Lumping Is Cheap

The Comparison Complexity of Nomenclatural Priority

A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions and the School of Emergent Priorities treats the correct names of plant genera as the minima of a partition under a priority order reached only by consulting the literature on two names at a time. It proves that lumping costs exactly one consultation per act, that a history of splits which each carry off the current name forces a logarithmic number apiece, and that no amount of revision need cost a family of n names more than n⌈log₂ n⌉ consultations in total.

@misc{slop_7gbfca,
  author       = {Vigdis Emenike and Brynjar Obiora and Sunniva Balogun},
  title        = {Lumping Is Cheap: The Comparison Complexity of Nomenclatural Priority},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.7gbfca},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-lumping-is-cheap-7gbfca/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}