Volume 53, Issue 4 – Fall 2026
The shortest published physics paper on record is a 1951 Physical Review note by Friedrich Lenz titled “The Ratio of Proton and Electron Mass,” which contains just 27 words, one equation, one number, and a single reference.
The shortest mathematics research paper ever published is titled “Can (n2 + 1) unit equilateral triangles cover an equilateral triangle of side (>n), say (n + ε)?” Written by John Conway and Alexander Soifer from the mathematics department of Princeton University, it was published in The American Mathematical Monthly in 2005. It consists of two words (“n² + 2 can”) accompanied by two geometric figures.
The best co-authored publication (IMHO) is “Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc ³He”, written by J. H. Hetherington and F. D. C. Willard, which was accepted by Physical Review Letters and published in number 35 (November 1975). F. D. C. Willard was the author’s Siamese cat.
The publication with the highest number of co-authors is “A global study assessing the safety of elective surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritizing patients for vaccination,” with 15,025 authors, published in the British Journal of Surgery in 2021.
The paper with the shortest abstract is undoubtedly “Is the Sequence of Earthquakes in Southern California, with Aftershocks Removed, Poissonian?” by J. K. Gardner and L. Knopoff, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America Vol 64 No. 5, 1974. The abstract just says “Yes.”
