Greg Kuperberg's XXX-sermon

From: Greg Kuperberg Message-Id: <199803012043.MAA08286@matching.math.ucdavis.edu> Subject: Response to opinion 18 --- please attach To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 12:43:30 -0800 (PST) Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1291 Status: RO

Opinion 18 is even more correct than its author thinks it is. Home pages are very nice, but they are not the whole answer. A home page is nothing more than an electronic version of a box outside your office door. The box may be moved from time to time, or even emptied. Since it impermanent, it can't and won't replace for the papyrus-based literature.

But there is another electronic technology that can and will: The xxx Mathematics E-print Archive. It is truly an Archive with a capital "A"; it is the most stable and uniform method of preserving the mathematical literature ever invented. Long after today's paper has acidified and crumbled, the data of the xxx math archive will be mirrored, translated, backed up, CD-ROM'ed, and otherwise passed on from generation to generation through active maintainence.

Irony of ironies, even Steve Krantz has contributed more to the xxx math archive than Doron Zeilberger has (albeit only through another archive that was merged with xxx). You can see for yourself with:

search for Krantz vs.

search for Zeilberger If you too would like to be even more forward-thinking than opinion 18, go to xxx submissions to find out how.

Greg

Note by Doron Zeilberger, Added June 1, 1998: Thanks to Greg's urging, I am starting to submit to the xxx. I am currently roughly tied with Krantz, but soon will surpass him.

Note by Doron Zeilberger, added Nov. 10, 1998: Greg Kuperberg has just written me that he retracting the above rejoinder. `You have gotten the point now'.