The joy of brute force: the covariance of the number of inversions and the major index

There is a war between `conceptualists' and `brutists' where the former claim to have a monopoly on taste and beauty. It ain't necessarily so, as the present paper demonstrates, where beauty is replaced by the much prettier meta-beauty.

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Added Jan. 3, 2011:
  1. Here is a scan of Donald Knuth's letter that raised the problem. (in the P.S.)
  2. Read the exciting sequel.

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