4 ms·
> That's right, ellipses are not elliptic curves, and elliptic curves are not elliptical. I don't know who was responsible for this idiocy, but if I ever meet t
by eapriv 7y ago
> That's right, ellipses are not elliptic curves, and elliptic curves are not elliptical. I don't know who was responsible for this idiocy, but if I ever meet them I'm going to kick them in the ass.
The referenced Wikipedia page contains a perfectly valid explanation for the term "elliptic curves", and a little googling reveals that it was Legendre who's responsible for "this idiocy".
- mjd 7y agoWell, if I ever meet this Legender guy, I'm gonna kick his ass. You can tell him I said that.
- tempodox 7y agoLegendre
- JdeBP 7y agoNot to disciples of Noah Webster. (-:
- mcguire 7y agoWell, he's dead, so there's that.
- ErotemeObelus 7y agoLegendre-y pokémon
- ktpsns 7y agoJust in case somebody else wonders about a reference, its here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_integral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_integral -- as the WP page on elliptic curve says: "An elliptic curve is not an ellipse: see elliptic integral for the origin of the term." The confusing fact which Mark Dominus means is however, probably the fact that the term "Elliptic curve" seems to be a merger of the name "algebraic curve" and the defining equation y^2 = x^3 + ax + b which is however not the defining equation of an ellipse. That would be instead, in its simplest form 1 = (x/a)^2 + (y/b)^2 That's in fact confusing.