

The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words - tintinnabula
http://www.openculture.com/2015/04/the-world-record-for-the-shortest-math-article-2-words.html

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Pinckney
The 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?"

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flashman
Ah, this is like cheating on a compression test by encoding information in the
filename.

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rahimnathwani
[http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php](http://www.patrickcraig.co.uk/other/compression.php)

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Lorento
This is a fascinating story about a smug smarty pants being outsmarted!

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geofft
Can 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?

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artnep
I 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

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racoonear
I still don't understand, what do you mean about lower rows having height
(n-1)ε (by spreading them out horizontally)?

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hkmurakami
Definitely 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)

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madez
That'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.

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ot
Even shorter: proofs without words
[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-
words](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-words)

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ocfnash
Somewhat related: [http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-
maxi...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-maximizes-
the-ratio-importance-length)

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bjpirt
Maybe it should be 2002 words, if a picture is worth 1000 words.

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realityking
Reminds 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%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isn%27t_It_Romantic%3F_%28film%29)

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charlieflowers
Now I can casually drop in conversation the fact that I have read 2 math
articles this month.

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hyperliner
Darn. I came here just to say that. Oh well, you beat me _this time_

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gweinberg
I don't think this article should be considered a record-holder. It's
effectively 1002 words long.

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innguest
I was going to say the same thing. :)

Drawings and explanations go hand in hand.

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ar-jan
I 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)

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_delirium
A 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/...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/abstract))

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mahmud
tl;dr?

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joshrotenberg
Here's my entry: "It's hard."

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biot
I don't know about math journals, but you could try getting that published as
the world's shortest article in Playboy.

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anigbrowl
Needs motivation.

