AXLER%upenn-1100.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (07/27/84)
From: Macintosh Devaluation Manager <AXLER%upenn-1100.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa> 1. The notion of studying the history of any subject via its intellectual linkages is hardly a new one. Advisor-advisee connections are important, but an equally relevant approach is via citation-tracing -- looking at who has quoted whom, and in what context. The best tool for this type of work is the Science Citation Index (from ISI). Here, you can look up any given article and find out who has referenced it during the past 12 months. With a bit of patience one can do a great deal of tracing by switching back and forth between the index and various articles. 2. David Throop's name problem was, as I recall, proposed in a more enjoyable form by Lewis Carroll, in the scene where the White Knight offers to sing a song to Alice. We learn not only what the song is, but what its name is, and what both the song and its name are called. (I think Hofstadter carries this even further in Goedel, Escher, Bach, too...)