Two Dogmas of Empiricism, by W.V.O. Quine.
Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
71–80 of 90 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#72Claude Shannon 1948, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commun... 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.
+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... (it's not super detailed, but the definitions of all the moving parts are given)
Very cool! Shannon's paper was, to be honest, a little out of my comfort zone when I first read it (this isn't really my field academically), and I got a little lost on the first read of this, but someone below posted your full thesis which I will definitely read when I have the time.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#73Claude Shannon 1948, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commun... 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.
This was the first academic paper I ever read, way back when. For a brief, wonderful time, I thought all academic papers were of a similar caliber, and I was in awe (and not a little bit intimidated).
> For a brief, wonderful time, I thought all academic papers were of a similar caliber
I had the exact same thought in college when I started reading a handful of well-written papers like this myself. This really set a standard that for 60+ years now academia hasn't always maintained.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
+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... (it's not super detailed, but the definitions of all the moving parts are given)
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?
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) 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? :)
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> and I hate Krugman! I try to separate academic Krugman from New York Times Krugman. It helps.
Why do all of you seem to hate Krugman?
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and I hate Krugman! I try to separate academic Krugman from New York Times Krugman. It helps.
Why do all of you seem to hate Krugman?
>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".
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#77The cross section of expected returns.
http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Research/Papers/French/The_...
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)
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#78I'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 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…
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, o…
I don't agree. If the point was to only document REST (and not the other architectures) -- then yes, it could have been a lot shorter. I think it gives a good overview of architectures in general, and ways to look at and analyse software. This way it makes a much better argument for REST -- and contrast it with other styles in common use at the time (and to a lesser extent, today).
I also don't think it is particularly wandering or obtuse.
> It reads like something from the philosophy department
Well, it is titled for "doctor of philosophy" ;-) (in Information and Computer Science).
BTW, how long is that DNA article? A cursory search only reveals articles that are cut off on the second page (at "inner-").
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#79'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....
[1] Brandon Keim, Wired, "Alan Turing’s Patterns in Nature, and Beyond" http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/turing-patterns/?p....
[2] Jim Al-Khalili, "The Secret Life of Chaos" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv1c3
[3] Jim Al-Khalili, "The Secret Life of Chaos" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite scholarly papers? Why?
#80Stephen 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…
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...)
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.