21 May 2010

A paper with 2789 authors

I came across this physics paper by browsing the arXiv.org e-Print archive tonight. It is titled
"Readiness of the ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter for LHC Collisions"
and has 2789 authors! Yes, that's right:
Two thousand seven hundred and eighty nine authors!

The papers is 31 pages long. Seven of these pages are devoted to the listing of the authors' names. Actually, all letters of the alphabet are there: there is at least one author whose family name starts with any given letter. It takes another 4 pages to list the authors' affiliations. One of the authors is marked as deceased at the time of submission of the paper. (Considering their number, this must be a not-so-unlikely event.)

I wish I knew whether this is a world record.

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T H E B O T T O M L I N E

What measure theory is about

It's about counting, but when things get too large.
Put otherwise, it's about addition of positive numbers, but when these numbers are far too many.

The principle of dynamic programming

max_{x,y} [f(x) + g(x,y)] = max_x [f(x) + max_y g(x,y)]

The bottom line

Nuestras horas son minutos cuando esperamos saber y siglos cuando sabemos lo que se puede aprender.
(Our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt.) --António Machado

Αγεωμέτρητος μηδείς εισίτω.
(Those who do not know geometry may not enter.) --Plato

Sapere Aude! Habe Muth, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
(Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!) --Kant