Abstract
THERE are two other defects of the present system of reporting on papers to which I desire to direct attention. In the first place there are certain mathematicians who resemble the Athenians in the time of St. Paul, who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” They are consequently averse to reporting in favour of a paper unless it contains new results. Against this excessive craving after novelty I emphatically protest. Many interesting results frequently drop out incidentally in the course of a long and complicated investigation, whilst others have been originally obtained by some cumbrous, troublesome and antiquated process1, and in my judgment a paper which supplies concise, simplified and improved demonstrations of results of this character is quite as valuable as one which is devoted to the investigation of new results.
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BASSET, A. Learned Societies. Nature 69, 580 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/069580c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069580c0
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