Pseudonyms and Author Collectives in zbMATH

[摘要] Writers and authors in general – and also mathematicians – have often used pseudonyms for many differentreasons. Sometimes an author wanted to avoid certainpolitical, sexist, ethnic or religious discrimination, oreven persecution. Others, perhaps just wanting to keeptheir private life away from their work, have pursued acareer under an alias. Lastly, authors occasionally changetheir names for practical reasons,1 which is, however,beyond the scope of this note. Frequently, the humourof mathematicians has given birth to fictitious persons– often, but not always, the creation of such charactersis the idea of a group of authors. Of course, there arealso practical reasons for creating collective authors, likethe case of larger collaborations whose composition issubject to fluctuations. In this column, we describe someexamples and how such information can be retrievedfrom zbMATH.