- The question asks for the shortest published mathematics paper in a well-known journal with remarkable impact.
- Several candidates are proposed: Milnor's 1964 paper on eigenvalues of the Laplace operator (less than one page), Lander and Parkin's 1966 counterexample to Euler's conjecture (56 words, one reference), and Conway and Soifer's 2005 paper on covering triangles (16 words, two diagrams).
- The Conway–Soifer paper was published as a 'boxed filler' in the American Mathematical Monthly, raising questions about whether it qualifies as a standalone article.
- Other notable short papers include Nelson's 1961 proof of Liouville's theorem (113 words), Dahlke's 1989 heptomino paper, and Lubell's 1966 short proof of Sperner's lemma.
- The discussion notes that many short papers exist in sections like 'Mathbits' of the American Mathematical Monthly, and that counting words can be ambiguous due to formulas and references.
- A recent 2025 arxiv paper by Paolo Leonetti has a one-word abstract, and the author is cited as a possible contender for the shortest nonempty abstract.