Papers with 20+ authors are not that rare
though I'm in theory so 1-5 is more normal. My average is probably 2. In observational work you're beginning to look at about 100 authors.
A very quick hunt threw up this one with 34 authors, arxiv.org/abs/1003.0270
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Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:40,
archived)
A very quick hunt threw up this one with 34 authors, arxiv.org/abs/1003.0270
A hundred is insane.
Mind you, I find the tradition in the sciences of senior members of staff getting authorship despite having made no material contribution insane.
I much prefer the humanities approach: you fuck off and write something, and possibly mention someone in the footnotes if you can remember their name.
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Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:47,
archived)
I much prefer the humanities approach: you fuck off and write something, and possibly mention someone in the footnotes if you can remember their name.
we were talking about this over lunch today, actually
the conclusion was that the current system in our field is fucking lunatic but there's no easy way of dealing with it, and no good way of controlling senior professors getting their names added regardless of whether they've done anything or not.
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Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:52,
archived)