IntroductionWere you ever looking up papers in MathSciNet and you found one that especially made you smile or laugh? And were you ever wishing that MathReviews were sorted by amusement factor? Well, we did. In fact, it is a long-standing game among many mathematicians to find the most amusing or worst MathReviews they can.As a gesture of humanitarianism, I've compiled a list of what I take to be, for one reason or another, exceptional MathReviews of which I have been made aware. A review may merit listing by being unexpected, witty, scathing, humorous or otherwise deviating considerably from the run-of-the-mill reviews. It may be either good or bad, called for or uncalled for, but it should be in some way exceptional. This list is only possible with your support, so if you can suggest additions or would like to rate any reviews already listed, please email me. (Contributions will by default remain anonymous, but at contributors' requests, I am happy to add names to an acknowledgements section.) Contributions will be added chronologically, so look for newer additions at the end of the list. Enjoy! Note: To try to clean up the page some, the older entries as well as related material have been moved to linked pages. The classics (2006)The second season (2007)Recent Entries2008 AdditionsSpring 2008 Feature: The poetry of Godofredo Iommi Amunátegui
MR2158771
Muller on Fried, end of first paragraph. The review itself is less spectacular
than the paper; if the review encourages you to look at the
paper, you should not be remiss.
Rating:
MR0042171
Zariski on Derwidue. Zariski is a thorough man. See also the following
cited reviews:
MR0035487
and
MR0035488
of Walker,
the latter of which seems only to make sense in context; and the more recent
MR0222079
by Lipman.
Rating:
MR0906255
and the
84f:46023 series Jameson on Yandarov
(more on Yandarov)
Rating:
MR1650700 Berg
on Kultur and Kaplan
Rating:
MR2180434 Stade
on Lysenko
Rating:
MR1428781 Gow
on Armeanu
Rating:
MR1054134 Gow
on Huang
Rating:
Added in 2009(With apologies to everyone who submitted these ages ago, for sitting on my hands for the past year--if I accidentally missed your contributions, just tell me again)
MR1368654
Weinberger on Cappell and himself (If you recall, there was another
case where an author was a review---see Rankin's review in the Related
Material page below)
Rating:
MR1807606
Hansen on Livingston
Rating:
MR1428296
Joel on El Naschie
Rating:
MR2223426,
MR2223427
and
MR2223428
Rickles on Gregori. Gregori doesn't seem to have written anymore papers
unfortunately.
Rating:
MR0785999
Ruckle on Hartl and Mehlmann
Rating:
MR2031651,
MR2060125,
MR2097141,
MR2201402,
MR2300813,
MR2452281,
MR2454437, and
MR2456287
Grossman on Marcu (who is also featured in The Classics above, and Related
Material below; search MathSciNet for more on Marcu)
Rating:
MR1459261
Swiatek on Lyubich
Rating:
MR2239871
Grossman on Faticoni
Rating:
MR1172357
Berman on Chartrand, et al.
Rating:
MR0360322
Geller on Deo
Rating:
MR0271400
Wu on Higuchi and Kanemaru
Rating:
MR0177943
Knapowski on Chowla
Rating:
MR1452155
Wu on Kawada
Rating:
MR0188284
Epstein on Stallings
Rating:
MR0143188
Epstein on Tao
Rating:
MR1399602
Birman on Bachmuth
Rating:
Related materialThu Oct 22 01:52:39 CDT 2009 kmartin@math.ou.edu (home page) |