# Author List of Gravitational Wave Paper

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-list-of-gravitational-wave-paper/747391>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 28, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-list-of-gravitational-wave-paper/747391 "2016-02-28T14:07:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-list-of-gravitational-wave-paper/747391/21 "2016-03-01T14:37:27Z")

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> [@bonzer](#):
>
> Even in such large collaborations, there are usually obvious leaders who are known to have originated the whole idea/project and who drove it through. In the case of LIGO, the three names that are usually being mentioned are Rainer Weiss, Ronald Drever and Kip Thorne.
> 
> Incidentally, the famous case in physics of people falling out over the ordering of names is [Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsung-Dao_Lee) and [Yang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen-Ning_Yang), who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for joint work that they’d published together using that alphabetic ordering. Yang supposedly subsequently tried to insist that, as the older of the two, his name should go first. Lee refused and there was a rupture between them. I’m not even sure if they’ve even spoken to each other in the half-century since.

They should let Yoko Ono sort it out.

Although she’s experienced, I can’t vouch for her success rate.

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**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-list-of-gravitational-wave-paper/747391/22 "2016-03-01T14:58:31Z")

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> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> In mathematics, the order is virtually always just alphabetical.

The American Mathematical Society doesn’t characterize the tendency as quite that extreme. According to their [2004 “culture statement” on publication of joint research](http://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement04.pdf), alphabetical order is used for 75% of jointly authored mathematics papers. (For pure mathematics, it’s a much higher 90%, which better fits your “virtually always” descriptor.)

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