Orthographic Correlations in Astrophysics
Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, 550 West 120th Street, NY 10027, USA(Dated: April 1st 2010)We analyze correlations between the ﬁrst letter of the name of an author and the number ofcitations their papers receive. We look at simple mean counts, numbers of highly-cited papers, andnormalized h-indices, by letter. To our surprise, we conclude that orthographically senior authorsproduce a better body of work than their colleagues, despite some evidence of discrimination againstthem.I. INTRODUCTION