# Misnomers

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
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### 5 Responses to Misnomers

1. Aeryk says:

Another classic misnomer: L’Hospital’s rule, actually discovered by Johann Bernoulli and then purchased by L’Hospital to put in his text book.

2. tpc says:

I just read that the Gram-Schmidt process was first used by Laplace. So the list goes on … All other contributions are welcomed and much appreciated.

3. tpc says:

There is supposed to be a name for this: Stigler’s Law.

And I’ve read that misnomy is common in Statistics as well. It seems that the Gaussian and Poisson distribution were all originally discovered by one of the Bernoulli’s.

4. tpc says:

Another misnomer. The Mobius strip/band was first discovered and first published by Listing. See the second last paragraph of http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Mobius.html

The MAA digital Library states that Johann Listing discovered the surface two months earlier than Mobius. (No reference given.) http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/?pa=historicalEvent&sa=browseFrontEnd&month=8&day=26&x=56&y=13

5. tpc says:

Apparently Boyer’s Law is more apt, according to Kennedy (Amer. Math. Monthly 1972). He states in his article:
BOYER’S LAW. Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers.

It is perhaps interesting to note that this is probably a rare instance of a law whose statement confirms its own validity!