom with (2n-1) + 2 equilateral triangles that causes coverage of a slightly larger triangle. (I assume the question posed is "for at least some tiny but nonzero ε".) I don't know how to start interpreting figure 2. Where are the n²+2 triangles (or are they supposed to be there?)? What's the big empty space? Why 1 - ε, not 1 + ε?
- artnep 12y agoI think the idea is that the lower n-1 rows each have height (n-1)ε (by spreading them out horizontally), and at the top there's a big triangle with side length 1+(n-1)ε
- racoonear 12y agoI still don't understand, what do you mean about lower rows having height (n-1)ε (by spreading them out horizontally)?
- hkmurakami 12y agoDefinitely not surprised that the author is John Conway (and his coauthor). I took his course on Linear Algebra back in the day -- the man is a veritable real life troll (in a good way)
- madez 12y agoThat's typical for mathematicians - even more so with extroverted ones. They approach rules as a game one can use at will as long as the rules remain true. Thus, playing pranks with rules can become enjoyable. Coincidentally, surprise is the quintessence of humour, some say. The original meaning of the word "hacker" is related to this thinking. However, the focus is different. The hackers tend to achieve their goal in whatever "hacky" way possible while mathematicians see the rules itself as the game.
- ot 12y agoEven shorter: proofs without words http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-words http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-words
- ocfnash 12y agoSomewhat related: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-maximizes-the-ratio-importance-length http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-maxi...
- amelius 12y agoWe should send those into space, so aliens can use them without having to learn our language first.
- bjpirt 12y agoMaybe it should be 2002 words, if a picture is worth 1000 words.
- realityking 12y agoReminds me of the record for the shortest movie review. The movie in question is called "Isn't it Romantic?" which Leonard Maltin succinctly answered with "No". Unfortunately no better online source than Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isn%27t_It_Romantic%3F_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isn%27t_It_Romantic%3F_%28film%...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mahmud 12y agotl;dr?
- charlieflowers 12y agoNow I can casually drop in conversation the fact that I have read 2 math articles this month.
- hyperliner 12y agoDarn. I came here just to say that. Oh well, you beat me this time
- ar-jan 12y agoI suppose the title of this submission is correct, but I would like to note that it's not "a new world record in the number of words in a paper". I believe that honour goes to: Fiengo, Robert, and Howard Lasnik. 1972. “On Nonrecoverable Deletion in Syntax.” Linguistic Inquiry 3 (4): 528. You can read the entire paper here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmLQjz0CMAA-l28.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmLQjz0CMAA-l28.jpg:large
- _delirium 12y agoA similar result, which appears to have been reached independently and roughly contemporaneously: Dennis Upper. 1974. The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of "writer's block". Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 7 (3): 497. (Unfortunately it's paywalled: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/...)
- gweinberg 12y agoI don't think this article should be considered a record-holder. It's effectively 1002 words long.
- innguest 12y agoI was going to say the same thing. :) Drawings and explanations go hand in hand.