Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why? - danielhughes
======
avinashv
Claude Shannon 1948, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commun...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Communication)

This paper kickstarted the concept of information theory, and was hugely
influential on many fields of research. Signal-to-noise ratio, the bit,
information entropy, etc. are all theories and concepts presented by Shannon.

~~~
ivan_ah
+1! I find the whole notion of "typical set" to be absolutely amazing.

I would like to share with you a few pages from the intro to my thesis which
cover Shannon's channel coding theorem. There are some nice TiKZ
illustrations.
[http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/Shannon_channel_cod...](http://minireference.com/static/excerpts/Shannon_channel_coding_thm.pdf)
(it's not super detailed, but the definitions of all the moving parts are
given)

~~~
swairshah
This is really cool. I'm working in systems research, but I'm fascinated by
mathematical research in CS. Did you continue with similar work after your
PhD, If I may ask?

~~~
ivan_ah
I've since switched my research focus to machine learning (look up _latent
Dirichlet allocation_ , very cool stuff). I find a lot of parallels between
the two fields: prob. theory, matrices, uncertainty, ...

I'm still following quantum information theory research, but more as a
spectator from the sidelines. However, a couple of weeks ago I had to come
back to quantum info. theory to "defend" my academic reputation. Our
colleagues from TIFR found a bug in one of our papers
([http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3645v3](http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3645v3)) so my
coauthor and I had to fix it. It was kind of cool to see I hadn't "lost my
quantum skills" after two years of running a business. I guess, once you go
quantum you never go back? :)

------
chromejs10
The papers published on the Google File System (GFS) and Map Reduce are still
some of my all time favorite papers. It gives really good inside into how
GFS/Map Reduce was built, but explains it in a very straight forward way. We
actually implemented an in memory version of GFS/MapReduce in my graduate
operating systems class. It remains as one of my favorite projects I've ever
done.

[http://research.google.com/archive/gfs.html](http://research.google.com/archive/gfs.html)

[http://research.google.com/archive/mapreduce.html](http://research.google.com/archive/mapreduce.html)

~~~
nitishmd
That sounds like an interesting project to do in spare time. Can you link to
the project description? or your universities class notes?

~~~
chromejs10
Yeah sure. Here is the project page:
[https://sites.google.com/a/cs.usfca.edu/cs-636-2011s/project...](https://sites.google.com/a/cs.usfca.edu/cs-636-2011s/projects/project-3)

All notes and stuff can be found here:
[https://sites.google.com/a/cs.usfca.edu/cs-636-2011s/schedul...](https://sites.google.com/a/cs.usfca.edu/cs-636-2011s/schedule)

I learned a ton about MapReduce and GFS. It was a great learning experience.

~~~
nitishmd
great thank you!

------
alphaBetaGamma
Einstein, Albert. "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies." Annalen der
Physik 17.891 (1905): 50.

[http://ganapathymani.com/On%20the%20electrodymics%20of%20mov...](http://ganapathymani.com/On%20the%20electrodymics%20of%20moving%20bodies.pdf)

This paper establishes special relativity, and is remarquable for how clear it
is, revolutionizing physics while using only elementary math. The first
"Kinematical" part in particular does not use anything more complex
mathematically than Pythagorus theorem. It is so clear that the explanations
and though experiments are reproduced in _all_ textbooks to this day; the only
change is that textbooks include diagrams.

~~~
sytelus
I've attempted reading this paper about half dozen time and no, it's far from
"clear". The language and description of the paper requires a LOT of context
and understanding of 1900s state of world. There are quite a few "companians"
that can help. Here's snippet from [1]:

 _Modern readers turning to Einstein’s famous 1905 paper on special relativity
may not find what they expect. Its title, “On the electrodynamics of moving
bodies,” gives no inkling that it will develop an account of space and time
that will topple Newton’s system. Even its first paragraph just calls to mind
an elementary experimental result due to Faraday concerning the interaction of
a magnet and conductor._

[1]
[http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.pdf](http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.pdf)

------
pbsd
"Sequences of numbers generated by addition in formal groups and new primality
and factorization tests", by the Chudnovsky brothers [1].

This paper is incredibly ahead of its time. While elliptic curves in
cryptography are usually attributed to Hendrik Lenstra for destructive
purposes (ECM factorization), and Koblitz and Miller for constructive purposes
in 1985, this paper contains almost everything relevant to _practical_ curve-
based cryptography long before everyone else. Highlights include:

\- Hessian, Jacobian quartic, and Jacobian intersection curves, and derivation
of respective fast addition and doubling formulas; they also comment on the
value of unified addition formulas for simplicity.

\- The "Montgomery" ladder for "x-only" Jacobian intersections: Peter
Montgomery was directly influenced by this paper to produce his curves, and it
is easy to see the resemblance.

\- The idea of working in genus 2, and formulas for genus 2 Kummer surface
doubling. Hyperelliptic curve cryptography was only later proposed by Koblitz
in 1987. Almost 3 decades later, Kummer surfaces are now the fastest way to do
scalar multiplication on beefy hardware.

[1]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/01968858869...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0196885886900230)

------
hnnewguy
As an economics undergraduate, Paul Krugman's paper on _The Theory of
Interstellar Trade_ was a must read, exclusively for its light-heartedness:

[https://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf](https://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf)

(12 pages, quick read)

~~~
jgmmo
Came here to say this. It really is awesome; and I hate Krugman!

It's really an interesting situation; thinking about how there would no longer
be an 'unambiguous' measure of time when we have faster than light travel.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _and I hate Krugman!_

I try to separate academic Krugman from New York Times Krugman. It helps.

~~~
tormeh
Why do all of you seem to hate Krugman?

~~~
hnnewguy
> _Why does all of you seem to hate Krugman?_

I don't. I have much respect for the man.

But his NYT writings can sometimes lean towards what might be described as
"left-wing blowhardism".

------
cmrx64
William P. Thurston 1994, "On proof and progress in mathematics"

Gives a good amount of insight into how academia works for mathematics, and
gives a good contrast with how CS works. Don't be scared by the abstract, it's
a completely non-technical paper. The academic/research culture can be more
important than the results.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/math.HO/9404236](http://arxiv.org/abs/math.HO/9404236)

------
bdcs
In the vain of generally appreciated papers, I really like "Whitesides' Group:
Writing a Paper" by George Whitesides[0][1]. It gives a strategy for
collaborating research based on using a paper as a living document. It seems
like a lot of work, but it saves untold days in the long run. This is the
first paper I give anyone I mentor.

There have been derivative works on giving presentations, that I also
particularly like: Editorial: Effective Presentations—A Must. [2]

[0] In case you don't know of him: he is the most cited living chemist, or
something to this effect

[1]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.200400767/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.200400767/abstract)

[2]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201209795/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201209795/abstract)

~~~
walterbell
Link:
[http://www.ee.ucr.edu/~rlake/Whitesides_writing_res_paper.pd...](http://www.ee.ucr.edu/~rlake/Whitesides_writing_res_paper.pdf)

------
alphaBetaGamma
Watson, James D., and Francis HC Crick. "Molecular structure of nucleic
acids." Nature 171.4356 (1953): 737-738.

[http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-
back/crick/index.html](http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-
back/crick/index.html)

Partly because of the fundamental importance of the paper, elucidating the
structure of DNA; partly for the wonderfully understated third to last
paragraph: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have
postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic
material."

------
EthanHeilman
Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin, 1979 "The spandrels of San Marco
and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme"

Some biologists may cringe (especially the Gould haters), but I don't think
I've ever been so engrossed by any other scholarly paper. It is a joy to read.
Very approachable for non-biologists. The papers critique of sloppy "just so"
reasoning, could easily be extended to Data
Scientists/Engineers/Entrepreneurs. Highly recommend!

~~~
lambdaphage
I am cringing. Gould was a classic case of projection, having been guilty of
everything he accused his opponents of: misreading one's opponents, proneness
to ideological bias, and experimental technique so sloppy that deliberate
fraud starts to look like the simpler explanation.
([http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjo...](http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001071,http://lesswrong.com/lw/kv/beware_of_stephen_j_gould/))

There are other bones to pick with Gould, but these are the ones that make him
impossible to read as an interested layperson without personally verifying
every sentence.

------
the_why_of_y
"On Understanding Types, Data Abstraction, and Polymorphism" (Luca Cardelli,
Peter Wegner)
[http://lucacardelli.name/papers/onunderstanding.a4.pdf](http://lucacardelli.name/papers/onunderstanding.a4.pdf)

Very nice intro to type systems.

"A Language-based Approach to Unifying Events and Threads" (Peng Li, Steve
Zdancewic)
[http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06b.pdf](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06b.pdf)

For showing that if you have a sufficiently powerful programming language, the
answer to the question "async events or multiple threads?" can be "the best of
both worlds".

"The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls" (James Bessen, Jennifer Ford,
Michael Meurer)
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1930272](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1930272)

If you ever wondered exactly how much wealth is destroyed by the US patent
system, this paper provides some educated guesstimates.

~~~
tel
Koen Claessens's _A Poor Man 's Concurrency Monad_ [0] is perhaps easier
reading than Li and Zdancewic here.

[0]
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.8...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.8039)

------
e12e
I'm not quite sure what's meant by "scholary papers", but I really enjoy(ed)
Fielding's Ph.d thesis on "REST":

[http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm](http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm)

Mostly because, it's not actually about just REST, but the way he derives REST
as a reasonable approach to architect hypermedia/hypertext "applications" (In
quotes, because, he's not really talking about "web apps" \-- he mentions some
other patterns that _do_ describe "web apps" though).

I have the impression few people read and understood his paper, and run around
with REST like others run around with MVC. Which brings us to:

Trygve M. H. Reenskaug's "MVC" (neé Model-View-Controller-User):
[http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/mvc/mvc-
index.html](http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/mvc/mvc-index.html)

and, newer, less known: "DCI - A new Role Based Paradigm for specifying
collaborating objects":

[http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/babyide/babyide-
index...](http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/babyide/babyide-index.html)

I think that sums up the "papers" I generally refer back to, and find myself
frustrated that so few people seem to have read and/or understood. Which leads
to strange discussions and unhealthy re-inventions and "improvements".

Oh, I really enjoy some of the work of VPRI/Alan Kay -- but they've been
rather thin on useful papers, as far as I can tell. I did enjoy a paper on
Croquet's TeaTime protocol/world model -- but sadly I can't seem to find it...
hang on, I think it might be this one here:

"Designing croquet's TeaTime: a real-time, temporal environment for active
object cooperation":

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1094861](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1094861)

All less impressive than Shannon, Einstein, Knuth etc... but I really find
those interesting.

~~~
stiff
The REST thesis, whatever merit it may otherwise have, is also a prime example
of the academic style of writing going horribly wrong, though. You could
communicate the important novel points of this text in 5-10 pages of clear
prose, instead the thesis goes on and on and bathes in vague generalities,
introduces lots of jargon that contributes little and so on. It reads like
something from the philosophy department, or the kind of writing that Orwell
mocks in "Politics and the English Language". This is the reason why to this
day many people who use the term REST do not really understand what it means.
Compare it to how Watson and Crick communicated their fundamental discoveries:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf](http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf)

~~~
deong
Everyone I know with a PhD has a 10-page journal article they recommend you
read instead of the thesis. For whatever reason, this is the way PhD theses
tend to work these days.

~~~
dmd
My PhD thesis (U of Penn, cognitive neuroscience) _is_ two of my 5 page
journal articles, stapled together, with an introduction and conclusion added
on mostly as an afterthought. I'm not sure why other schools don't do the
same.

~~~
deong
I do get why some people dislike the sandwich thesis. From the standpoint of
providing evidence that you deserve the PhD, it's fine. We judge research
performance by published papers, so publish two or three good ones, print them
out, and graduate.

If we're talking about the quality of the actual thesis as a separate document
that has value on its own, the sandwich thesis isn't great though. No one
would argue that it needs to be an entirely separate piece of work from your
papers, but there's a legitimate case for requiring it to be pretty heavily
edited into something resembling a book rather than a collection of articles
on the same topic.

------
lbradstreet
I'm not going to mention a specific paper, but Papers We Love
([https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we-love](https://github.com/papers-
we-love/papers-we-love)) has some good stuff on it, and the meetups have
always been interesting (at least for my local chapter).

------
damurdock
Since someone already posted "Spandrels", I'll go with "How Not to be a
Bioinformatician" by Manuel Corpas, Segun Fatumo, and Reinhard Schneider[0].
It's a humorous takedown of very common problems in Bioinformatics. I think
the point comes across better when you say "if you do X, you are doing poorly"
versus "don't do X if you want to do well". Plus, it's a little cathartic.

[0] [http://www.scfbm.org/content/7/1/3](http://www.scfbm.org/content/7/1/3)

------
boyaka
Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing

[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28...](http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf)

I've been attempting to write a paper on virtualization and other
Cloud/datacenter machine managing software. This was one of the first papers I
read in my Cloud Computing class, and I actually recently came back to it
after becoming lost reading countless papers on more specific cloud research.
It really clears up a lot of confusion on terminology regarding different
forms of computing services and the challenges in the field. I wish I knew
from the start how much more accurate the statements in this paper are
compared to a lot of other content out there, and that I could have been
warned about how misleading that other content would be due to authors trying
to validate their own software creations.

Before I came back to it, I was playing with the thought that the cloud is
really just corporatization of computing resources that only leaves the
biggest players to survive because of profits, which really vibes with this
paper. It really is just computing infrastructure as a utility and the idea is
nothing new. There are several other papers out there that make the same
points, but I appreciate this one for really nailing the practical terminology
without any sort of vagueness. It's not surprising that it is such a highly
referenced and popular paper.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
"Suppose it is the 1890s. Artificial flight is the glamor subject in science,
engineering, and venture capital circles." -Intelligence without
representation by Rodney Brooks
[http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/representation.pdf](http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/representation.pdf)

It's accessible, and it's a good intro to thinking about AI. The field oughta
be called even more nifty algorithms.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Also, see elephants don't play chess:

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/elephants.pdf](http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/elephants.pdf)

------
dikek
Not tech related but...

Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care by Kenneth Arrow (1963)
[1].

This paper effectively makes the case that medical care shouldn't be treated
like other goods.

If you're remotely interested in health econ/health industry, I recommend
reading it.

1\.
[https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/top20/53.5.941-973.pdf](https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/top20/53.5.941-973.pdf)

~~~
nooron
Big fan. Have you read Norm Daniels' Just Health? It's a riff off a
Rawls/Social Contract world view, and it really spoke to me.

~~~
dikek
It has been on my list of books to read since I saw it on the Incidental
Economist blog years ago. Thanks for giving me the push I needed to read it.

~~~
nooron
My pleasure. Shoot me an email at jordan at birnholtz dot com if you'd like
any notes or supplementary texts (or just a friendly chat about the subject).

------
tempestn
_Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds (1993)_

[http://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/valkanov/pub/classes/...](http://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/valkanov/pub/classes/mfe/docs/fama_french_jfe_1993.pdf)

The foundation of the Three-Factor model, which shows how market returns can
be very accurately described using exposure to market, small, and value
factors (as well as term and default factors, primarily used for fixed
income). The foundation of modern value investing.

 _A Stand-Alone, Split-Phase Current-Sourced Inverter With Novel Energy
Storage_

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=468271...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4682717&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D4682717)

There's nothing particularly special about this paper except that it was
accepted by IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and I wrote it. :P

------
jasoncrawford
The Mundanity of Excellence: [http://lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-
Mundanity%20of%2...](http://lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-
Mundanity%20of%20Excellence.pdf)

A study of competitive swimmers and what separates the mediocre from the
great, but widely applicable to many forms of excellence or greatness.

------
rgacote
"The Letter S" by Donald E. Knuth. An entire paper on the typographical design
of the letter S and variants based on type size and other attributes. An
elegant paper on a single letter:

[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF03023051#page-1](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF03023051#page-1)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is a sad tragedy that this article is not freely available on the web (at
least as I can find).

~~~
vixen99
Come on, $39.95 / €34.95 / £29.95 isn't much and I am sure Springer deserve to
cash in on Knuth's work.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I can't tell if you're serious but...I can get it for free if I just wait to
be in the office tomorrow (we subscribe to springer). If I remember that is.

However, many people here are not going to pay the money or have access
through their employer, and will miss out. Free Knuth!

------
SoftwareMaven
Perhaps not quite what the OP had in mind, but I found the papers that
affected my life the most were not in my chosen profession.

 _Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN Diets for Change in Weight
and Related Risk Factors Among Overweight Premenopausal Women_ [1] and _Low-
carbohydrate nutrition and metabolism_ [2]. After spending most of my life
obese, even after having bariatric surgery to "correct" it, I found I had to
dive into the science on my own to see past the charlatans and the demagogues.
These two papers lit the way for me.

1\.
[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916)

2\.
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/2/276.full](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/2/276.full)

------
DenisM
Optimistic Replication - YASUSHI SAITO & MARC SHAPIRO, 2005
[http://pagesperso-
systeme.lip6.fr/Marc.Shapiro/papers/Optimi...](http://pagesperso-
systeme.lip6.fr/Marc.Shapiro/papers/Optimistic_Replication_Computing_Surveys_2005-03_cameraready.pdf)

Why: RPC and its ilk make a lousy model for mobile data, since mobile devices
are only occasionally connected, not permanently. Similarly, in the face
network and server failures, servers can be modeled as occasionally connected
as well. The "replication" mindset is far more productive when dealing with
those issues. The linked paper gives a broad overview of a great number of
approaches to replication, and is a great way to get the lay of the land.

~~~
walterbell
Xerox PARC, _Epidemic Algorithms for Replicated Database Maintenance_ , 1989

[http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-89-1...](http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-89-1_Epidemic_Algorithms_for_Replicated_Database_Maintenance.pdf)

------
mathattack
The cross section of expected returns.

[http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Research/Papers/French/The_...](http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Research/Papers/French/The_Cross-
Section_of_Expected_Stock_Returns.pdf)

It simultaneous disproves one notion of efficient markets, and shows how
passive indexes can explain most so-called active management. (Much of VC
outperformance is explained by the size factor, and much of private equity
outperformance is explained by the value factor, both of which can be
passively invested in)

------
hchenji
Not tech related, but this paper on an urban movement in India: "Urban
Upheaval in India: The 1974 Nav Nirman Riots in Gujarat"

It gives insight into the nexus between politics and student unions/student
bodies in India. It reads more like a story than a scholarly article.

[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2643482?uid=3739536&ui...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2643482?uid=3739536&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104695522261)

------
rweba
"Can a biologist fix a radio?"

[http://www.protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v69/pdf/bc...](http://www.protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v69/pdf/bcm_1403.pdf)

Funny and inspirational, and shows how primitive a lot of biological research
really is: Almost randomly try a bunch of things and take note of anything
that has any effect. Lather, rinse, repeat.

------
bootload
'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis', Alan Turing.

The last paper written by Alan Turing, "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis,"
[0] attempted to answer the theoretical explanation of the biological process
that defines the shape of an embryonic organism from creation. This process is
called "Morphogenesis". This is an important problem because complex organisms
appear to be created by some "random" process that organises what appear to be
self similar cells.

A lot of recent work has been done to experiment Turings ideas on "reaction-
diffusion" processes describing morphogenesis in biology and other natural
systems to see if a) they can be reproduced in the lab and b) mathematically
model them. [1]

There is a pretty good broad outline of Turing and Morphogenesis in a BBC
documentary, "The Secret Life of Chaos" [2] by Professor Jim Al-Khalili on
Youtube. [3]

[0] Alan Turing, "THE CHEMICAL BASIS OF MORPHOGENESIS,
[http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing....](http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing.pdf)

[1] Brandon Keim, Wired, "Alan Turing’s Patterns in Nature, and Beyond"
[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/turing-
patterns/?p...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/turing-
patterns/?pid=9..).

[2] Jim Al-Khalili, "The Secret Life of Chaos"
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv1c3](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv1c3)

[3] Jim Al-Khalili, "The Secret Life of Chaos"
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY)

------
privong
Toomre and Toomre, 1972, "Galactic Bridges and Tails".
[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972ApJ...178..623T](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972ApJ...178..623T)

This paper addressed the question of how galaxies with bridges and tails were
formed. It used a series of simulations with gravitationally interacting point
masses and associated test particles to represent the disks of two galaxies.
It was one of the first papers to convincingly demonstrate that gravitational
tidal interactions can create the narrow "tails" seen extending from some
galaxies (others had argued that gravity could not make such narrow tails and
argued for magetic fields).

This paper also speculated that gravitational interactions between galaxies
could result in an increase in the amount of gas at the centers of galaxies
and possibly explain the enhanced rate of star formation and supermassive
black hole growth seen in some galaxies galaxies.

------
exratione
If we define favorite as most often reached for in reference to present
discussions, then probably this. People are persistently surprised by the
expected results of cumulative gains in all areas of life, here also:

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020187](http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020187)

"Those who get first-generation therapies only just in time will in fact be
unlikely to live more than 20–30 years more than their parents, because they
will spend many frail years with a short remaining life expectancy (i.e., a
high risk of imminent death), whereas those only a little younger will never
get that frail and will spend rather few years even in biological middle age.
Quantitatively, what this means is that if a 10% per year decline of mortality
rates at all ages is achieved and sustained indefinitely, then the first
1000-year-old is probably only 5–10 years younger than the first 150-year-
old."

------
aaron695
"Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability"
[http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf](http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf)

It made me realise how political science can be and how facts on large issues
can be covered up for political reasons.

~~~
tokenadult
_It made me realise how political science can be and how facts on large issues
can be covered up for political reasons._

You mean all the facts that Ruston left out made you realize that? I hope
that's what you mean, as that paper is a dog.

Here's a better paper on closely related topics, by authors who have advanced
the research considerably:

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D.
F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Intelligence: New findings and theoretical
developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159.

doi:10.1037/a0026699

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Nisbett\(2012\)%20.pdf)

~~~
aaron695
The paper is not perfect, but it let me question the reality of the world
around me and how much was real and how much was constructed.

I find papers that challenge my ideas more enlightening than ones that
reinforce them. Which obviously makes sense I guess.

The paper I linked I considered reputable enough, in a topic known to be
difficult, to be of note. Every paper has issues, the trick is working out if
the issues kill the paper or not.

------
stonogo
"On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether"
([https://www.aip.org/history/gap/PDF/michelson.pdf](https://www.aip.org/history/gap/PDF/michelson.pdf))

This paper achieves a wonderful balance between being incredibly important and
almost absurdly easy to read and understand.

------
koddsson
Joe Armstrong 2003, "Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of
software errors"
[https://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf](https://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf)

~~~
rhodin
Attended his defense of this, it was a ton of fun! "Defending the
thesis"-slide had Joe, sword in hand, defending the thesis against a comic-
styled dragon.

------
wkmeade2
John Platt "Strong Inference" SCIENCE 16 October 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642

How to think/discover with maximum advantage. A jewel of an article, the most
photocopied SCIENCE article I've ever encountered in library stacks.
Foundation to methodological adventures.

~~~
b_emery
[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~markhil/science64_strong_inference...](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~markhil/science64_strong_inference.pdf)

------
drjesusphd
Einstein, "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies"

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www](https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www)

It's remarkably accessible and clear (at least Part I is).

------
rom16384
I found these two papers very eye-opening. They talk about the limitations of
reductionism in science.

P.W. Anderson, "More is different",
[https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen...](https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf)

R. B. Laughlin and D. Pines, "The theory of everything",
[http://www.pnas.org/content/97/1/28.full.pdf&embedded=true](http://www.pnas.org/content/97/1/28.full.pdf&embedded=true)

------
agopinath
Quantum random number generation on a mobile phone (2014)[1]

A topic which seems at first rather obscure overlaps with something relatable
to yield a fascinating result. The blog post [2] was especially enticing for
non-specialists like myself.

1\. [http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0435](http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0435)

2\. [https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/quantum-random-
num...](https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/quantum-random-number-
generator-created-using-a-smartphone-camera-602f88552b64)

------
eli_gottlieb
Favorite PL paper for balancing practicality and theory:
[http://ropas.snu.ac.kr/~bruno/papers/TypeClasses.pdf](http://ropas.snu.ac.kr/~bruno/papers/TypeClasses.pdf)

Favorite paper/dissertation for sheer simplicity, elegance, and far-reaching
power of the approach to the problem: [http://web.mit.edu/vkm/www/vkm-
dissertation.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/vkm/www/vkm-dissertation.pdf)

------
teekert
"Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation"
[http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674%2811%2900127-9.pdf](http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674%2811%2900127-9.pdf)
A paper that gives a nice frame of reference for understanding and talking
about the biology of cancer. This paper is the follow-up of the original
Hallmarks of cancer by Hanahan and Weinberg (2000).

------
karmacondon
A paper about making video game characters act more like real people, trained
by having people simulate interactions in a restaurant setting.

[http://www.media.mit.edu/cogmac/publications/orkin_aamas2009...](http://www.media.mit.edu/cogmac/publications/orkin_aamas2009..).

Not ground breaking by any means, but it's the only time I've genuinely
laughed out loud when reading a paper.

~~~
e12e
Oh, this reminds me of Bartle's "HEARTS, CLUBS, DIAMONDS, SPADES: PLAYERS WHO
SUIT MUDS":

[http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm](http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm)

Much for the same reason I like Filedings REST thesis (see other comment in
this thread): the reasoning that goes into it. The "types" have since been
"debunked" \-- but IMNHO that sort of misses the point: that he has an
interesting way of looking at what makes a game fun, and how things like lack
of automapping can stimulate player communication.

------
jMyles
Some of the trippiest math I've ever seen. I sat with one of the authors while
he wrote pecked out parts of his contribution. Smoking a bong. He's 83.

Completely dissociative groupoids.
[http://mb.math.cas.cz/mb137-1/6.html](http://mb.math.cas.cz/mb137-1/6.html)

------
austinbirch
"Out of the Tar Pit" (Ben Moseley and Peter Marks)
[http://www.curtclifton.net/storage/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pd...](http://www.curtclifton.net/storage/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pdf)

Software complexity related to mutable state.

------
pratiksaha
"The Complexity of Songs" by Donald Knuth Mostly because it is an interesting
read
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complexity_of_Songs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complexity_of_Songs)

------
ShinyElena
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------
Naga
For something completely different, Amelia Rauser, "The Butcher-Kissing
Dutchess of Devonshire: Between Caricature and Allegory in 1784." Eighteenth-
Century Studies 36 (Fall 2002): 23-47.

~~~
unclesaamm
Can you explain the meaning of this paper to you?

------
dajohnson89
Two Dogmas of Empiricism, by W.V.O. Quine.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism)

------
e12e
I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned a category theory paper yet. I'm
hoping one will pop up ;-)

