In 2004, John Conway And Alexander SIFERboth working on mathematics at Princeton Universitysubject to American Mathematical Monthly What they believed was “a new world record in the number of words in an article (mathematics)”.
Flag explain: “April 28, 2004 … I submitted our article which included only two words,” N2 + 2 CAN “and our two drawings. (See one of them above.) “The story then continues:”The American mathematical monthly was surprised and did not know what to do with our new world record in an article of 2 words. Two days later, on April 30, 2004, the editorial assistant Ms. Margaret Combs recognized the reception of the newspaper ”:
The monthly publishes the exhibition of mathematics on several levels, and it contains long and short articles. Your article, however, is a little too short to be a good monthly article … A line or two explanations would really help.
Loiking Writers: “The same day at coffee time, I asked John (Conway):” What do you think? “His answer was concise:” do not give up too easily “. Consequently, I answered (to) the monthly on the same day”:
I respectfully disagree that a short paper in general – and this particular document – due to its size must be “a little too short to be a good monthly article”. Is there a link between quantity and quality? … We posed an open problem (in our opinion) and reported two distinct evidence of “style” style of our advance on this problem. What else is to explain?
Assist adds: “The monthlyapparently felt outdated because on May 4, 2004, the answer came from The monthlyTop Gun, editor -in -chief Bruce Palka ”:
The monthly publishes two types of articles: “articles”, which are substantial exposure documents, the length of around six to twenty-five pages, and “notes”, which are shorter more technical (generally in the range of pages 1 to five). I can send your newspaper to the editor of notes if you wish, but I expect it not interested in it either because of its length and its lack of substantial text. The standard way nowadays so short is like “filling in box” on pages that would otherwise contain a large part of the virgin space that publishers hate. If you allow us to use your article in this way, I would be happy to publish it.
Easily concludes: “John Conway and I accepted” filling “, and in the January 2005 issue, our article was published.” Victory!
Get More background frame here.
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