The joy of brute force: the covariance of the number of inversions
and the major index
There is a war between `conceptualists'
and `brutists' where the former claim to have a monopoly on
taste and beauty. It ain't necessarily so, as the present paper
demonstrates, where beauty is replaced by the much prettier
meta-beauty.
.tex version
.dvi version (for previewing)
.ps version
.pdf version
Added Jan. 3, 2011:
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Here is a
scan of Donald Knuth's letter that raised the problem.
(in the P.S.)
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Read the exciting
sequel.
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