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Comment by chrishacken | Hacker News Reader

I understand that this paper is sort of a joke (hence references to "the force"), but I don't understand the point of some of these research papers.

> "How should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light?"

Perhaps we should do more research on getting the goods to travel close to the speed of light before we start worrying about how to calculate interest charges on them.

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According to Krugman, the paper is "a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."

I think this paper is a great example of the playfulness inherent to an effective "hacker" mindset -- do something fun and interesting, and perhaps useful conclusions will follow. Perhaps they won't, but hey, you still had fun.

>> According to Krugman, the paper is "a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."

So, if I understand correctly (as non-native English speaker), the usual in economics is: "ridiculous analysis of serious subject" ??

Yes that is the implication exactly.

The fact that the paper is meant to be taken somewhat facetiously is signaled right there on the title page: "This research was supported by a grant from the Committee to Re-elect William Proxmire."

"Proxmire was was noted for issuing his Golden Fleece Award, which was presented monthly between 1975 and 1988, in order to focus media attention on projects Proxmire viewed as self-serving and wasteful of taxpayer dollars. The first Golden Fleece Award was awarded in 1975 to the National Science Foundation, for funding an $84,000 study on why people fall in love."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire

When I was a kid, a local radio station would broadcast their summary of his "Golden Fleece Award" on their morning show. It was always a highlight to laugh at the "obvious" foolishness.

As I have gotten older, the tables have turned, and my youthful easy laughs ring hollow. It's very easy to pull research out of context and laugh at it. It's very hard to do impactful research.

I fully agree with you on that. Pulling research out-of-context is still a go-to move by anti-science politicians [1]. Frankly, I'm half-tempted to track down that $84k study on why people fall in love. That's a fascinating topic that underpins so much of the human experience; more power to any scientist who thinks they can make heads or tails of it.

[1] http://www.npr.org/2011/08/23/139852035/shrimp-on-a-treadmil...

I saved you the trouble. The author writes about how the Golden Fleece award affected her research (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-golden-flee...). She receives at a lot of hate mail - some quite disturbing - and never again receives any more funding from NSF. However, she has had a prolific and distinguished career.

The paper in question is (http://www.elainehatfield.com/uploads/3/2/2/5/3225640/7._hat...) "A little bit about Love" by Hatfield, Elaine & Berscheid, Elaine (1974). It was "facilitated in part by NIMH grant MH 16661 and NSF grants GS 35157X and GS 30822X". It is mostly a review of scientific thinking of the topic at the time and is surprisingly readable and enlightening read.

The paper was written for fun. It wasn't published in a journal until after the author won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics.

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