Physical Review Alphabet Quintfecta? : The Quantum Pontiff

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Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also a pseudo professor. His research is on quantum computing, his scientific passions extend to everything in physics, mathematics, computer science and beyond, and his personal pleasures include making wine, playing poker, skiing, camping, and daydreaming (although not all of those at the same time.) Nothing he says on this blog should be construed as having anything to do with his employer or his dog.

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Physical Review Alphabet Quintfecta?

Category: Physics
Posted on: May 22, 2008 8:09 PM, by Dave Bacon

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Does anyone know if any author has ever had a paper published in the entire alphabet of Physical Reviews? (A,B,C,D,E) And if not, doesn't that sound like a fun task to try to achieve. OK, perhaps "fun" is the wrong word. Even better if you could carry out the task with alphabetical order corresponding to chronological order. Even better still would be if you could carry out the task with reverse alphabetical order corresponding to chronological order.

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Comments

I have a feeling that my supervisor Lloyd Hollenberg has done it. I'll ask him if it was fun.

Posted by: astephens | May 22, 2008 10:31 PM

I seem to recall that Salman Habib has done it (and Letters). Not sure about RMP.

Posted by: Michael Nielsen | May 22, 2008 10:44 PM

I would have guessed Habib as well. I remember asking this question once before (maybe with you, Michael), but I think I remember that he hasn't published in PRC. Let's hope he reads this blog so we can find out!

Posted by: Steve Flammia | May 22, 2008 11:03 PM

>I seem to recall that Salman Habib has done it

According to PROLA, he hasn't published in PRC.

Posted by: anthiny | May 23, 2008 2:41 AM

Yeah, I was wondering how Letters fits into this scheme. Perhaps if you could get A,B,C,D,E, *and* L, then you'd have the "sexfecta"? That sounds even more fun than a quintfecta.

Posted by: Richard Barnes | May 23, 2008 9:43 AM

Steve Koonin has all but E (ABCDL+RMP). Steve is now the Chief Scientist at BP, and has not published lately, so Salman seems to be a better candidate to complete the sexfeta.

Posted by: John Preskill | May 23, 2008 10:17 AM

It's true about Lloyd Hollenberg! ABCDEL (but not RMP -- does that matter?). Way to go, Lloyd. Also, Gerard Milburn has ABDEL+RMP. Many contenders are C-challenged, but Hollenberg did a two-loop computation of the omega-rho mass splitting in 1992.

Posted by: John Preskill | May 23, 2008 10:54 AM

A challenge for scrabble players: As far as I know, you can't make a 5-letter word from the letters ABCDE. But when you add L (for Letters), then the 6-letter word "cabled" becomes possible. So should we say that Lloyd "cabled"? This can also be read as "cab-led", meaning that Lloyd followed a taxi (as in "Lloyd was cab-led") or that he occupied the first taxi in a convoy ("Lloyd cab-led his group").

Posted by: John Preskill | May 23, 2008 12:55 PM

Alternatively we could say of the person that having achieved the sixfecta, that they are clad: "Lloyd be clad."

Worse we could just use ABCDE and then we could say "Lloyd be cad." But that's not very nice.

Posted by: Dave Bacon | May 23, 2008 1:02 PM

I wonder whether Lloyd's stereo is cd-able.

Posted by: John Preskill | May 23, 2008 1:31 PM

Clearly none of you have young children. If you did, you would know how to pronounce ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and, thus by default, ABCDEF. The answer lies with Big Bird. My kids have recently grown out of the Sesame Street age so I have old Sesame Street CDs lying around if anyone wants them...

Posted by: Ian Durham | May 23, 2008 3:04 PM

So does that mean we should say that Gerard Milburn "blared"? As in "Physical Review 'blared' his results".

Posted by: Joe Fitzsimons | May 23, 2008 3:16 PM

Either that or he is "balder"...

Posted by: Dave Bacon | May 23, 2008 3:18 PM

I'm still just a lad.

Posted by: John Preskill | May 23, 2008 4:49 PM

You can all me al.

Posted by: Dave Bacon | May 23, 2008 5:32 PM

la la la la!

Posted by: Michael Nielsen | May 23, 2008 5:48 PM

OK, no one took the bait. ABCDEF is, according to Big Bird, pronounced ab-c'-def.

Posted by: Ian Durham | May 24, 2008 10:35 AM

So now I have to memorize the pronunciation of ABCDEF as well as ScTiVCrMnFeCoNiCuZn and SJSUNEVMGTMCIMETEP*TRO*SIOQCUADT*CV*I*

The acronym for these bodies, the 88 Largest Objects in the Solar System , in order of decreasing diameter, breaks down when names do not yet exist [*], but begins [Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, ...] =

SJSUNEVMGTMCIMETEP*TRO*SIOQCUADT*CV*I*...

This is hard to pronounce, although the substring: "CIMETEP" is pronouncible for Callisto, Io, Moon, Europa, Triton, Eris, Pluto.

This is exactly the sort of thing about which Isaac Asimov used to write delightful essays.

Of course, I find part of the Periodic Table to to prouncible, sort of:

ScTiVCrMnFeCoNiCuZn is rendered as:
Scatty Vickerman Feconey Cousin.

So, kids, start memorizing "SJSUNEVMGTMCIMETEP..."
because it WILL be on the final exam...

Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | May 24, 2008 12:29 PM

I came across the name of someone at Los Alamos who has achieved the quintfecta, plus a few Letters:

Bogdan Mihalia.

Posted by: Jim Harrington | June 9, 2008 10:36 PM