The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words

Post by Schiphol » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:53 AM UTC

Pinckney wrote: post #3

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?"

Post by pron » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 8:56 AM UTC

acadien wrote: post #6

Pinckney wrote: post #3

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?"

Also 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

Post by mahmud » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 9:56 AM UTC

Post by Schiphol » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 10:07 AM UTC

robinhouston wrote: post #26

Schiphol wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the title is not the authors'. Soifer [explains]( http://www.wfnmc.org/mc20101.pdf ): >John Conway and I accepted the “filler”, and in the January 2005 issue our paper [12] was published. The Monthly, however, invented the title without any consultation with the authors , and added our title to the body of the article! (p. 31, my emphasis)

The above is the authors’ title. The editors invented a new title, and moved the authors’ title into the body of the article.

Post by Sarkie » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 10:52 AM UTC

flashman wrote: post #7

Pinckney wrote: post #3

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?"

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