Timeline for What is the main goal of a paper, really?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 13, 2015 at 1:59 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | @KevinH.Lin (Almost four years later...) one way to read this is as more of a minimal requirement: if the paper is written in such a way that the author wouldn't understand it ten years from now, then what hope does the poor reader have? (Another is the straightforward principle that the math we once did will not be lost to us in the future -- this seems to gain in importance as we get older. Even the great Erdos is said to have sometimes found papers written by his younger self almost impossible to follow!) | |
| Dec 20, 2011 at 2:35 | comment | added | Dror Bar-Natan | Amusing... I didn't know of the Manin opinion. Mine is a variant of something I heard from someone who heard it from Shlomo Sternberg, who supposedly "writes books to forget their content". | |
| Dec 19, 2011 at 20:12 | comment | added | Alexander Chervov | Surprisingly for me, I have heard similar answer from Yuri Manin, he told me he writes papers keeping in mind himself after 10 years as a reader. Actually I do not quite agree with such position - since I guess not so many people as smart as him that probably means it might would be difficult to understand his papers... On the other hand hearing this for the second time, makes me think that may be I am not wise enough to take accept the truth :):) | |
| Dec 16, 2011 at 5:59 | comment | added | Benjamin Steinberg | I so far like this answer best. But this would definitely lead me to (a) since I would like to remember how I thought it up. I would if writing for myself write something close to te raw intuition and forget all the tricks that I came up with to make it easier on the reader. | |
| Dec 15, 2011 at 1:52 | comment | added | Kevin H. Lin | Papers are written without any (explicit) regard for readers other than the author himself/herself? :( | |
| Dec 10, 2011 at 15:33 | comment | added | Denis Serre | I should like to vote several times this answer. When I come back to my own articles, two decades all, I often feel lost... | |
| Dec 10, 2011 at 1:21 | comment | added | Qiaochu Yuan | This purpose seems more easily accomplished by blog posts (I understand this is what Terence Tao uses them for, for example). | |
| Dec 10, 2011 at 1:19 | comment | added | Mariano Suárez-Álvarez | 10 years? I envy you! | |
| Dec 10, 2011 at 0:56 | history | answered | Dror Bar-Natan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |