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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.research
Subject: Re: How many people read an average research paper?
Message-ID: <2346@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Nov-86 10:58:00 EST
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.2346
Posted: Tue Nov 25 10:58:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Dec-86 06:08:32 EST
References: <7966@watdaisy.UUCP> <2483@phri.UUCP> <236@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Distribution: sci
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 56
Keywords: Science Citation Index
Xref: mnetor sci.math:273 sci.research:33

>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.
>
>In article <2326@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes:
>
>>I do not know the paper either, but the paper
>>
>> J.B. Kruskal, On the shortest spanning subtree of a graph and
>>		the travelling salesman problem
>>
>>is cited by any textbook on data structure and algorithms.  
>>In general, if someone has a very deep and difficult theorem which 'closes'
>>certain topic, it will not be cited very much.  On the other hand, even
>>a weak paper which 'opens' an area of research which becomes very popular,
>>will be cited very often (often without reading, I guess, many times people
>>cite citations of others).
>
>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!)
>
>To Piotr Berman: The 1956 "shortest spanning subtree" paper you cite was
>written while I was a graduate student at Princeton, and was only my second 
>published paper.  (May you write many papers as weakly popular as this one.)
>
>A finitized form of a theorem from my Ph.D. thesis was the first proposition of
>genuine mathematical interest to be demonstrated as undecidable in a formal
>system (work by Harvey Friedman, using the first new method for demonstrating
>undecidability since Goedel introduced the concept).
>
>Sic transit gloria mundi.
>
>Joseph B Kruskal

Sorry for a clumsy formulation.  I LIKE KRUSKAL ALGORITHM.  Any former
student of Comp. Sc. must now it, so I was surprised that your name was
unfamiliar to someone here.

But you must admit that it was not a most difficult result of yours.
And would I quote you, I would do it by quoting the reference from a
textbook, without reading this paper.  I would conjecture that many
people writing on applications of your 1964 paper read about the result,
and then requoted the reference.  This perhaps indicates that the question
should be 'how many people learn an average mathematical result' rather
then 'how many people read an average paper'.  Very few people quote
Pitagoras, for example.

Sorry that I am ignorant of your thesis, may be I should read it over the
Christmass as a pennance.

Piotr Berman