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I have a question regarding Littlewood’s three precepts of refereeing a mathematical paper, namely whether it is (1) new, (2) correct, and (3) interesting.

I have found these mentioned in the literature on refereeing, e.g.:

  • “you should address Littlewoods’s three precepts: (1) Is it new? (2) Is it correct? Is it surprising?” (Krantz, 1997, p. 125); or
  • “the fundamental precepts ‘Is it true?’, ‘Is it new?’, and ‘Is it interesting?’ to which, Littlewood believed, a referee should always respond.” (Moslehian, 2010: 1245)

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down the original source. Does anyone know where Littlewood might have formulated these three precepts?

Thank you!

REFERENCES

Krantz, S. G. (1997). A Primer of Mathematical Writing: Being a Disquisition on Having Your Ideas Recorded, Typeset, Published, Read, and Appreciated. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.

Moslehian, M. S. (2010). Attributes of an ideal referee. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 57 (10), 1245. (pdf)

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2 Answers 2

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According to Ralph Boas, in his memoir Lion Hunting and Other Mathematical Pursuits (page 10), it was not Littlewood but G.H. Hardy who asked these three questions to referees, as editor of the Journal of the London Mathematical Society. This is given as a first-hand recollection, so probably reliable:

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    $\begingroup$ I knew, no one else but you, would find the answer. You should be hired by Google to improve their search algorithms! $\endgroup$
    – Piotr Hajlasz
    Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 17:48
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    $\begingroup$ I wish I could upvote the quote as well as the answer! $\endgroup$
    – Nik Weaver
    Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 18:09
  • $\begingroup$ I don't see anything here ruling out the possibility that Hardy got the idea from Littlewood. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 4:33
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That's fantastic. With that new information, I was able to find that Paul Halmos (1985: 119) also attributes this to Hardy:

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Halmos, P. R. (1985). I Want to Be A Mathematician: An Automathography. New York: Springer.

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