[mlevental]

bibliography length is a fetish. I'm writing a paper and I cited Lord Rayleigh for analysis of the airy disk. did I really need to cite him? who really doesn't know that Rayleigh's criterion was devised by Rayleigh? but I did because I'm taking precaution against someone either asking me rederive diffraction through a circular aperture or accusing me of not giving credit where credit is due. it's dumb. some academics are obsessed with attribution (God forbid you're not acknowledged for your incremental genius)

[epoll]

Citations help interested readers find relevant sources to dig deeper about a topic. This is especially useful for survey paper.

[ncmncm]

Rayleigh is well covered in Wikipedia. Mathematicians don't cite Newton and Leibniz for calculus.