
Ask HN: What's your favorite scientific paper? - pc
What's your favorite scientific paper, from any field?<p>(Particularly interested in papers which readers here think are truly great, but, for whatever reason, aren't very widely known.)
======
tectonic
Radia Perlman's pivotal 1985 paper "An algorithm for distributed computation
of a spanningtree in an extended LAN"

<http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~ji/F02/ir02/p44-perlman.pdf>

More papers should have their algorithms in rhyme!

    
    
      Algorhyme
    
      I think that I shall never see 
      A graph more lovely than a tree
    
      A tree whose crucial property 
      Is loop-free connectivity.
    
      A tree which must be sure to span 
      So packets can reach every LAN.
    
      First the Root must be selected 
      By ID it is elected.
    
      Least cost paths from Root are traced. 
      In the tree these paths are placed
    
      A mesh is made by folks like me 
      Then bridges find a spanning tree.

------
tel
Shannon's original paper introducing Information Theory is pretty great.

Shannon 48 [[http://cm.bell-
labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pd...](http://cm.bell-
labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf)]

~~~
evgen
How about his master's thesis. In "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching
Circuits" Shannon proved that you could use boolean algebra to simplify the
arrangement of electromechanical relays in telephone routing networks and then
in the same thesis inverted the reasoning to show that by using these relays
in the proper arrangement you could solve boolean algebra problems. All
digital computers have some DNA that leads back to this paper he wrote when he
was 21...

As comic-book guy would say: Best. Master's Thesis. Ever.

~~~
tel
Widely known as the best masters thesis ever, yeah, but I still put his Info
Theo paper as my favorite. Maybe he just had a little time to age, the
theoretical ground he covers in that one paper is incredible and yet the text
remains conversational and approachable.

------
akkartik
The magic ink paper was on top of HN 2 years ago[1]. I remember bouncing off
it the first half dozen times I ran across it on the blogosphere. Eventually I
focused, and boy was it worth it:

<http://worrydream.com/MagicInk>

It's still my #1 paper of all time, for both exposition and presentation
(layout, typography, figures), and the paper I have quoted most often on my
linkblog (<http://akkartik.name/search_results?q=bret+victor>)

I wanted to submit this to the recent thread on the future of UI
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1055194>)

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8120>. 19 points was a lot in those
days.

Edit: searchyc tells me it was resubmitted 8 months ago with success
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=600799>)

~~~
jacobolus
Not to knock the author, but this essay is basically a rehash of Edward
Tufte’s ideas, with a couple examples from computer software, and his own BART
schedule program as an extended case study. It’s interesting enough, but too
long, unfocused, and disorganized (which is probably why you bounced off a
half dozen times).

If you’re interested in the topic (information design), you’ll get more
mileage just going straight to Tufte’s books. Scott McCloud’s book, which the
author recommends, is also excellent.

~~~
akkartik
Of course I've heard of and read Tufte! But he doesn't emphasize nearly as
much the idea that you can use visual design to _eliminate interactions_. The
closest I can think of is his critique of iPhone UI:

<http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/iphone-video.adp>

 _"which is probably why you bounced off a half dozen times"_

I bounced off after the abstract, long before I could judge length, focus or
organization.

------
jhickner
"Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own
incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments."

[http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0...](http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121)

a.k.a. the dunning-kruger effect:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect>

~~~
anatoly
this is useful: <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/11/all-are-unaware.html>

~~~
onoj
Also agree - but the wake up call for me was that my lack of understanding of
a topic biased me towards thinking that the topic was trivial - ie: I was
unable to appreciate how ignorant I was. This was a world shaker for me. My
own cognitive filters were denying me understanding.

------
las3rjock
A few of my favorites, chosen from computer science and from physics:

D. E. Knuth, "An empirical study of FORTRAN programs," Software: Practice and
Experience, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 105-133, 1971.
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380010203>

    
    
      A choice quote: "A first idea for obtaining 'typical' programs was to go to
      Stanford's Computation Center and rummage in the waste baskets and the recycling
      bins.  This gave results but showed immediately what should have been obvious:
      waste-baskets usually receive undebugged programs."
    

D. E. Knuth, "The errors of TeX," Software: Practice and Experience, vol. 19,
no. 7, pp. 607-685, 1989. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380190702>

    
    
      Knuth recounts and analyzes the process of developing the TeX computer typesetting
      system.
    

A. Einstein, "Zur elektrodynamik bewegter körper," Annalen der Physik, vol.
322, no. 10, pp. 891-921, 1905. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/andp.19053221004>

    
    
      Einstein's seminal paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" that proposed
      the theory of special relativity.  A good English translation is available online
      at http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/specrel.pdf

------
BioGeek
Ben Fry (of Processing fame)'s PhD thesis: "Computational Information Design".

Abstract:

The ability to collect, store, and manage data is increasing quickly, but our
ability to understand it remains constant. In an attempt to gain better
understanding of data, fields such as information visualization, data mining
and graphic design are employed, each solving an isolated part of the specifi
c problem, but failing in a broader sense: there are too many unsolved
problems in the visualization of complex data. As a solution, this
dissertation proposes that the individual fi elds be brought together as part
of a singular process titled Computational Information Design.

This dissertation first examines the individual pedagogies of design,
information, and computation with a focus on how they support one another as
parts of a combined methodology for the exploration, analysis, and
representation of complex data. Next, in order to make the process accessible
to a wider audience, a tool is introduced to simplify the computational
process for beginners, and can be used as a sketching platform by more
advanced users. Finally, a series of examples show how the methodology and
tool can be used to address a range of data problems, in particular, the human
genome.

<http://benfry.com/phd/>

------
greatfog
Lucas Kovar, Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

[<http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html>]

Abstract: The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in
germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and
painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all
the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a
complete waste of my time.

------
natch
The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin is pretty good, and is considered
a classic.

[http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...](http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html)

It's in the field of population biology, but the principles are broadly
applicable to any system where self-interested actors can gain more than they
lose by actions that hurt the community.

------
rawwell
378 page attempt to proove 1+1=2
[http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/extreme_math_1_1_2....](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/extreme_math_1_1_2.php)
"after 378 pages, <Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead> were able to
talk about how you could prove that 1+1=2. But they couldn't actually do it
yet, because they hadn't yet managed to define addition."

------
tokenadult
"Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure" by James R.
Flynn in Psychological Bulletin. Here is the correct APA citation form,
modernized with the doi reference:

Flynn, J. R. (1987). Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests really
measure. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 171-191. doi:
10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.171

URL:

<http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/101/2/171.html>

This was a path-breaking paper, which, as N.J. Mackintosh comments, introduced
many psychologists to long-ignored data that could have been noticed long ago:
"the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a
number of other interesting issues along the way."

~~~
beza1e1
I never bothered to look up the "IQ tests are broken" statement. Scheduled
this paper for reading.

------
thisrod
Cavendish's _Experiments to determine the Density of the Earth_ is still worth
reading. In the 18th century, it took some impressive hacking to isolate two
balls sufficiently that their mutual gravity was the strongest force acting on
them.

------
abyssknight
Robust Real-time Object Detection

[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/viola/Pubs/Det...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/viola/Pubs/Detect/violaJones_IJCV.pdf)

This paper describes a visual object detection framework that is capable of
processing images extremely rapidly while achieving high detection rates.
There are three key contributions. The first is the introduction of a new
image representation called the “Integral Image” which allows the features
used by our detector to be computed very quickly. The second is a learning
algorithm, based on AdaBoost, which selects a small number of critical visual
features and yields extremely efficient classifiers [6]. The third
contribution is a method for combining classifiers in a “cascade” which allows
background regions of the image to be quickly discarded while spending more
computation on promising object-like regions. A set of experiments in the
domain of face detection are presented. The system yields face detection
performace comparable to the best previous systems [18, 13, 16, 12, 1].
Implemented on a conventional desktop, face detection proceeds at 15 frames
per second.

------
whyenot
A little off the beaten track for HN, but a classic paper in ecology that
introduced the idea of trophic cascades:

Hairston, Smith and Slobodkin. 1960. Community structure, population control,
and competition. American Naturalist 94: 421-425.

see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade> for more information

------
shalmanese
Principles of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation. By John
Lasseter of Pixar fame, breaking down the infamous Luxo Jr animation.

[http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps124/fall01/resources/p35-l...](http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps124/fall01/resources/p35-lasseter.pdf)

Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural). By Bruce Ames, inventor of the Ames
test on how virtually all of our toxic chemical ingestion comes from natural,
plant sources. And completely destroying the myth of organic food being less
harmful.

<http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/87/19/7777.pdf>

A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using
College Samples. The only paper in history to be condemned by the US House of
Representatives.

<http://www.psycnet.org/journals/bul/124/1/22.pdf>

------
Chirag
Marketing Myopia - Theodore Levitt 16 pages. Publication date: Jul 01, 2004
<http://www.casadogalo.com/marketingmyopia.pdf>

At some point in its development, every industry can be considered a growth
industry, based on the apparent superiority of its product. But in case after
case, industries have fallen under the shadow of mismanagement. What usually
gets emphasized is selling, not marketing. This is a mistake, because selling
focuses on the needs of the seller, whereas marketing concentrates on the
needs of the buyer. In this widely quoted and anthologized article, first
published in 1960, Theodore Levitt argues that "the history of every dead and
dying 'growth' industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion
and undetected decay." But, as he illustrates, memories are short.

------
beza1e1
My current favorite paper of the month: "An efficient implementation of graph
grammars based on the RETE matching algorithm" by H. Bunke, T. Glauser, T.
Tran <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BFb0017389>

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the efficient determination of the set
of productions of a graph grammar that are applicable in one rewriting step.
We propose a new algorithm that is a generalization of a similar algorithm
originally developed for forward chaining production systems. The time
complexity of the proposed method is not better than that of a naive solution,
in the worst case. In the best case, however, a significant speedup can be
achieved. Some experiments supporting the results of a theoretical complexity
analysis are described.

------
dneun
John Backus: Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A
Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs

[http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/backus_turingaward_l...](http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/backus_turingaward_lecture.pdf)

------
proemeth
I like Guy Steele's "Debunking the 'Expensive Procedure Call' Myth".
[http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab-
pubs/AIM-...](http://repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-lab-
pubs/AIM-443.pdf)

------
BrentRitterbeck
"Estimating betas from nonsynchronous data" by Myron Scholes and Joseph
Williams in Journal of Financial Economics, December 1977, pgs. 309-327.

Abstract is below.

 _Nonsynchronous trading of securities introduces into the market model a
potentially serious econometric problem of errors in variables. In this paper
properties of the observed market model and associated ordinary least squares
estimators are developed in detail. In addition, computationally convenient,
consistent estimators for parameters of the market model are calculated and
then applied to daily returns of securities listed in the NYSE and ASE._

------
naveensundar
The paper which started it all :)
[http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/turing_oncomputablen...](http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/turing_oncomputablenumbers_1936.pdf)

------
gphil
Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust."

Actually, I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet: <http://cm.bell-
labs.com/who/ken/trust.html>.

~~~
mrduncan
One of my favorites as well. What really fascinates me about it is it's
length, it can't be more than a couple of pages printed yet it introduces a
very powerful concept.

------
yu

      - Codd 1969/1970 Relation algebra, operations, model papers
      - Crick, Watson, (Franklin, Wilkin) Nature article on DNA.
      - Shannon, Information Theory as listed/ mentioned.

------
figured
I am quite surprised that I don't see Roy Fielding's "Architectural Styles and
the Design of Network-based Software Architectures" on this list (aka his REST
PHD paper). I have not read many dissertation, in fact i think this is the
only one, but I found it very approachable.

<http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm>

------
billswift
It isn't _quite_ a scientific paper, but Feynman's "Personal Observations on
the Reliability of the Shuttle", <http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-
appendix.html>, published as an appendix to the commission's report is an
excellent piece of work.

------
neilc
The System R retrospective paper is a pretty masterful example of a CS systems
paper:

<http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262/SystemR.pdf>

It helps that they are describing a pioneering software project and they had
the benefit of hindsight, but nonetheless, a great read.

------
mirrors
"Through a Glass Darkly" by Steven Krantz

abstract: We consider the question of how mathematicians view themselves and
how non-mathematicians view us. What is our role in society? Is it effective?
Is it rewarding? How could it be improved? This paper will be part of a
forthcoming volume on this circle of questions.

~~~
djm
I'm reading a book at the moment called 'the mathematical experience' by Davis
and Hersh which looks at some of these same issues. I haven't got very far
through it yet but it seems like a good book so if you're interested in this
sort of thing you might want to check it out.

------
Herring
<http://www.ps.uci.edu/~markm/einstein/aharonov_einstein.pdf>

Curious quantum eraser article on Science a while ago.

------
vonsydov
frames by minsky

~~~
Confusion
A summary of the subject matter, the reasons why you like it or a link to an
online version would vastly improve your comment.

~~~
philk
It's an AI concept for representing knowledge.

Here's the link:

<http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Frames/frames.html>

And here is a wikipedia article describing the concept:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_(artificial_intelligence)>

