Misnomers

Posted by tpc at September 15th, 2005

I just read (from a text by K Hardy) that the Vandermonde determinant was named after Vandermonde by Henri Lebesgue, and was not ever recorded in Vandermonde’s work.

The list of other Misnomers

  • Pell’s equation: Nothing to do with Pell, but Brouckner’s equation sounds so strange
  • MacLaurin series: Appeared in his work but was apparently borrowed from one of the Bernoullis
  • Grobner basis: Work by the student named after his advisor

    • Posted in General, Linear Algebra| 3 Comments | 

    The Math Life

    Posted by tpc at September 9th, 2005

    I got a chance to watch the documentary The Math Life recently. Personally, I found it alright, but I wonder what would people who are not already into mathematics go away with after watching the video. A nice review by Cohn.

    The one quote I liked:

    The steady state in doing mathematics is being stuck.

    or something to that effect. It struck a chord because, guess what? I’m stucked!

    Posted in General| 1 Comment |