Astronomical publication in the near future

A study is made of the number of astronomical papers, number of pages, mean paper lengths, authors per paper, and international authorship in recent decades, and this produces predictions for the coming decade or two. The first significant result is that the number of published research papers worldwide shows no abrupt changes due to increased technical and scientific capabilities, such as major increases in equipment sensitivity, new telescopes, breakthroughs in computing and publication techniques, or our ability to generate huge amounts of data. The second major result is that the number of papers is a function only of the number of astronomers.