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Comment by johnjwang | Hacker News Reader

Although these short papers are fun, I think the most interesting papers are those that are both important and concise. One of my favorite examples is Josh Nash's proof of the existence of Nash Equilibria (which is a foundational concept in game theory and arguably won Nash a Nobel):

http://www.pnas.org/content/36/1/48.full

It's less than a full page in the original journal.

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His Ph.D. thesis is also relatively short (just 28 pages):

https://rbsc.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/Non-Cooperati...

Is this some sort of draft? I've seen manuscripts from the 30s that are much more legible.

My supervisor's thesis from the 70's is in about as good as shape as the one linked. Must depend on when it was scanned.

There's a related, typeset version from the Annals of Mathematics five months later, on page 9 of:

https://webspace.princeton.edu/users/mudd/Digitization/AC105...

While we're on the subject of brevity, page 23 has the shortest recommendation letter I've ever seen.

Agreed. In a few days I'm supposed to give a lecture about how to write great scientific papers. I wasn't aware of this paper (I'm aphysicist, not a mathematician), but nevertheless I'm going to discuss it with the class, its conciseness is exemplary! Thanks a lot!

Can you post your presentation here?? I would be interested to see it.

I would be happy to put it on slideshare, but it's going to be written in italian…

Be sure to check this video, as it is very good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3dkRsTqdDA&index=38&list=FL...

The discovery of DNA was also a page and yielded a Nobel prize

https://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf

I always loved this line:

"It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."

(Your link appears broken, btw)

The discovery of the structure of DNA*. DNA had been known as one of the components of cells for a long time, and the Avery, Macleod, and McCarty paper from 1944[0] showed that DNA was the substance that carried information, rather than protein.

[0] http://jem.rupress.org/content/79/2/137

Nature appears to do some silly referrer blocking.

It's the first link under "archive" on https://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/archive.html

That wasn't working for me either.

Here's an IPFS link: https://www.eternum.io/ipfs/QmaCQy4GdRTh6jHf2eDJVoWzgHzTbwVj...

I love this example which shows how a "novel" publication can be that simple and beautiful.

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