I am helping to teach a course on communicating science and through this course, I have come into contact with an absolutely beautiful paper. It is clear, concise, and elegant. I am not at all interested in the subject (it is not the kind of science I do) but the communication is so good that I am still thrilled. I am hoping to find similar quality papers through you all. What is your favorite scientific paper of all time? What is the one you think most clearly got a story across to you? Please do not post your own papers or papers that lack a thorough enough introduction to explain things to a scientist that is not specialized in the field.
The paper I fell for is:
Molecular Computation of Solutions to Combinatorial Problems
Leonard M. Adleman
Science, New Series, Volume 266, Issue 5187 (Nov. 11, 1994), 1021-1024
Interesting question Steph, by the way, the last part of your question ("papers that lack a thorough enough introduction to explain things to a scientist that is not specialized in the field.") is preventing me to post some of interesting and breakthrough papers which I have and are clear and well understood to me (may be because that's my level of understanding of the subject). Of course, it would be very difficult to make a scientist (biological background) to understand core terms on quantum physics but the vice verse may not be true. We can make any subject understandable if we follow a progressive methodology (step by step) of defining the terms/ definitions required to understand a process. So, Simplicity of a literature do not lie in itself but the level of understanding of the reader. Thanks for the paper though! That was interesting. I would still be more than happy to post some of papers if you remove "conditions" form your question? Thanks!
Dear Steph
For me that is a difficult question. My love for science dictates that every scientific paper is a favorite. Each is individual in its own right and each is original.
However, the paper that has more impact on me and on science itself is the one that has ground breaking scientific results and in science, luckily, there are many papers of this caliber.
Hi Steph, thanks for the question. It brought back some fond memories.
It may be because of its timing (I was doing the experimental work for my PhD at that time), or its location (the authors were based in Cardiff, where I was doing my work), or maybe because of its association with Scots (I was 'interested' in a student who happened to be the first Scot that I had come to know), or because I didn't expect the BMJ to publish a spoof article, or maybe even due to its content and style, but most likely for a combination of all these reasons, I really like this article. The paper begins its conclusion with the sentence, "This study was ill conceived and badly designed but brilliantly executed."
"The haggis tolerance test in Scots and Sassenachs." Published in the Christmas 1988 edition of the British Medical Journal: http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC1838857/pdf/bmj00317-0014.pdf
As it happens, the film, Highlander was released at around the same time and the article also reminds me of this scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbvbIN0nN7A
What makes it even funnier is that Christopher Lambert, playing the part of the Scot is French and Sean Connery, playing the role of a Spaniard/Egyptian (and who says that haggis sounds revolting) is Scottish :-)
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