Speaking of mathematicians inadvertently writing the opposite of what they mean: I once read a dissertation in which the author, typing a "t" where he meant to type a "w", preceded the proof of his main theorem with the climactic announcement "We will not prove the main theorem of this dissertation". (I'm sure that the "now" -> "not" typo is a common enough mistake that it's found its way into some published articles as well.) Jim Propp On Friday, March 11, 2016, rwg <rwg@sdf.org> wrote:
On 2016-03-10 18:00, Michael Kleber wrote:
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 7:59 PM, Dan Asimov <asimov@msri.org> wrote:
Which reminds me of an oft-repeated bit of math folklore:
A review of a certain math paper read: "This paper fills a much-needed gap in the literature."
I wonder if this is apocryphal. Or is it pocryphal?
It is true, but was caught before it appeared in print. See Allyn Jackson's "Chinese Acrobatics, an Old-Time Brewery, and the 'Much Needed Gap': The Life of _Mathematical Reviews_", from the March 1997 _Notices_. PDF here: http://www.ams.org/notices/199703/comm-mr.pdf
--Michael
"Fills a badly needed void" was a routine put-down often said with a straight face (or a wink in the presence of an uninitiated) around Xerox PARC in the 70s. Incredibly, google badly needed void brings up numerous cases of what I thought were snide deprecation, but are actually obliviot reviewers still using it to mean its exact opposite:
“Fills a badly needed void” 5 of 5 stars Review of National Museum of Women in the Arts --rwg
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