4 ms·
On a tangential subject, if it's proven then why keep calling it the Poincare conjecture? It's now a theorem.
by MrRage 16y ago
On a tangential subject, if it's proven then why keep calling it the Poincare conjecture? It's now a theorem.
- pmiller2 16y agoLikely for the same reason Fermat's Last Theorem was called a theorem for hundreds of years before it was proved. My guess is cultural inertia.
- hugh3 16y agoAh, that's different: Fermat's Last Theorem was called a theorem because Fermat claimed to have proved it. Taking him at his word, it's been a theorem since 1637.
- volodia 16y agoThe Poincare-Perelman theorem. That's how it's probably going to be called.
- eru 16y agoProbably not. In mathematics you can't call things after the people who have invented it, or solved it. (At least that's what my professors said when they had to explain why stuff has strange names. Often the guy who popularizes something gets the name, but fights it.)