[z2h-a6n]

For what it's worth, two column layouts are very common in the physical sciences, or at least in physics which I'm more familliar with. I have a feeling that the reason is at least partly to save page space when using displayed math (e.g. equations that are formatted in a break between blocks of text), which use the full text width (i.e. the width of one column) to display what may be much less than half a page wide.

[FredPret]

It makes sense - for paper. But pixels are infinite - HTML is far better for screen display, which is how people read things nowadays.

The extra column next to the one I'm reading introduces a lot of visual noise, and the content is hard enough as it is. I'm sure physicists have all gotten used to it, but it certainly trips me up.

[nyssos]

> The extra column next to the one I'm reading introduces a lot of visual noise

Papers are generally not read start to finish in one go: there's lots of rereading and jumping back and forth between key parts, and anything that moves them further apart makes this harder.

[FredPret]

Ah, that makes more sense. I imagined scientists just reading the whole thing start-to-finish.

I still think a flexible layout is best. If you like multi-columns and have a wide screen, why not display 12 columns next to each other?

With PDF this is not possible. With HTML the content can in principle be sliced and diced how you like it.

[fuck_google]

One can also view PDF pages side by side, which works pretty well with a 4K monitor.

[arp242]

I need to scroll up and down a lot more with two-column layout because a single page doesn't fit on my screen in my chosen font size (which is fairly large).

But HTML is so much more flexible, and ideally people can choose how they want it, although at this point it seems that's not (yet) implemented.

I find jumping back and forth is always a pain on computer screens and ebooks by the way, and is the major reason I much prefer print for this type of thing.

[aragilar]

Two column is the default in astronomy also.