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From: larsen@brahms (Michael Larsen)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.research
Subject: Re: How many people read an average research paper?
Message-ID: <396@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 21-Nov-86 15:14:12 EST
Article-I.D.: cartan.396
Posted: Fri Nov 21 15:14:12 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Nov-86 21:51:44 EST
References: <7966@watdaisy.UUCP> <2483@phri.UUCP> <236@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <6370@alice.uUCp>
Sender: daemon@cartan.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: larsen@brahms (Michael Larsen)
Distribution: sci
Organization: Math Dept. UC Berkeley
Lines: 31
Keywords: Science Citation Index
Xref: mnetor sci.math:229 sci.research:31

>In article <236@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> 
>larsen@brahms.berkeley.edu (Michael Larsen) writes:
>
>>4.  A random search through the columns of CMCI turned up a 1964 paper by one
>>J. B. Kruskal which has 116 citations.

>>	(*)	It is quite possible that I am merely exposing my ignorance,

>>but I confess to having heard of neither
>>the mathematician in question nor the work.
>
>To Michael Larsen: The 1964 paper you cite concerns non-metric multidimensional 
>scaling.  This method has achieved routine use in psychology, marketing, and 
>some other fields.  (And I haven't heard of you either, darling!)

My apologies to Dr. Kruskal for gratuitously bringing his name into a
discussion of the merits of citation counting.  I can only attribute the
selection to the immense popularity of his paper (his fault) and the accident
of my not recognizing his name (my fault).  I imagine he would be gratified
by the number of sci.math subscribers who brought my attention to the
validity of (*).

>Sic transit gloria mundi.
>Joseph B Kruskal

Indeed.  Happy for Isaac Newton that he was long dead on the day that his 1687
treatise on laws of motion (which has achieved routine use in physics, 
engineering, and some other fields) fell ingloriously before a paper on
non-metric multidimensional scaling.

Michael J. Larsen @ berkeley.brahms.edu