Rough Theory

Frank Pasquale over at Concurring Opinions passes on the following apocryphal, but resonant, anecdote:

I once heard a forlorn graduate student put a $20 bill in her dissertation in 1978, and when she returned to campus 20 years later to see if anyone had read her magnum opus, the bill was still there.

The rest of the post discusses bizarre footnotes left in law review articles – whether in the belief that no one will read the article, or in the hope that, if they do, the footnote will motivate them to comment on it…