<p>Looking at the list of important papers in computer science one notices that the majority are authored by a single author. Those include classic papers of Turing, Shannon, Karp and Cook. Cook's solo paper started the most important question of computer science.</p>

<p>How can we explain this? What are the implications to the creative process in theoretical computer science?</p>

<p>I am aware of paradigm shifts and paradigm blindness. However, I doubt they fully explain this phenomena.</p>

<p>Here is the list that includes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_theoretical_computer_science" rel="nofollow">important papers in TCS</a> which motivated my question.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T12:26:04.940Z
Here is a list of important papers in TCS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_theoretical_computer_science
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T12:41:51.653Z
The papers you allude to in the question were all written 35+ years ago when the field was small and collaboration was harder. That alone could explain their having only one author. And one can probably come up with a large list of counterexamples, which I'll kick off with RSA and the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena primality paper.
David Richerby
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2014-06-02T13:07:37.173Z
It seems that you're not the only person concerned with this. For example, it was asked by Frank Ruskey to Donald Knuth (#16 in http://informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2213858). On this issue I totally agree with Ruskey, and it seems extremely rare and hard to believe that more than two persons make real contribution to a single paper. But if four authors write four papers together, they get significantly better chance to get jobs, funding, etc. than each publishing a single-authored one.
Yixin Cao
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2014-06-02T13:14:00.663Z
@DavidRicherby The field of mathematics is never small, and only the last twenty years have witnessed several breakthrough results, including the resolution of Fermat, Poincare, and twin-prim problems. All of them are single-authored.
Yixin Cao
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T13:38:06.750Z
@YixinCao: it's very easy for more than two people to make a significant contribution to a paper as soon as the proofs are big enough. The proofs I do in my work are routinely dozens to hundreds of pages long, which can involve several people working for weeks or months on them. Similarly, areas of pure mathematics where long proofs are common (such as finite graph theory) also have many more multi-author papers.
Neel Krishnaswami
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T13:55:10.520Z
I've added a more descriptive title, since the previous title could make one think that this is suppose to be a "big list" of break-through papers. Also, I think it is important to take @DavidRicherby's comment seriously, and make sure you are actually seeing a real pattern. If we look at breakthrough papers and look at their publication dates, how does their authorship statistics compare to the statistics of authorship _at that time_? Is there really an abnormality, or would you expect it to come from age and chance due to small sample?
Artem Kaznatcheev
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2014-06-02T14:40:28.493Z
@YixinCao The twin prime problem was resolved???
Lamine
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T14:45:13.810Z
@YixinCao So, which of the authors of your various three- and five-author papers didn't "make a real contribution"?
David Richerby
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T14:58:18.033Z
Data to support the premise of the question? (As mentioned, should control for e.g. prevalence of single-authorship over time and so on.)
usul
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T15:44:38.643Z
[virtuosity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso)/[genius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius)? which are possibly an intrinsic aspect of human capability/psychology crosscutting science, arts, etc. although there are contrary views eg Gladwell [Outliers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)) that argues that genius/virtuosity is all rooted in (to simplify) "10,000 hr practice". could this indeed chg over time in a scientific field as it evolves and/or grows? so then tag `ho.historical-overview` might apply...
vzn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T18:46:09.763Z
@DavidRicherby, Maybe some of them are not main contributor or maybe he is not a main contributor in some of those papers, but it's not very important, and is not good to ask for any pourpose. This seems to be very common. e.g maybe someone's name is in paper just because he introduced the problem and etc. And it works in both direction. We invite someone to contribute as a coauthor maybe another day he invites us as a contributor. Maybe it's not the best way that science should work but seems it's the way it works these days.
Saeed
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T18:46:37.930Z
For a long list of counter examples, please see the Gödel prize list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_Prize): only 5 of the 22 papers awarded prizes are single-authored, and Johan Håstad counts for two of those.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T19:32:14.387Z
@SureshVenkat Interesting. Gödel Prize started only from 1993 which excludes many papers from Wikipedia's list of important papers.
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T22:11:44.487Z
That's not a list of just important papers. It's also a list of important **books** - and it's hardly surprising that books would be single-authored. But the Gödel prize reflects what are breakthrough results in the community NOW, and as such if anything reflects a trend **towards** multi-author papers rather than away from it.
Suresh Venkat
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2014-06-02T22:18:07.190Z
You are right. I meant to say a list that includes important papers in TCS.
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T23:08:10.810Z
the wikipedia list is worthwhile & many would agree on its choices but unf cant be taken too seriously because there is no bkg on how selections were made or the committee who made them. so it comes down largely to wikipedia contributors/editors subjective tastes. also, is TCS any different than other sciences in its distribution of single vs multiple author papers? have never heard any such trend. so its maybe a worthwhile question to ask of science but it might not be TCS-specific at all. suggest looking into [citation analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_analysis) for answers...
vzn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-02T23:13:35.347Z
here is an example of systematic citation analysis in math which does include some CS categories (p38), [Patterns of Research in
Mathematics / Grossman](http://www.ams.org/notices/200501/fea-grossman.pdf) Notices AMS using large citation dbs. maybe its based on open data? the problem can be studied empirically with citation dbs but probably this hasnt been done much for TCS specifically by anyone. also fig.6 p37 is very revealing & shows clear historical trends & maybe applies to TCS also. "Figure 6. The fraction of papers with a given number of authors, by decade". also fig.7 p38...
vzn
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T01:24:28.240Z
@Suresh: you're miscounting. There are 11 single-authored papers (out of 33) in that list. For example, Immerman and Szelepcsényi shared the prize for two single-authored papers that proved essentially the same result.
Peter Shor 
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T08:06:34.090Z
@PeterShor: good point: I missed that (and also the arora/mitchell entries). I guess my overall point is still that the premise is questionable :)
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T12:28:23.767Z
@SureshVenkat I included a link in my question to limit the scope to papers considered all-time important by Wikipedia's editors.
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-03T22:58:11.827Z
Why should we care what Wikipedia thinks is important?
Jeffε
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-04T00:08:32.700Z
@JɛﬀE I guess since it is collaborative effort, but not authorative one, it gives me an indicator of what experts consider important breakthrough paper. Alternatively, A less subjective Way is to search for highly cited papers in TCS.
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-12T22:56:44.337Z
It is interesting to note that the _failed_ breakthrough attempts are almost always single authored, apparently much more often than the successful breakthroughs. For example, the [P-versus-NP page](http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm) currently lists 105 failed attempts to resolve the P vs NP question. Almost all of them are single authored.
Andras Farago
<soft-question><research-practice><ho.history-overview>
Why is single authorship so common among breakthrough papers in computer science?
Mohammad Al-Turkistany
# Why is single authorship so common among breakthrough papers in computer science?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-06-02)

Looking at the list of important papers in computer science one notices that the majority are authored by a single author. Those include classic papers of Turing, Shannon, Karp and Cook. Cook's solo paper started the most important question of computer science.

How can we explain this? What are the implications to the creative process in theoretical computer science?

I am aware of paradigm shifts and paradigm blindness. However, I doubt they fully explain this phenomena.

Here is the list that includes [important papers in TCS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_theoretical_computer_science) which motivated my question.

**Tags:** soft-question, research-practice, ho.history-overview
> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Here is a list of important papers in TCS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_theoretical_computer_science  
> **username_1**: The papers you allude to in the question were all written 35+ years ago when the field was small and collaboration was harder. That alone could explain their having only one author. And one can probably come up with a large list of counterexamples, which I'll kick off with RSA and the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena primality paper.  
> **username_2**: It seems that you're not the only person concerned with this. For example, it was asked by Frank Ruskey to Donald Knuth (#16 in http://informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2213858). On this issue I totally agree with Ruskey, and it seems extremely rare and hard to believe that more than two persons make real contribution to a single paper. But if four authors write four papers together, they get significantly better chance to get jobs, funding, etc. than each publishing a single-authored one.  
> **username_2**: @DavidRicherby The field of mathematics is never small, and only the last twenty years have witnessed several breakthrough results, including the resolution of Fermat, Poincare, and twin-prim problems. All of them are single-authored.  
> **username_3**: @YixinCao: it's very easy for more than two people to make a significant contribution to a paper as soon as the proofs are big enough. The proofs I do in my work are routinely dozens to hundreds of pages long, which can involve several people working for weeks or months on them. Similarly, areas of pure mathematics where long proofs are common (such as finite graph theory) also have many more multi-author papers.  
> **username_4**: I've added a more descriptive title, since the previous title could make one think that this is suppose to be a "big list" of break-through papers. Also, I think it is important to take @DavidRicherby's comment seriously, and make sure you are actually seeing a real pattern. If we look at breakthrough papers and look at their publication dates, how does their authorship statistics compare to the statistics of authorship _at that time_? Is there really an abnormality, or would you expect it to come from age and chance due to small sample?  
> **username_5**: @YixinCao The twin prime problem was resolved???  
> **username_1**: @YixinCao So, which of the authors of your various three- and five-author papers didn't "make a real contribution"?  
> **username_6**: Data to support the premise of the question? (As mentioned, should control for e.g. prevalence of single-authorship over time and so on.)  
> **username_7**: [virtuosity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso)/[genius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius)? which are possibly an intrinsic aspect of human capability/psychology crosscutting science, arts, etc. although there are contrary views eg Gladwell [Outliers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)) that argues that genius/virtuosity is all rooted in (to simplify) "10,000 hr practice". could this indeed chg over time in a scientific field as it evolves and/or grows? so then tag `ho.historical-overview` might apply...  
> **username_8**: @DavidRicherby, Maybe some of them are not main contributor or maybe he is not a main contributor in some of those papers, but it's not very important, and is not good to ask for any pourpose. This seems to be very common. e.g maybe someone's name is in paper just because he introduced the problem and etc. And it works in both direction. We invite someone to contribute as a coauthor maybe another day he invites us as a contributor. Maybe it's not the best way that science should work but seems it's the way it works these days.  
> **username_9**: For a long list of counter examples, please see the Gödel prize list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_Prize): only 5 of the 22 papers awarded prizes are single-authored, and Johan Håstad counts for two of those.  
> **username_0**: @SureshVenkat Interesting. Gödel Prize started only from 1993 which excludes many papers from Wikipedia's list of important papers.  
> **username_9**: That's not a list of just important papers. It's also a list of important **books** - and it's hardly surprising that books would be single-authored. But the Gödel prize reflects what are breakthrough results in the community NOW, and as such if anything reflects a trend **towards** multi-author papers rather than away from it.  
> **username_0**: You are right. I meant to say a list that includes important papers in TCS.  
> **username_7**: the wikipedia list is worthwhile & many would agree on its choices but unf cant be taken too seriously because there is no bkg on how selections were made or the committee who made them. so it comes down largely to wikipedia contributors/editors subjective tastes. also, is TCS any different than other sciences in its distribution of single vs multiple author papers? have never heard any such trend. so its maybe a worthwhile question to ask of science but it might not be TCS-specific at all. suggest looking into [citation analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_analysis) for answers...  
> **username_7**: here is an example of systematic citation analysis in math which does include some CS categories (p38), [Patterns of Research in Mathematics / Grossman](http://www.ams.org/notices/200501/fea-grossman.pdf) Notices AMS using large citation dbs. maybe its based on open data? the problem can be studied empirically with citation dbs but probably this hasnt been done much for TCS specifically by anyone. also fig.6 p37 is very revealing & shows clear historical trends & maybe applies to TCS also. "Figure 6. The fraction of papers with a given number of authors, by decade". also fig.7 p38...  
> **username_10**: @Suresh: you're miscounting. There are 11 single-authored papers (out of 33) in that list. For example, Immerman and Szelepcsényi shared the prize for two single-authored papers that proved essentially the same result.  
> **username_9**: @PeterShor: good point: I missed that (and also the arora/mitchell entries). I guess my overall point is still that the premise is questionable :)  
> **username_0**: @SureshVenkat I included a link in my question to limit the scope to papers considered all-time important by Wikipedia's editors.  
> **username_11**: Why should we care what Wikipedia thinks is important?  
> **username_0**: @JɛﬀE I guess since it is collaborative effort, but not authorative one, it gives me an indicator of what experts consider important breakthrough paper. Alternatively, A less subjective Way is to search for highly cited papers in TCS.  
> **username_12**: It is interesting to note that the _failed_ breakthrough attempts are almost always single authored, apparently much more often than the successful breakthroughs. For example, the [P-versus-NP page](http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm) currently lists 105 failed attempts to resolve the P vs NP question. Almost all of them are single authored.  

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## 0 answers

