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One-digit paper, Antarctica Journal of Mathematics

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John Baez

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Nov 12, 2006, 3:15:01 AM11/12/06
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At Dartmouth this Friday, I was told by someone who claimed not
to be lying that a group of authors, perhaps from the NSA or
something, once published a math paper consisting of a single
digit: the millionth (or perhaps five millionth) digit of pi.

This person also claimed that later, an erratum to this paper
appeared.

Is this true? Does anyone know a reference?

This is the same lunch where I heard about the Antarctica Journal
of Mathematics:

http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/prof/journal.html

It seems absurd, but somehow too lame to be a joke: an Antarctic
journal of mathematics run from India, with page charges, which
only accepts submissions in Microsoft word. Perhaps it's just
a very good joke. Does anyone know for sure?


Doug Chatham

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Nov 12, 2006, 2:44:39 PM11/12/06
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The AMS Math. Reviews includes index entries and a few reviews of
articles from Antarct. J. Math., so I reckon they think it's real.

Doug Chatham
To email, replace "spam" with "chat" in my email address.

Felicis

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Nov 13, 2006, 12:13:54 AM11/13/06
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I have noticed that about 1/3 of the articles in any issue are authored
by the same person (17 articles out of the 48 published) - that's not
necessarily a bad thing, but I am a little suspicious and also
concerned about how articles are refereed...

I can't comment as to the content since I refuse to pay the $120 to
read articles just to see how good they are... Has anyone actually
read any of them? Any comments?

cheers-
Eric

G. A. Edgar

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Nov 13, 2006, 8:12:21 AM11/13/06
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In article <ej6l65$oo$1...@glue.ucr.edu>, John Baez
<ba...@math.removethis.ucr.andthis.edu> wrote:

> At Dartmouth this Friday, I was told by someone who claimed not
> to be lying that a group of authors, perhaps from the NSA or
> something, once published a math paper consisting of a single
> digit: the millionth (or perhaps five millionth) digit of pi.
>
> This person also claimed that later, an erratum to this paper
> appeared.
>
> Is this true? Does anyone know a reference?
>

see

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/browse_frm/thread/882597b2de7cf2
a8

Martin Roller asked in sci.math for the shortest math paper, and among
those submitted, the shortest was 12 lines long.

--
G. A. Edgar http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/

David Madore

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Nov 13, 2006, 11:30:32 AM11/13/06
to
John Baez in litteris <ej6l65$oo$1...@glue.ucr.edu> scripsit:

> This is the same lunch where I heard about the Antarctica Journal
> of Mathematics:
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/prof/journal.html
>
> It seems absurd, but somehow too lame to be a joke: an Antarctic
> journal of mathematics run from India, with page charges, which
> only accepts submissions in Microsoft word. Perhaps it's just
> a very good joke. Does anyone know for sure?

The articles seem to be referenced in MathSciNet. But not reviewed.

--
David A. Madore
(david....@ens.fr,
http://www.dma.ens.fr/~madore/ )

John Baez

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Nov 13, 2006, 6:51:07 PM11/13/06
to
In article <Pine.GSO.4.64.06...@hilbert.math.ubc.ca>,
Doug Chatham <drrd...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>John Baez wrote:

>> http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/prof/journal.html

>> It seems absurd, but somehow too lame to be a joke: an Antarctic
>> journal of mathematics run from India, with page charges, which
>> only accepts submissions in Microsoft word. Perhaps it's just
>> a very good joke. Does anyone know for sure?

>The AMS Math. Reviews includes index entries and a few reviews of
>articles from Antarct. J. Math., so I reckon they think it's real.

Interesting! And you're not referring to the Antarctica Mathematical
Society, either.

Yesterday I became convinced this journal was a joke when I noticed
that their website says

"Price list is subject to change from time to time"

and that the price actually doubled in the very first year, from $120
per year to $240 per year. I thought it was a joke about journal prices.

Also, if you look at the bottom of the journal's cover here:

http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/prof/images/ajm1_1_2004.jpg

you'll notice it says, in italics:

"A Prestigious International Research Journal"

Furthermore, if you click on the link to look at abstracts of papers,
you get a pop-up window with a spam-like ad.

All this suggests we're dealing with a joke. The cartoon pictures
of penguins fail to suggest otherwise.

But, there are abstracts of papers that look like real papers!
And, some of the papers are listed on Math Reviews as well - though
I don't see any that are actually reviewed.

So, the Antarctica Journal of Mathematics seems poised right at that
delicate cusp, where I can't tell if it's a hoax or a real thing.

Excellent!


Doug Chatham

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Nov 14, 2006, 10:37:45 AM11/14/06
to

In the list of Antarct. J. Math. articles indexed by MathSciNet, I saw
a few article summaries and one (1) review: MR2203680 (2006j:94103)

The article is by T. L. Alderson of the University of New Brunswick,
and is entitled "On MDS codes of dimension 3." The article appears in
Antarct. J. Math. 2 (2005), no. 2, 143--168. The reviewer's name is
Raymond Hill, and the review seems to be a standard mathematical
review.

Arnold Neumaier

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Nov 15, 2006, 6:07:56 AM11/15/06
to

I know Raymond Hill. He is an excellent mathematician; so his review
can probably be trusted to be based on a reasonable paper.

Arnold Neumaier

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