Research papers

Research papers that Hacker News readers keep rediscovering.

Hall of Fame: 15
Candidates: 41
Topics: 13
Median span: 5.7 yrs

Topics in Research papers

13 topics

Computer science 12 links 3 Hall · 9 Candidates Mathematics & science 10 links 3 Hall · 7 Candidates Software engineering 8 links 1 Hall · 7 Candidates Economics & business 7 links 2 Hall · 5 Candidates AI & data 5 links 2 Hall · 3 Candidates Medicine & health 5 links 0 Hall · 5 Candidates Environment & energy 2 links 1 Hall · 1 Candidates Space & transportation 2 links 1 Hall · 1 Candidates Education & learning 1 link 1 Hall · 0 Candidates Hardware & electronics 1 link 0 Hall · 1 Candidates History & humanities 1 link 0 Hall · 1 Candidates Security & privacy 1 link 1 Hall · 0 Candidates Society & policy 1 link 0 Hall · 1 Candidates

Strongest Hall records

15 items

Jewish problems

arxiv.org Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 13.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2017-10 Resurfaced 2021-08-11

303max pts

Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)

www.jsoftware.com Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 14.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-04 Resurfaced 2025-04-25

322max pts

Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP (2010)

arxiv.org Research & data 8 submissions · 8 people · 12.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-06 Resurfaced 2020-10-21

332max pts

'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy

papers.ssrn.com Research & data 8 submissions · 8 people · 13.7 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-08 Resurfaced 2023-08-13

323max pts

Lessons I wish I had learned before I started teaching differential equations [pdf] (1997)

web.williams.edu Research & data 8 submissions · 8 people · 6.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-08 Resurfaced 2023-11-13

426max pts

Why functional programming matters (1990) [pdf]

www.cs.kent.ac.uk Research & data 10 submissions · 10 people · 9.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-11 Resurfaced 2024-05-22

113max pts

“C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success” – Dennis Ritchie

www.bell-labs.com Research & data 10 submissions · 10 people · 7.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-07 Resurfaced 2023-07-09

255max pts

Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]

web.mit.edu Research & data 6 submissions · 5 people · 11.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-02 Resurfaced 2026-06-12

1031max pts

Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

arxiv.org Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 7.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-05 Resurfaced 2021-05-19

113max pts

Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete

arxiv.org Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 6.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-12 Resurfaced 2023-12-14

192max pts

Energy Efficiency across Programming Languages [pdf]

greenlab.di.uminho.pt Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 5.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-09 Resurfaced 2022-09-21

192max pts

How real are real numbers? (2004)

arxiv.org Research & data 5 submissions · 5 people · 7.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-09 Resurfaced 2020-08-02

218max pts

Every Model Learned by Gradient Descent Is Approximately a Kernel Machine

arxiv.org Research & data 6 submissions · 6 people · 4.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-02 Resurfaced 2024-02-25

406max pts

Consciousness as a State of Matter

arxiv.org Research & data 6 submissions · 6 people · 5.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-01 Resurfaced 2019-01-30

94max pts

Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

www.nature.com Research & data 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-08 Resurfaced 2022-08-06

181max pts

Recently resurfaced in research papers

latest 20+ point return

Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]

web.mit.edu Research & data 6 submissions · 5 people · 11.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-02 Resurfaced 2026-06-12

1031max pts

Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)

www.jsoftware.com Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 14.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-04 Resurfaced 2025-04-25

322max pts

Why functional programming matters (1990) [pdf]

www.cs.kent.ac.uk Research & data 10 submissions · 10 people · 9.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-11 Resurfaced 2024-05-22

113max pts

Every Model Learned by Gradient Descent Is Approximately a Kernel Machine

arxiv.org Research & data 6 submissions · 6 people · 4.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-02 Resurfaced 2024-02-25

406max pts

Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete

arxiv.org Research & data 11 submissions · 11 people · 6.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2023-12 Resurfaced 2023-12-14

192max pts

Candidates

Browse 41 candidates

The Early History Of Smalltalk (1993)

worrydream.com Research & data 12 submissions · 12 people · 9.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-04-17

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

121max pts

Programming as Theory Building (1985) [pdf]

pages.cs.wisc.edu Research & data 12 submissions · 11 people · 10.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-01-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

225max pts

Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor? (2017)

journals.plos.org Research & data 19 submissions · 16 people · 8.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-10-28

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

249max pts

Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity (2011) [pdf]

www.scottaaronson.com Research & data 8 submissions · 8 people · 11.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-08-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

177max pts

Theory of interstellar trade (1978) [pdf]

www.princeton.edu Research & data 7 submissions · 7 people · 17.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-04-20

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

157max pts

Grabby Aliens: A Resolution to the Fermi Paradox

grabbyaliens.com Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 2.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-02-10

Needs:5 submissions

189max pts

The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

fermatslibrary.com Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2020-12-31

Needs:5 submissions

138max pts

What If Planet 9 Is a Primordial Black Hole?

arxiv.org Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-09-28

Needs:5 submissions

285max pts

On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines (2017)

arxiv.org Research & data 8 submissions · 8 people · 9.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-06-14

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

85max pts

Is this the simplest (and most surprising) sorting algorithm?

arxiv.org Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-02-24

Needs:5 submissions

615max pts

Physical Warp Drives

iopscience.iop.org Research & data 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-11-05

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

147max pts

Common Lisp: The Untold Story

www.nhplace.com Research & data 5 submissions · 5 people · 9.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-06-10

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

160max pts

No Silver Bullet (1986) [pdf]

worrydream.com Research & data 7 submissions · 6 people · 7.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-11

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

114max pts

Total cholesterol and all-cause mortality – a study among 13M adults

www.nature.com Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-09-21

Needs:5 submissions

167max pts

Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining eyesight

www.nature.com Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-02-16

Needs:5 submissions

417max pts

93% of paint splatters are valid Perl programs (2019)

www.mcmillen.dev Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-04-29

Needs:5 submissions

515max pts

Attractive students no longer receive better results as classes moved online

www.sciencedirect.com Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-03-23

Needs:5 submissions

360max pts

Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

arxiv.org Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 7.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-11-12

Needs:5 submissions

242max pts

It is time to stop teaching frequentism to non-statisticians (2012)

arxiv.org Research & data 4 submissions · 2 people · 9.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-05-24

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 submitters

100max pts

It is high time we let go of the Mersenne Twister (2019)

arxiv.org Research & data 6 submissions · 5 people · 6.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-03-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

162max pts

Learn Physics by Programming in Haskell

arxiv.org Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2018-02-24

Needs:5 submissions

468max pts

A C89 compiler that produces executables that are also valid ASCII text files [pdf]

www.cs.cmu.edu Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 6.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-07-22

Needs:5 submissions

323max pts

Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-03-17

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

369max pts

Destruction of nuclear bombs using ultra-high energy neutrino beam (2003) [pdf]

arxiv.org Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-02-06

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

131max pts

What every compiler writer should know about programmers [pdf]

www.complang.tuwien.ac.at Research & data 4 submissions · 3 people · 3.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-04-14

Needs:5 submissions

122max pts

Increased wind turbine rotor blade visibility to reduce avian fatalities

onlinelibrary.wiley.com Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-08-30

Needs:5 submissions

209max pts

A Modern Compiler for the French Tax Code

arxiv.org Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-01-30

Needs:5 submissions

189max pts

Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (2020) [pdf]

public.econ.duke.edu Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-06-30

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

184max pts

A Simple Guide to Five Normal Forms in Relational Database Theory

www.bkent.net Research & data 4 submissions · 3 people · 9.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2014-09-29

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

135max pts

The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis: Finding Small, Trainable Neural Networks

arxiv.org Research & data 4 submissions · 3 people · 7.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-02

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

137max pts

Cores that don’t count [pdf]

sigops.org Research & data 5 submissions · 5 people · 3.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-09-29

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart3 active years

178max pts

Severely deficient autobiographical memory in healthy adults (2015)

www.sciencedirect.com Research & data 3 submissions · 2 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-07-15

Needs:5 submissions3 submitters

206max pts

Lively Linear Lisp – 'Look Ma, No Garbage' (1991)

home.pipeline.com Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 8.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-07-06

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

131max pts

History of Lisp (1979) [pdf]

jmc.stanford.edu Research & data 5 submissions · 4 people · 3.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-10-25

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

153max pts

An Introduction to Probabilistic Programming

arxiv.org Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 7.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-10-21

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

269max pts

The Matrix Cookbook (2012) [pdf]

www.math.uwaterloo.ca Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-06-15

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

254max pts

It Takes Two Neurons to Ride a Bicycle (2004)

paradise.caltech.edu Research & data 4 submissions · 4 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-02-19

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

234max pts

Haskell vs. Ada vs. C++ vs. Awk vs (1994) [pdf]

haskell.cs.yale.edu Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-04-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

92max pts

Eighty Years of the Finite Element Method (2022)

link.springer.com Research & data 3 submissions · 2 people · 2.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-11-02

Needs:5 submissions3 submitters3 active years

203max pts

Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons

www.cambridge.org Research & data 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-07-27

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

141max pts