Most memorable titles - MathOverflow [closed] most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net 2013-05-26T06:01:13Z http://mathoverflow.net/feeds/question/44326 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles Most memorable titles S. Sra 2010-10-31T14:11:28Z 2013-03-01T08:26:16Z <p>Apparently, for a large number of readers, the choice whether they select to read a paper or not is often strongly influenced by the title.</p> <p>I was wondering if the MO-users would be willing to share their wisdom with me on what makes the title of a paper memorable for them; or perhaps just cite an example of title they find memorable?</p> <p>This advice would be very helpful in helping me (and perhaps others) in designing better, more informative titles (not only for papers, but also for example, for MO questions).</p> <p>One title that I find memorable is:</p> <p><em>Nineteen dubious ways to compute the exponential of a matrix</em> by C. B. Moler and C. F. van Loan.</p> <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> The response to this question has been quite huge. So, what have I learned from it? A few things at least. Here is my summary of the obvious stuff: Amongst the various "memorable" titles reported, it seems that the following statements are true:</p> <ol> <li>A title can be <em>memorable</em>, <em>attractive</em>, or even both (to oversimplify a bit);</li> <li>A title becomes truly <em>memorable</em> if the accompanying paper had memorable substance</li> <li>A title can be attractive even without having memorable material</li> <li>To reach the broadest audience, attractive titles are good, though mathematicians might sometimes feel irritated by needlessly cute titles</li> <li>Titles that are bold, are usually short, have an element of surprise, but do not depart too much from the truth seems to be more attractive in general. 5.101 Mathematical succinctness might appeal to some people---but is perhaps not that memorable for me---so perhaps such titles are attractive, but maybe not memorable</li> <li>If you are a bigshot, you can get away with pretty much any title!</li> </ol> <p>If something more precise comes to mind, I will edit the above list.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44329#44329 Answer by Andrea Ferretti for Most memorable titles Andrea Ferretti 2010-10-31T14:30:31Z 2010-10-31T14:30:31Z <p>One that comes immediately to mind is <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/2313748" rel="nofollow">Can one hear the shape of a drum?</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44330#44330 Answer by J. M. for Most memorable titles J. M. 2010-10-31T14:46:55Z 2010-10-31T14:46:55Z <p>The AKS paper <a href="http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/manindra/algebra/primality_v6.pdf" rel="nofollow">Primes is in P</a> is a pretty memorable title for me.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44331#44331 Answer by Thierry Zell for Most memorable titles Thierry Zell 2010-10-31T14:49:54Z 2010-10-31T14:49:54Z <p>OK, fine... I'll confess I could not resist downloading from the arxiv the paper <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5295" rel="nofollow">Act globally, compute locally: group actions, fixed points, and localization</a>. I don't know if it quite fits the question though, since I never <strong>read</strong> it (beyond the first couple of pages). It's just way too far outside of my main interests.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44333#44333 Answer by David Speyer for Most memorable titles David Speyer 2010-10-31T15:04:35Z 2010-10-31T15:04:35Z <p><a href="http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~leila/grothendieckcircle/HodgeConj.pdf" rel="nofollow">"Hodge's general conjecture is false for trivial reasons."</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44334#44334 Answer by VladAr for Most memorable titles VladAr 2010-10-31T15:05:32Z 2010-10-31T16:44:35Z <p><a href="http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/search/publdoc.html?arg3=&amp;co4=AND&amp;co5=AND&amp;co6=AND&amp;co7=AND&amp;dr=all&amp;pg4=AUCN&amp;pg5=TI&amp;pg6=PC&amp;pg7=ALLF&amp;pg8=ET&amp;r=1&amp;review_format=html&amp;s4=bergman&amp;s5=everybody%20knows&amp;s6=&amp;s7=&amp;s8=All&amp;vfpref=html&amp;yearRangeFirst=&amp;yearRangeSecond=&amp;yrop=eq" rel="nofollow">Everybody knows what a Hopf algebra is</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44335#44335 Answer by Harry Gindi for Most memorable titles Harry Gindi 2010-10-31T15:13:02Z 2010-10-31T15:13:02Z <p><a href="http://www.math.ias.edu/~clarkbar/docs/remark2.pdf" rel="nofollow">On the Dreaded Right Bousfield Localization</a> by C. Barwick.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44339#44339 Answer by Micah Milinovich for Most memorable titles Micah Milinovich 2010-10-31T15:30:23Z 2010-10-31T15:30:23Z <p>"Footnote To a Note of Davenport and Heilbronn" by J. W. S. Cassels.</p> <p><a href="http://jlms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s1-36/1/177.extract" rel="nofollow">http://jlms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s1-36/1/177.extract</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44340#44340 Answer by José Figueroa-O'Farrill for Most memorable titles José Figueroa-O'Farrill 2010-10-31T15:48:00Z 2010-10-31T15:48:00Z <p>Atiyah's <a href="http://www.math.rochester.edu/u/faculty/doug/otherpapers/AtiyahKthyReal.pdf" rel="nofollow">K-Theory and Reality</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44342#44342 Answer by Boris Bukh for Most memorable titles Boris Bukh 2010-10-31T16:11:56Z 2010-10-31T16:11:56Z <p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2320708" rel="nofollow">An application of Poincaré's recurrence theorem to academic administration</a> by Kenneth Meyer is a title that is hard to resist looking into.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44344#44344 Answer by Pete L. Clark for Most memorable titles Pete L. Clark 2010-10-31T16:22:48Z 2010-10-31T16:22:48Z <p><a href="http://eprint.iacr.org/2009/533.pdf" rel="nofollow">Finding composite order ordinary elliptic curves using the Cocks-Pinch method</a>, by D. Boneh, K. Rubin and A. Silverberg. (To appear in the Journal of Number Theory.)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44345#44345 Answer by Ira Gessel for Most memorable titles Ira Gessel 2010-10-31T16:27:59Z 2010-10-31T16:27:59Z <p>Al Capone and the Death Ray by R. C. Lyness</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44346#44346 Answer by Byron Schmuland for Most memorable titles Byron Schmuland 2010-10-31T16:34:17Z 2010-10-31T16:34:17Z <p><a href="http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~andrew/PDF/beeb.pdf" rel="nofollow">Zaphod Beeblebrox's Brain and the Fifty-ninth Row of Pascal's Triangle</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44347#44347 Answer by Georges Elencwajg for Most memorable titles Georges Elencwajg 2010-10-31T16:35:50Z 2010-10-31T16:35:50Z <p>The flattering lie <a href="http://www.ams.org/notices/200601/fea-chow.pdf" rel="nofollow">You Could Have Invented Spectral Sequences</a> by Timothy Y. Chow. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44348#44348 Answer by Dan Petersen for Most memorable titles Dan Petersen 2010-10-31T16:38:29Z 2010-10-31T16:38:29Z <p>I find it dubious that anyone here will get better at choosing titles for their papers by reading these examples. </p> <p>Nevertheless, I like the title "<em>The homotopy category is a homotopy category</em>" by Arne Strøm. I also like the very apt title "$\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{22}$ <em>is of general type</em>" by Gavril Farkas. The paper starts like this: </p> <p>The aim of this paper is to prove the following result:</p> <p><strong>Theorem:</strong> The moduli space of curves of genus 22 is of general type.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44349#44349 Answer by Mariano Suárez-Alvarez for Most memorable titles Mariano Suárez-Alvarez 2010-10-31T16:40:10Z 2010-11-01T01:47:31Z <p><a href="http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/AeqB.html" rel="nofollow">The book <code>_</code>$A=B$</a><code>_</code>.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44351#44351 Answer by Andres Caicedo for Most memorable titles Andres Caicedo 2010-10-31T16:49:32Z 2011-01-31T03:49:50Z <p><a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/225717116714r263/" rel="nofollow">Marginalia to a theorem of Silver</a> (see also this <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9UHU_bq-wc8C&amp;pg=PA13&amp;lpg=PA13&amp;dq=marginalia+jensen&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=g0ABQ-yFFH&amp;sig=N9IqEaChDSQCZqkN-pGRu_hJpIk&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=3pzNTLahA5SsngfJ0dXyDw&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CB4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=marginalia%2520jensen&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">link</a>) by Keith I. Devlin and R. B. Jensen, 1975. A humble title and yet, undoubtedly, one of the most important papers of all time in set theory.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44352#44352 Answer by Spiro Karigiannis for Most memorable titles Spiro Karigiannis 2010-10-31T16:56:36Z 2010-10-31T16:56:36Z <p>I like Cliff Taubes's simple titles: "Gr -> SW", "SW -> Gr", and "SW = Gr". (Okay, they each also have a subtitle, but the first part is enough to tell the reader exactly what the paper is about.)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44353#44353 Answer by robot for Most memorable titles robot 2010-10-31T17:01:01Z 2010-11-02T04:53:41Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9907138" rel="nofollow">Homotopy Algebras are Homotopy Algebras</a> by Martin Markl</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44355#44355 Answer by Will Jagy for Most memorable titles Will Jagy 2010-10-31T17:04:53Z 2010-10-31T17:04:53Z <p><em>Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes</em> by Dr Daina Taimina (A K Peters), see</p> <p><a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/114989-crocheting-adventures-wins-diagram-2009.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.thebookseller.com/news/114989-crocheting-adventures-wins-diagram-2009.html</a></p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookseller/Diagram_Prize_for_Oddest_Title_of_the_Year" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookseller/Diagram_Prize_for_Oddest_Title_of_the_Year</a></p> <p><a href="http://hyperbolic-crochet.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hyperbolic-crochet.blogspot.com/</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44364#44364 Answer by Sune Jakobsen for Most memorable titles Sune Jakobsen 2010-10-31T18:58:50Z 2010-10-31T18:58:50Z <p>Noone beats <a href="http://www.computer.org/plugins/dl/pdf/proceedings/focs/1992/2900/00/0267789.pdf?template=1&amp;loginState=1&amp;userData=anonymous-IP%25253A%25253AAddress%25253A%252B83.92.99.205%25252C%252B%25255B83.92.99.205%25252C%252B172.16.161.5%25252C%252B127.0.0.1%25255D" rel="nofollow">Mick gets some (the odds are on his side)</a> by V. Chvatal and B. Reed. It is an article about the satisfiability problem, and the title is of course referring to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpZ3dVpE_pY" rel="nofollow">this song</a>. I havn't read the article, and the only reason I know the it is its title.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44368#44368 Answer by Qiaochu Yuan for Most memorable titles Qiaochu Yuan 2010-10-31T19:21:32Z 2010-10-31T19:21:32Z <p>Simmons, F. W., <em>When Homogeneous Continua Are Hausdorff Circles (or <strong>Yes, We Hausdorff Bananas</strong>)</em>, Continua, Decompositions, and Manifolds, University of Texas Press (1980) pp. 62-73. I think it's a reference to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas" rel="nofollow">this song</a>.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44370#44370 Answer by Robin Kothari for Most memorable titles Robin Kothari 2010-10-31T19:32:54Z 2010-10-31T19:32:54Z <p><a href="http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/335305.335394" rel="nofollow">Quantum lower bounds by quantum arguments</a>.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44373#44373 Answer by SandeepJ for Most memorable titles SandeepJ 2010-10-31T20:20:28Z 2010-10-31T20:20:28Z <p>Given the atmosphere of terror and fear in recent years, I did a double take when I first glanced at Bruce Berndt's paper "<a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.7704" rel="nofollow">Ramanujan's association with radicals in India</a>". </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44374#44374 Answer by Gerry Myerson for Most memorable titles Gerry Myerson 2010-10-31T20:27:37Z 2010-10-31T20:27:37Z <p>I'll echo other comments that the question is wrong-headed, but I think it still serves a purpose. </p> <p>Comment l'hypothese de Riemann ne fut pas prouvee (How the Riemann hypothesis was not proved), by P Cartier, Seminar on Number Theory, Paris 1980-81, Progr. Math., 22, Boston, MA: Birkhauser Boston, pp. 35-48, MR693308</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44375#44375 Answer by James for Most memorable titles James 2010-10-31T20:32:44Z 2010-10-31T20:32:44Z <p>My favourite : <a href="http://plms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s3-46/1/117.abstract" rel="nofollow">"My Graph"</a>, by H.S.M. Coxeter.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44376#44376 Answer by Michele Triestino for Most memorable titles Michele Triestino 2010-10-31T20:40:35Z 2010-10-31T20:40:35Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4494" rel="nofollow">A Midsummer Knot's Dream</a>, by Allison Henrich, Noël MacNaughton, Sneha Narayan, Oliver Pechenik, Robert Silversmith, Jennifer Townsend</p> <p>It is quite funny to read</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44377#44377 Answer by Jonas Meyer for Most memorable titles Jonas Meyer 2010-10-31T20:44:59Z 2010-10-31T20:44:59Z <p>"<a href="http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=602475" rel="nofollow">On $O_n$</a>" by D.E. Evans. ($\mathcal{O_n}$ is notation Cuntz gave for the algebras he introduced in "<a href="http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=467330" rel="nofollow">Simple <code>$C^*$</code>-algebras generated by isometries</a>".)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44378#44378 Answer by Jonas Meyer for Most memorable titles Jonas Meyer 2010-10-31T20:56:00Z 2010-10-31T22:34:52Z <p>The book <em><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=R3KmAAAAIAAJ&amp;q=inauthor%3A%2522Paul+Moritz+Cohn%2522&amp;dq=inauthor%3A%2522Paul+Moritz+Cohn%2522&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=jNfNTOfdLsyjnQe7wL3ZCQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=book-thumbnail&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CC4Q6wEwAjgK" rel="nofollow">Free rings and their relations</a></em> by P.M. Cohn.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44384#44384 Answer by John D. Cook for Most memorable titles John D. Cook 2010-10-31T22:11:37Z 2010-11-01T01:18:37Z <p>H=W</p> <p>It's a paper showing that two methods of defining Sobolev spaces, one which uses H's with subscripts and superscripts and one that uses W's, give rise to the same spaces. </p> <p>Thanks to Willie Wong for the following:</p> <p><strong>Citation information</strong></p> <pre><code>@ARTICLE{MeySer1964, author = {Meyers, Norman G. and Serrin, James}, title = {{H = W}}, journal = {Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA}, year = {1964}, volume = {51}, pages = {1055-1056}, number = {6}, file = {MeySer1964.pdf:MeySer1964.pdf:PDF}, owner = {ww278}, timestamp = {2010.05.03}, url = {http://www.pnas.org/content/51/6/1055.short} } </code></pre> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44387#44387 Answer by alex for Most memorable titles alex 2010-10-31T23:12:55Z 2010-10-31T23:12:55Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.0555" rel="nofollow">A minus sign that used to annoy me but now I know why it is there</a> by Peter Tingley. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44391#44391 Answer by darij grinberg for Most memorable titles darij grinberg 2010-10-31T23:39:07Z 2010-10-31T23:39:07Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0612443" rel="nofollow">Integrity of ghosts</a>, by Gert Almkvist. <a href="http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimhtml/gert.html" rel="nofollow">Gert Almkvist's generalization of a mistake by Bourbaki</a>, by Doron Zeilberger. (And <a href="http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/papers1.html" rel="nofollow">a few more</a> by the same author.) <a href="http://www.ams.org/bull/1983-08-01/S0273-0979-1983-15080-2/S0273-0979-1983-15080-2.pdf" rel="nofollow">The Point of Pointless Topology</a>, by Peter Johnstone. The absolute classic: <a href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF" rel="nofollow">Go To Statement Considered Harmful</a>, by Edsger Dijkstra.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44395#44395 Answer by Gil Kalai for Most memorable titles Gil Kalai 2010-11-01T00:56:27Z 2013-03-01T08:26:16Z <p>Late addition (March, '13): Long and Wigderson's " <strong>How discreet is the discrete log?</strong>."</p> <p>Gale and Shapley's "<strong>College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage</strong>, " was a great title to a great paper. (<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2312726" rel="nofollow">link JSTOR</a>)</p> <p>"<strong>Moments in mathematics</strong>" Papers from the American Mathematical Society annual meeting held in San Antonio, Tex., January 20–22, 1987. Edited by Henry J. Landau. (<a href="http://www.google.com/books?hl=iw&amp;lr=&amp;id=IEo2Iu_uogUC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PR11&amp;dq=moments+in+mathematics&amp;ots=GnVLCNdqjp&amp;sig=3RsGo_81JwPL1xFRUvmkHzEGVWA#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">Link: Google book</a>)</p> <p>This is about "moments" in the technical sense but the double meaning of the title is very cute. (There is also a book entitled "great moments in mathematics" with the ordinary meaning of moments.)</p> <p>About 1-2 decades ago Sylvain Cappell and Shmuel Weinberger planned writing a book called "<strong>A piece of the action</strong>" about group actions. This is a memorable title but I think the book was not completed. </p> <p>One obvious: Aigner and Ziegler's <strong>Proofs from the book</strong>. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK" rel="nofollow">Link: WikipediA</a>)</p> <p>Joel Spencer's title "<strong>Six standard deviations suffice</strong>." is also memorable. (<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2000258" rel="nofollow">Link: JSTOR</a>) </p> <p>Jack Edmonds',(1965) "<strong>Paths, Trees and Flowers</strong>". (<a href="http://libeccio.dia.unisa.it/ASDII/2004/edmonds.ps" rel="nofollow">Link: ps file</a>.)</p> <p>For some reasons I found the title "<strong>Defect Sauer results</strong>" of a paper by Bollobas and Radcliffe memorable. (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0097316595900608" rel="nofollow">Link</a>)</p> <p>Branko Grunbaum has a paper entiled "<strong>The importance of being straight</strong>" (I could not find a link), and Irit Dinur and Shmuel Safra have a paper entitled "<strong>On the importance of being biased</strong>". (<a href="http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~dinuri/mypapers/vc.pdf" rel="nofollow">A link to a later version with a different title.</a>) (There is <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1290259" rel="nofollow">a paper</a> by A. Dillof published in Michigan Law Review with very similar name.)</p> <p>Jorg Wills had a memorable title "<strong>decomposable skeleta</strong>" for a paper he sent for the 100th birthday of a well known mathematician. But I think at the end he changed the title. </p> <p>Saharon Shelah has several memorable titles like this one: <strong>"On what I do not understand (and have something to say). I</strong>" .Although, I forgot the most memorable one. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44398#44398 Answer by Gerald Edgar for Most memorable titles Gerald Edgar 2010-11-01T01:25:22Z 2010-11-01T01:33:06Z <p><em>Great Expectations: The Theory of Optimal Stopping,</em> by Chow, Robbins, and Siegmund (1971)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44399#44399 Answer by David Roberts for Most memorable titles David Roberts 2010-11-01T01:47:26Z 2010-11-01T01:47:26Z <p>I can't believe no one's mentioned this:</p> <blockquote> <p>Some title containing the words "homotopy" and "symplectic", e.g. this one<br/> Pavol Severa<br/> <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0105080" rel="nofollow">arXiv:math/0105080</a></p> </blockquote> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44402#44402 Answer by David Roberts for Most memorable titles David Roberts 2010-11-01T01:54:24Z 2010-11-01T01:54:24Z <blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.intlpress.com/HHA/v11/n2/a6/" rel="nofollow">The hunting of the Hopf ring</a><br/> Andrew Stacey and Sarah Whitehouse <br/> Homology, Homotopy and Applications, Vol. 11 (2009), No. 2, pp.75-132. </p> </blockquote> <p>referencing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark" rel="nofollow">this poem</a>. Much more memorable than the related works by the same authors:</p> <blockquote> <p>Andrew Stacey and Sarah Whitehouse, Tall-Wraith monoids, in preparation, 2009.</p> <p>Andrew Stacey and Sarah Whitehouse, Stable and unstable operations in mod p cohomology theories, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 8(2) (2008), 1059– 1091.</p> </blockquote> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44403#44403 Answer by James for Most memorable titles James 2010-11-01T02:08:06Z 2010-11-01T02:08:06Z <p>John Stallings' <a href="http://math.berkeley.edu/~stall/notPC.pdf" rel="nofollow">"How not to prove the Poincare Conjecture"</a> is lovely.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44404#44404 Answer by Jérôme JEAN-CHARLES for Most memorable titles Jérôme JEAN-CHARLES 2010-11-01T02:12:50Z 2010-11-01T02:12:50Z <p><strong>The missing axiom of matroid theory is lost forever</strong></p> <p>A emotional variation on absolute negative results.<br> Refs : Vámos, Peter (1978), "The missing axiom of matroid theory is lost forever", Journal of the London Mathematical Society, II. Ser. 18: AT : <a href="http://jlms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s2-18/3/403.extract" rel="nofollow">http://jlms.oxfordjournals.org/content/s2-18/3/403.extract</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44406#44406 Answer by Hsien-Chih Chang for Most memorable titles Hsien-Chih Chang 2010-11-01T02:34:11Z 2010-11-01T02:34:11Z <p>I always like the title "<strong><a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1536453" rel="nofollow">Homology flows, cohomology cuts</a></strong>" by Chambers, Erickson and Nayyeri, which makes <em>analog</em> (a general technique indeed) to the well-known theorem (for graph theorists) "<strong>Maximum flows, minimum cuts</strong>".</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44409#44409 Answer by N C for Most memorable titles N C 2010-11-01T03:15:16Z 2010-11-01T12:36:28Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0605779" rel="nofollow">Division by three</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44418#44418 Answer by Idoneal for Most memorable titles Idoneal 2010-11-01T05:29:33Z 2010-11-01T11:56:41Z <p><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=P82xkbGioL8C" rel="nofollow"><strong>Ideals and reality</strong></a></p> <p>projective modules and number of generators of ideals </p> <p>By Friedrich Ischebeck and Ravi A. Rao</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44421#44421 Answer by gordon-royle for Most memorable titles gordon-royle 2010-11-01T06:11:26Z 2010-11-01T06:11:26Z <p>And in the graph theory corner we have the famous Harary/Read paper "Is the null-graph a pointless concept?"</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44422#44422 Answer by Alon Amit for Most memorable titles Alon Amit 2010-11-01T06:15:46Z 2010-11-01T06:15:46Z <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0211152" rel="nofollow">"Holey Sheets" - Pfaffians and Subdeterminants as D-brane Operators in Large N Gauge Theories.</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44433#44433 Answer by Gerry Myerson for Most memorable titles Gerry Myerson 2010-11-01T11:36:15Z 2010-11-01T11:36:15Z <p>A Group of Order 8,315,553,613,086,720,000 by J H Conway, Bull. London Math. Soc. (1969) 1 (1): 79-88, <a href="http://blms.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/79.extract" rel="nofollow">http://blms.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/79.extract</a></p> <p>Maybe it's cheating to call this memorable - I remembered there was a Conway paper with a title of this type, but I certainly don't claim to have remembered the exact title! </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44435#44435 Answer by slimton for Most memorable titles slimton 2010-11-01T11:50:21Z 2010-11-01T11:50:21Z <p><a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=258663" rel="nofollow">Approximately counting up to four</a>, by Luby and Vigoda.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44436#44436 Answer by Louigi Addario-Berry for Most memorable titles Louigi Addario-Berry 2010-11-01T12:45:05Z 2010-11-01T12:45:05Z <p>Here is <a href="http://www2.tcs.ifi.lmu.de/~jjohanns/cute.html" rel="nofollow">a list of papers in Theoretical Computer Science with cute titles</a>. Some that I like from the list (aside from "Mick gets some" which is good enough to deserve its own answer anyway). </p> <ul> <li>A Smaller Sleeping Bag for a Baby Snake</li> <li>The Art of Pointless Thinking: a Student's Guide to the Category of Locales</li> <li>Scott is not always sober</li> </ul> <p>Also: <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/dybau01uabebcxry/" rel="nofollow">Mangoes and Blueberries</a>.</p> <p>And in a similar vein, a quote from "Quotients homophone des groupes libres - Homophonic quotients of free groups," that appears on the first linked page page: <i>"Ah, la recherche! Du temps perdu."</i></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44471#44471 Answer by Vagabond for Most memorable titles Vagabond 2010-11-01T19:00:50Z 2010-11-01T19:00:50Z <p>Fractured Fractals And Broken Dreams. Self-similar Geometry through Metric and Measure. Guy David, Stephen Semmes.</p> <p><a href="http://www.oup.com.au/titles/academic/maths/9780198501664" rel="nofollow">http://www.oup.com.au/titles/academic/maths/9780198501664</a></p> <p>This is the most unusual title of a book which I have ever come across. I discovered this while randomly browsing through books in the library and got hooked. I was an undergraduate then and it had a strange attraction to me, even though I could not figure out anything that was written in it then.</p> <p>I was not the only one! </p> <p>Our university used to put out a list of courses (in the good old days) which were going to be offered and students would choose from it. Some of us managed to add the name of this book against the fractal geometry course as a course material. A record number of students enlisted. </p> <p>Within a week a record number of them wanted to opt out. So there were inquiries: it turned out most of the students cited that they found the title of the book mentioned in the course material attractive which prompted them to enlist. </p> <p>(We had found in the previous year that the instructor did not care about teaching, insist on taking class at 8 in the morning and would religiously take attendance for 10 minutes, by the end of the class half the class would be snoring. The assignments were to be submitted on A4 paper, we were supposed to write on one side with appropriate margin.</p> <p>It was a case of a pun / warning which had gone horribly wrong. ) </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44475#44475 Answer by Andy Putman for Most memorable titles Andy Putman 2010-11-01T19:33:54Z 2010-11-01T20:01:55Z <p>The following is not quite as arresting as the other titles listed, but Stallings has a paper in Inventiones entitled "The topology of finite graphs". It's a pretty gutsy title, but what's even more impressive is that it is a fairly good description of what the paper contains (namely, a totally new approach to studying questions about subgroups of free groups using finite graphs; this is totally different from the classical approach using covering spaces of graphs)!</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44478#44478 Answer by Michael Hardy for Most memorable titles Michael Hardy 2010-11-01T20:01:55Z 2012-01-01T05:40:55Z <p>Would a book titled <em>Calculus Made Honest</em> get me burned at the stake for heresy? </p> <p>Or would it merely confuse mathematicians who don't understand what is in need of being made honest in that topic?</p> <p><b>Later edit:</b> This question illustrates nicely the emotional nature of the anonymous voting system. Robin Chapman commented: "So, it isn't an actual title, and so this reply is not an answer to the original question." </p> <p>That proves that he never read the original question and didn't know what it said. Probably he drew an inference about its content from the many answers. Then people rushed in with "down" votes. I invite anyone who has doubts about this to read the original question by Suvrit, and I invite Robin Chapman to read it for the first time.</p> <p>[Original answer by <strong>Michael Hardy</strong>.]</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44481#44481 Answer by Michael Hardy for Most memorable titles Michael Hardy 2010-11-01T20:05:36Z 2010-11-01T20:05:36Z <p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2323341" rel="nofollow">Ancestors, Cardinals, and Representatives</a> by T. D. Parsons.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44482#44482 Answer by Michael Hardy for Most memorable titles Michael Hardy 2010-11-01T20:09:45Z 2010-11-01T20:09:45Z <p>My Ph.D. thesis is titled <em>Why Logical Probabilists Need Real Numbers</em>. (But I haven't published any paper with that title.)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44536#44536 Answer by Olivier for Most memorable titles Olivier 2010-11-02T10:05:00Z 2010-11-02T10:05:00Z <p>I don't think $\textbf{L'endoscopie tordue n'est pas si tordue}$ (Twisted endoscopy is not so twisted) de J.-L. Waldspurger has been mentioned yet. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44543#44543 Answer by Peter Humphries for Most memorable titles Peter Humphries 2010-11-02T11:17:37Z 2010-11-02T11:17:37Z <p>I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=hCv-vFu4jskC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;ots=Je0jT8O-A7&amp;dq=the%2520joy%2520of%2520sets&amp;pg=PP1#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">The Joy of Sets</a>.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44559#44559 Answer by Steven Landsburg for Most memorable titles Steven Landsburg 2010-11-02T14:10:49Z 2010-11-04T19:07:21Z <p>Bob Thomason's "<a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/2043425" rel="nofollow">Beware the Phony Multiplication on Quillen's $A^{-1}A$"</a>.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44644#44644 Answer by mathphysicist for Most memorable titles mathphysicist 2010-11-03T04:40:28Z 2010-11-03T04:40:28Z <p>Some nice titles from B.A. Kupersmidt:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.mathjournals.org/bookstore?fn=20&amp;arg1=survseries&amp;ikey=SURV-78" rel="nofollow">KP or mKP</a> (a book)</li> <li><a href="http://staff.www.ltu.se/~norbert/home_journal/electronic/83art3.pdf" rel="nofollow">Dark equations</a> (an article)</li> </ul> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44712#44712 Answer by Michael Hardy for Most memorable titles Michael Hardy 2010-11-03T19:19:55Z 2010-11-03T19:19:55Z <p>Paul Halmos' <em>Applied Mathematics is Bad Mathematics</em> is certainly a memorable title, notwithstanding the wrong-headedness of what at least superficially appears to be its thesis.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44756#44756 Answer by Peter Arndt for Most memorable titles Peter Arndt 2010-11-04T00:05:27Z 2010-11-04T00:05:27Z <p><em>Theorems for free!</em> by <a href="http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/topics/parametricity.html" rel="nofollow">Philip Wadler</a></p> <p>From the abstract: ... This provides a free source of useful theorems, courtesy of Reynolds' abstraction theorem for the polymorphic lambda calculus. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44757#44757 Answer by Neil Strickland for Most memorable titles Neil Strickland 2010-11-04T00:10:05Z 2010-11-04T00:10:05Z <p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2274177" rel="nofollow">There are not exactly five objects</a> by Andreas Blass</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44764#44764 Answer by Richard Wentworth for Most memorable titles Richard Wentworth 2010-11-04T01:27:18Z 2010-11-04T01:27:18Z <p>Ben Andrews' : "Gauss curvature flow: the fate of the rolling stones"</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44790#44790 Answer by Maxime Bourrigan for Most memorable titles Maxime Bourrigan 2010-11-04T08:37:31Z 2010-11-04T08:37:31Z <p>Todd's <a href="http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/search/publdoc.html?pg1=MR&amp;s1=11671" rel="nofollow">"The 'odd' number six."</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44895#44895 Answer by Jim Bryan for Most memorable titles Jim Bryan 2010-11-04T23:36:02Z 2010-11-04T23:36:02Z <p>Mark Van Raamsdonk's Princeton PhD thesis in string theory was called "Making the most out of zero branes and a weak background". Priceless.</p> <p><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000PhDT........40V" rel="nofollow">http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000PhDT........40V</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44963#44963 Answer by Lamine for Most memorable titles Lamine 2010-11-05T16:14:13Z 2010-11-05T16:14:13Z <p>I really like humor in scientific texts, specially in titles. One of my favorite authors is Donald E. Knuth. A title like <em>The sandwich theorem</em> makes me curious about its content. <em>The Art of Computer Programming</em> is also a nice title.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/44965#44965 Answer by Gil Kalai for Most memorable titles Gil Kalai 2010-11-05T16:21:32Z 2010-11-08T01:11:45Z <p>There are some rather obvious aspects to the question that perhaps should be mentioned.</p> <p>"For a large number of readers, the choice whether they select to read a paper or not is often strongly influenced by the title."</p> <p>Yes, but it is also strongly influenced by the abstract and introduction.</p> <p>"I was wondering if the MO-users would be willing to share their wisdom with me on what makes the title of a paper memorable for them; or perhaps just cite an example of title they find memorable?"</p> <p>Since most answers refereed to the second part, perhaps it is worth answering the first part of the question as well. Perhaps the main thing that makes the title (and paper) memorable is the content of the paper. </p> <p>"This advice would be very helpful in helping me (and perhaps others) in designing better, more informative titles (not only for papers, but also for example, for MO questions)."</p> <p>Overall, the reaction in the mathematics community to catchy titles, personal descriptions, jokes of various kind, and various other things that can be seen as PR-related or "salesmenship" are mixed. So while it is always good to have a clear title having an overlly catchy title can also backfire. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/45103#45103 Answer by roy smith for Most memorable titles roy smith 2010-11-06T21:43:17Z 2010-11-06T21:51:28Z <p>I always remember the paper entitled "On groups of order one." It turned out the title referred to groups defined by generators and relations, so the problem was to determine when a set of elements (together with its conjugates) generated a free group. I cannot imagine any mathematician who would not look at this paper to see what it was about.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/45111#45111 Answer by John Jiang for Most memorable titles John Jiang 2010-11-06T22:39:00Z 2010-11-06T22:39:00Z <p>Lovasz's "Hit and Run Is Fast and Fun". In that he proved the hit run algorithm on sampling from log concave distributions on a convex set in the Euclidean space has a polynomial mixing time, hence fast. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/45142#45142 Answer by Max for Most memorable titles Max 2010-11-07T06:59:41Z 2010-11-07T06:59:41Z <p><a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Street-Fighting_Mathematics.pdf" rel="nofollow">Street-Fighting Mathematics</a> by Sanjoy Mahajan is about estimation, Fermi calculations, dimensional analysis and so on.</p> <p>I haven't read it yet, but the title was certainly enough to get me to download it.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/45274#45274 Answer by Daniel Geisler for Most memorable titles Daniel Geisler 2010-11-08T07:06:32Z 2010-11-08T07:06:32Z <p>Knobel's wonderful paper on the constant rediscovery of iterated exponentials.</p> <blockquote> <p>R. Knobel. "Exponentials Reiterated." American Mathematical Monthly 88, (1981), p. 235-252.</p> </blockquote> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/45520#45520 Answer by Ross Millikan for Most memorable titles Ross Millikan 2010-11-10T05:00:18Z 2010-11-10T05:00:18Z <p>Not math, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpher%25E2%2580%2593Bethe%25E2%2580%2593Gamow_paper" rel="nofollow">Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow</a> is hard to beat</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/46189#46189 Answer by Mariano Suárez-Alvarez for Most memorable titles Mariano Suárez-Alvarez 2010-11-16T04:54:53Z 2010-11-16T04:54:53Z <p><em>Addictive Number Theory</em>, by Melvyn B. Nathanson.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/46412#46412 Answer by S. Sra for Most memorable titles S. Sra 2010-11-17T21:39:23Z 2010-11-17T21:39:23Z <p>I just saw the very curious title:</p> <p><em>An Operator-Like Description of Love Affairs</em></p> <p>by: Fabio Bagarello and Francesco Oliveri SIAM J. Appl. Math. Volume 70, Issue 8, pp. 3235-3251 (2010) </p> <p>And with the report of this title, I also admit that this title belongs to the category of memorable titles, without first needing to read the paper. The abstract of the paper is also quite curious!</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/46424#46424 Answer by Gabriel Benamy for Most memorable titles Gabriel Benamy 2010-11-17T23:00:29Z 2010-11-17T23:00:29Z <p>"<a href="http://katlas.math.toronto.edu/drorbn/MathBlog/2008-11/one/Gillet@FI-_What_is_infinity_factorial_%28and_why_might_we_care%29Q.pdf" rel="nofollow">What is infinity factorial (and why might we care)?</a>"<p> The only downside is that it isn't actually typed up, but rather is hand-written and scanned, but the result of $\infty! = \sqrt{2\pi}$ is still rather intriguing.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/48323#48323 Answer by Leon Lampret for Most memorable titles Leon Lampret 2010-12-04T23:05:03Z 2010-12-04T23:05:03Z <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Fallacies-Flaws-Flimflam-Spectrum/dp/0883855291" rel="nofollow"><strong>Mathematical Fallacies, Flaws and Flimflam</strong></a> was definitely by far the most memorable title I have ever read. Also <strong>A Taste of Topology</strong> seemed tasty. </p> <p>But I would also like to stress, that to me, the books that have the most 'classical' and 'general' titles, seem the most appealing. Eg. </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Graph-Theory-Graduate-Texts-Mathematics/dp/1849966907/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291503199&amp;sr=1-2" rel="nofollow"><strong>Graph Theory</strong></a>, </li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Topology-Allen-Hatcher/dp/0521795400/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291503414&amp;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow"><strong>Algebraic Topology</strong></a>, </li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Geometry-Graduate-Texts-Mathematics/dp/1441928073/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291503472&amp;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow"><strong>Algebraic Geometry</strong></a>,</li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Algebra-Graduate-Texts-Mathematics/dp/1441924507/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1291503684&amp;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow"><strong>Abstract Algebra</strong></a>,</li> </ul> <p>etc.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/48523#48523 Answer by Gerald Edgar for Most memorable titles Gerald Edgar 2010-12-07T00:39:08Z 2010-12-07T00:39:08Z <p><em>How to Gamble If You Must</em> by Lester E. Dubins &amp; Leonard J. Savage</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/49414#49414 Answer by Andrew D. King for Most memorable titles Andrew D. King 2010-12-14T18:30:17Z 2010-12-14T18:30:17Z <p><a href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=252278" rel="nofollow">Finding even sets even faster.</a></p> <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0683" rel="nofollow">The last fraction of a fractional conjecture.</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/49432#49432 Answer by Jon Bannon for Most memorable titles Jon Bannon 2010-12-14T20:54:49Z 2010-12-14T20:54:49Z <p>"Fun with $\mathbb{F}_{1}$"</p> <p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.2401" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.2401</a></p> <p>Quite a decent pun, I think.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/49440#49440 Answer by Mark Bennet for Most memorable titles Mark Bennet 2010-12-14T21:48:37Z 2010-12-14T21:48:37Z <p>One title I delight in having on my bookshelf is "Introduction to Group Characters" by Walter Ledermann - if you know it's a maths book the title makes complete sense. But a non-mathematician imagines a completely different kind of content.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/49469#49469 Answer by none for Most memorable titles none 2010-12-15T00:52:11Z 2012-01-01T05:43:37Z <p>There's an algebra book called "Rings and Ideals". I thought of a subtitle: "Marriage during the Revolution".</p> <p>I remember reading Jacobson's "Basic Algebra I" on the bus on the way to university, and someone noticing it and thinking it was a high-school level text.</p> <p>Similarly, Serre(?) has a difficult book about number theory, titled simply "Arithmetic".</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50595#50595 Answer by Dick Palais for Most memorable titles Dick Palais 2010-12-28T20:32:03Z 2010-12-28T20:32:03Z <p>I hope it is OK to mention "A Disorienting Look at Euler's Theorem on the Axis of a Rotation" even if I am a joint author, particularly if I admit that none of the authors thought up the cute title---it was the editor. (The cute part is the somewhat subtle use of "disorienting", namely we prove Euler's Theorem for orthogonal transformations that are not proper---i.e., don't preserve orientation.) You can download it here: </p> <p><a href="http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/?pa=content&amp;sa=viewDocument&amp;nodeId=3542&amp;pf=1" rel="nofollow">http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/?pa=content&amp;sa=viewDocument&amp;nodeId=3542&amp;pf=1</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50598#50598 Answer by Marcin Kotowski for Most memorable titles Marcin Kotowski 2010-12-28T20:41:53Z 2010-12-28T20:41:53Z <p>"I know I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque" by Gady Kozma and Ariel Yadin (<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.4258" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.4258</a>)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50619#50619 Answer by Douglas Bowman for Most memorable titles Douglas Bowman 2010-12-29T01:30:19Z 2010-12-29T01:30:19Z <p>I have always found the book title "<strong>Prolegomena to a Middlebrow Arithmetic of Curves of Genus 2</strong>" by Cassels and Flynn to be quite memorable.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50774#50774 Answer by monodromy for Most memorable titles monodromy 2010-12-30T23:36:18Z 2010-12-31T00:40:14Z <p>J.-M. FONTAINE <strong>Il n'y a pas de variété abélienne sur Z</strong> Invent. Math. (1985) 81, 515-538</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50775#50775 Answer by Michael Renardy for Most memorable titles Michael Renardy 2010-12-30T23:51:55Z 2010-12-30T23:51:55Z <p>"A survey of finite differences of opinion on numerical muddling of the incomprehensible defective confusion equation" by B.P. Leonard</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/50783#50783 Answer by Linda Polytope for Most memorable titles Linda Polytope 2010-12-31T04:12:53Z 2010-12-31T04:12:53Z <p>My memory is marked by the titles of two papers by Branko Grünbaum:</p> <ol> <li><p>Branko Grünbaum. <a href="http://www.math.washington.edu/~grunbaum/Your%2520polyhedra-my%2520polyhedra.pdf1.1." rel="nofollow">Are your polyhedra the same as my polyhedra?</a>' <em>Discrete and comput. Geom.: the Goodman-Pollack Festschrift</em>, ed. B. Aronov et al, Springer (2003), pp. 461-488.</p></li> <li><p>Branko Grünbaum. <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/c935nx65v82r1001/" rel="nofollow">The Bilinski Dodecahedron and Assorted Parallelohedra, Zonohedra, Monohedra, Isozonohedra, and Otherhedra</a>'. <em>The Mathematical Intelligencer</em> (2010). DOI: 10.1007/s00283-010-9138-7.</p></li> </ol> <p>The first title is easy for me to recall whenever I need to refer to the paper. The second title sounds fancy (though the article itself is not) and, more importantly, is unpronounceable by me, therefore I have put some stretch of mental effort into memorising it.</p> <p>As to the original question---What makes the title of a paper memorable?---, personally, when I look for things to read, my attention tends to be captured by titles that are short and sweet, for instance, Jean-Pierre Serre's <em>Trees</em>, Ken Brown's <em>Buildings</em>. These monographs/papers usually turn out to be the authorative treaties of the topics, with material unforgettable for one working in the field.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/53842#53842 Answer by Ben Linowitz for Most memorable titles Ben Linowitz 2011-01-31T00:42:36Z 2011-01-31T00:42:36Z <p><a href="http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~carlp/PDF/paper109.pdf" rel="nofollow">A Tale of Two Sieves</a> by Carl Pomerance</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/53862#53862 Answer by Jamie Weigandt for Most memorable titles Jamie Weigandt 2011-01-31T05:48:54Z 2011-01-31T05:48:54Z <p>De Weger and Pinter wrote <a href="http://deweger.xs4all.nl/papers/%5B22%5DPidW-210-PubMatDebr%5B1997%5D.pdf" rel="nofollow">this paper</a> entitled:</p> <p>$$210 = 14 \times 15 = 5 \times 6 \times 7 = \binom{21}{2} = \binom{10}{4}$$</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/60827#60827 Answer by Denis Serre for Most memorable titles Denis Serre 2011-04-06T15:42:48Z 2011-04-06T15:42:48Z <p><strong>A mathematical theory of the guillotine</strong>, by Plero Villaggio, <em>Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis</em> (1990) Vol. 110, pp 93-101.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/60832#60832 Answer by Leo Alonso for Most memorable titles Leo Alonso 2011-04-06T16:08:00Z 2011-04-06T16:08:00Z <p>I like the second part of:</p> <p>Breuil, Christophe; Conrad, Brian; Diamond, Fred; Taylor, Richard "On the modularity of elliptic curves over $\mathbf{Q}$: <em>wild 3-adic exercises</em>."</p> <p>MR1839918 (2002d:11058)</p> <p>They prove the remaining cases of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture: "every elliptic curve is modular".</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/63728#63728 Answer by Margaret Friedland for Most memorable titles Margaret Friedland 2011-05-02T19:18:11Z 2011-05-02T19:18:11Z <p>Most colorful:</p> <p>MR1371379 (97g:60105) Chung, Kai Lai: Green, Brown, and probability. World Scientific Publishing Co., Inc., River Edge, NJ, 1995. xiv+106 pp. ISBN: 981-02-2453-2; 981-02-2533-4 </p> <p>The book discusses connection between potential theory (in particular Green's function for Laplace equation) and probability (in particular Brownian motions).</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/63731#63731 Answer by Margaret Friedland for Most memorable titles Margaret Friedland 2011-05-02T19:36:10Z 2011-05-02T19:36:10Z <p>Another one: MR1274760 (95d:30040) Carleson, Lennart(S-RIT); Jones, Peter W.(1-YALE); Yoccoz, Jean-Christophe(F-PARIS11) Julia and John. (English summary) Bol. Soc. Brasil. Mat. (N.S.) 25 (1994), no. 1, 1–30.</p> <p>The preprint wad even more memorable title: In Carleson and Gamelin's book on complex dynamics it was referred to as: When is Julia John? </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/63779#63779 Answer by Mariano Suárez-Alvarez for Most memorable titles Mariano Suárez-Alvarez 2011-05-03T06:06:27Z 2011-05-03T06:06:27Z <p>[Smale, Stephen. The story of the higher-dimensional Poincaré conjecture (what actually happened on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro). A joint AMS-MAA invited address presented in Phoenix, Arizona, January 1989. AMS-MAA Joint Lecture Series. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1989. 1 videocassette (NTSC; 1/2 inch; VHS) (60 min.); sd., col. <a href="http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=MR1057609" rel="nofollow">MR1057609</a> (91g:01035)]</p> <p>It's a video, but it's Smale, so...</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64024#64024 Answer by Giuseppe for Most memorable titles Giuseppe 2011-05-05T16:55:57Z 2011-05-05T16:55:57Z <p>Larry Bates, Monodromy in the champagne bottle.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64043#64043 Answer by Abhinav Kumar for Most memorable titles Abhinav Kumar 2011-05-05T19:58:58Z 2011-05-05T19:58:58Z <p><em>The weird and wonderful chemistry of audioactive decay</em>, by John Conway.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64299#64299 Answer by Harrison Brown for Most memorable titles Harrison Brown 2011-05-08T13:35:07Z 2011-05-08T13:35:07Z <p>I'm a big fan of "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&amp;_udi=B6WHT-4JMV5P1-6&amp;_user=10&amp;_coverDate=08/31/1983&amp;_rdoc=1&amp;_fmt=high&amp;_orig=gateway&amp;_origin=gateway&amp;_sort=d&amp;_docanchor=&amp;view=c&amp;_searchStrId=1744513514&amp;_rerunOrigin=google&amp;_acct=C000050221&amp;_version=1&amp;_urlVersion=0&amp;_userid=10&amp;md5=8f5bda5bab769d3bcb246b0c9860e60f&amp;searchtype=a" rel="nofollow">Excluding a Forest</a>": technically precise, to the point, but just mysterious enough to grab the attention. I've said before that it ought to be the name of a band. ("Taming a vortex" is also good.)</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64301#64301 Answer by Pål GD for Most memorable titles Pål GD 2011-05-08T14:12:09Z 2011-05-12T11:56:12Z <p>From the top of my head comes the papers</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.0012" rel="nofollow">Domination When The Stars Are Out</a>, D Hermelin, M Mnich, EJ van Leeuwen, G Woeginger</li> <li>Looking At The Stars, E Prieto &amp; C Sloper</li> <li><a href="http://www.latrobe.edu.au/mathstats/staff/cairns/papers/36.pdf" rel="nofollow">Leftovers from the Ham Sandwich Theorem</a>, G Byrnes, G Cairns and B Jessup</li> </ul> <p>But also, Cox &amp; Zucker, who in <a href="http://www.ii.uib.no/~sloper/Papers/stars_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">Intersection numbers of sections of elliptic surfaces</a> creates the algorithm later named the <strong>Cox-Zucker machine</strong></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64303#64303 Answer by Asaf Karagila for Most memorable titles Asaf Karagila 2011-05-08T14:59:31Z 2011-05-08T14:59:31Z <p>There was the fuss about <a href="http://www.unomaha.edu/logic/pictures/yellow/yellow.html" rel="nofollow">The Yellow Cake</a>, a joint paper of Saharon Shelah and Andrzej Roslanowski.</p> <p>They also co-authored several other funnily titled papers, amongst them are such names as:</p> <ul> <li>"<a href="http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.LO/0406612" rel="nofollow">How much sweetness is there in the universe?</a>"</li> <li>"<a href="http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.LO/0010070" rel="nofollow">Measured Creatures</a>"</li> <li>"<a href="http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.LO/0611131" rel="nofollow">Lords of the iteration</a>"</li> <li>"<a href="http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/math.LO/9909115" rel="nofollow">Sweet &amp; Sour and other flavours of ccc forcing notions</a>"</li> </ul> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64307#64307 Answer by Todd Trimble for Most memorable titles Todd Trimble 2011-05-08T15:47:59Z 2011-08-23T08:54:44Z <p>You'd think that with John H. Conway around, this should be like shooting fish in a barrel. One title that comes to mind is </p> <ul> <li>The Sensual (Quadratic) Form</li> </ul> <p>and there are more goodies if you look at his <a href="http://www.math.princeton.edu/WebCV/ConwayBIB.pdf" rel="nofollow">bibliography</a>. For example, </p> <ul> <li>Character Calisthenics </li> </ul> <p>or </p> <ul> <li>The $\sqrt{\text{Monster}}$ Construction </li> </ul> <p>I also like the paper (both the title and the contents!) by Andreas Blass, </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9405205" rel="nofollow">Seven Trees in One</a></li> </ul> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64309#64309 Answer by Karl Schwede for Most memorable titles Karl Schwede 2011-05-08T16:55:36Z 2011-05-08T19:03:17Z <p>Here are a few that jump to my mind.</p> <p><em>Young person's guide to canonical singularities</em> by Miles Reid, 1985.</p> <p><em>Twenty-five years of 3-folds—an old person's view</em> by Miles Reid, 2000.</p> <p><em>Tendencious survey of 3-folds</em>, by Miles Reid, 1985 (same book, Bowdoin -- Algebraic Geometry, as the first one).</p> <p><em>On the ubiquity of Gorenstein rings</em> by Hyman Bass, 1963. This also seems to be the first paper with the word ubiquity in the title (via a mathscinet search).</p> <p>Another one that jumps to my mind is the various <em>Pathologies</em> papers of Mumford. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64316#64316 Answer by Jeremy Kahn for Most memorable titles Jeremy Kahn 2011-05-08T19:39:22Z 2011-05-08T19:39:22Z <p><a href="http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/exotic.pdf" rel="nofollow">On manifolds homeomorphic to the 7-sphere</a></p> <p>In which Milnor proves there is more than one. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64324#64324 Answer by Tom Goodwillie for Most memorable titles Tom Goodwillie 2011-05-08T21:26:41Z 2011-08-23T23:23:18Z <p>Speaking of Milnor and such things, have we already done [Edit: Kervaire-Milnor's] "Groups of Homotopy Spheres"?</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64331#64331 Answer by Pait for Most memorable titles Pait 2011-05-08T22:40:04Z 2011-05-08T22:40:04Z <p>One of my favorite titles from control theory is a 1978 paper by John Doyle entitled "Guaranteed Margins for LQG Regulators." It is memorable because of the abstract "There are none." The paper shows that optimal controls may be fragile; the 3-word abstract says it all.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/64782#64782 Answer by Belanov for Most memorable titles Belanov 2011-05-12T13:18:30Z 2011-05-12T13:18:30Z <p>The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis. Alan Turing.</p> <p>A math paper use chemical principles explaining biological phenomenon. </p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/70015#70015 Answer by Wadim Zudilin for Most memorable titles Wadim Zudilin 2011-07-11T13:43:00Z 2011-07-11T13:55:32Z <p><a href="http://books.google.com/books?isbn=1931914222" rel="nofollow">Why Knot?</a> by Colin Adams.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/70020#70020 Answer by Artem Pelenitsyn for Most memorable titles Artem Pelenitsyn 2011-07-11T15:02:04Z 2011-07-11T15:02:04Z <p>“<em>Kindergarten Quantum Mechanics</em>” by Bob Coecke / <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0510032v1" rel="nofollow">arXiv:quant-ph/0510032v1</a></p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/73475#73475 Answer by Giuseppe for Most memorable titles Giuseppe 2011-08-23T08:31:48Z 2011-08-23T08:31:48Z <p>Larry Bates, "You can't get there from here", Differential Geometry and its Applications 8.3 (1998): 273-274</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/73482#73482 Answer by Brendan Foreman for Most memorable titles Brendan Foreman 2011-08-23T10:34:41Z 2011-08-23T10:34:41Z <p>I've always enjoyed the poetry of the title:</p> <p>"Period three implies chaos" -- T.-Y. Li &amp; J. A. Yorke</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/73486#73486 Answer by Quinn Culver for Most memorable titles Quinn Culver 2011-08-23T12:15:21Z 2011-08-23T12:15:21Z <p><a href="http://grigorsargis.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/9/7/2897376/bsl.pdf" rel="nofollow">"A short tale of hybrid mice"</a>, by Grigor Sargsyan.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/73521#73521 Answer by Andrew T. Barker for Most memorable titles Andrew T. Barker 2011-08-23T18:41:03Z 2011-08-23T18:41:03Z <p>"The 40 billionth binary digit of pi is 1", D. Bailey and P. Borwein.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44326/most-memorable-titles/73523#73523 Answer by Maxime Bourrigan for Most memorable titles Maxime Bourrigan 2011-08-23T20:26:11Z 2011-08-23T20:26:11Z <p>You can find in Serre's <em>Œuvres</em> (volume IV) an article titled <a href="http://pythagoras0.springnote.com/pages/1943100/attachments/871280" rel="nofollow">$\Delta = b^2 - 4ac$</a>. </p>