Cat as Coauthor
Physicist J.H. Hetherington had already typed his manuscript when he learned of an unfortunate style rule: Physical Review Letters says you can’t use the pronoun we in single-author papers.
Hetherington didn’t want to retype the paper — this was in the 1970s, before word processors were widespread. So he added his cat as a second author (“F.D.C. Willard,” for “Felis Domesticus Chester Willard.”)
Chester is believed to be the only cat who has published research in low-temperature physics.
