From: "Alexei M. Kisselev" alexei@plmsc@psu@edu
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:01:52 -0500
The H. Petard spoof
The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s
by
Robert E. Greenwood
Sometime in 1936 or 1937 a group of mathematics and physics students at
Princeton University decided to write a tongue-in-cheek article under an
assumed name and get it published in a mathematical journal. This
reporter was not a member of the group engaged in this project. This
reporter will
plead guilty to having, at that time, read a large number of detective
stories (and probably was continuing to read them to the detriment of
his progress
in his mathematical program).
At some sort of a social function, the secretary of the Mathematics
Department, Agnes Fleming, said that she had received, from various
places, some
letters addressed to one H. Petard asking that the letters be held for
Petard's arrival in Princeton. Then, she said, she had received a letter
from H.
Petard himself, stating that his arrival in Princeton had been delayed,
and asking if the Mathematics Department would forward to a new address
any
mail which might have arrived for him. Without being specifically asked
for my opinion, I voiced the idea that this sounded very suspicious and
that it
might be a process of trying to build up a spurious identity. (In the
previous decade there had been certain colleges which had granted
admittance to
11 "manufactured" students with forged credentials.) One or two others
at the social gathering thought by idea was farfetched, or at least said
so. Then
the conversation turned in another direction.
A day or two later I was visited by a couple of members of the group,
one of whom had said my idea was farfetched, to ask why I had blown
their
"cover". I explained that the group should have taken me into their
confidence, that I knew nothing about their proposal, and that they
should have
used more discreet methods. But I told them that I wouldn't give them
away, at least not any time soon.
As I recollect and reconstruct the situation, the group had collectively
written a paper with the title "A contribution to the mathematical
theory of big
game hunting". They wanted a Princeton address, presumably to receive
the referee's report and reprints, if accepted and published. They
didn't feel
that they could directly involve the Mathematics Department secretary in
this hoax. So they were trying to build up a false identity, get the
false identity
moved away from Princeton, and hoped to receive mail addressed to
someone ostensibly still in Princeton with an implied connection with
the
Princeton Mathematics Department.
Well, it worked. The tongue-in-cheek article on big game hunting did
appear in the American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 45 (no. 7, Aug-Sep
1938), pp. 446-447, under the authorship of H. Petard of Princeton, New
Jersey. And some of the members of the group indicated that they now
had more respect for my mental acumen and/or savvy.
