4 ms·
I agree that "abelian" is often uncapitalized, but if that's a sign of respect, why is Gaussian (Gaussian elimination, Gaussian distribution, Gaussian process,
by leereeves 7y ago
I agree that "abelian" is often uncapitalized, but if that's a sign of respect, why is Gaussian (Gaussian elimination, Gaussian distribution, Gaussian process, etc) almost always capitalized? Or Hilbert space, Poisson distribution, Bernoulli trial, Cartesian coordinates, Euclidean distance?
It seems to me that Abelian goes uncapitalized because few people know about Niels Henrik Abel, and it should properly be capitalized.
- solinent 7y agoMy professor explained that when it gets used to the extent where people stop capitalizing it it's seen as a sign of respect. You won't see it capitalized anywhere really. At the very least even with the knowledge that it refers to Abel they will still leave it in noun case. Maybe it's just a post-rationalization of the phenomenon you're describing.
- magicalhippo 7y agoFound this interesting MathOverflow question with some interesting possible answers. Not sure if it clears it up much, but the difference between English and French capitalization rules seems to me like it might have something to do with some of it. https://mathoverflow.net/questions/44946/why-is-abelian-infrequently-capitalized https://mathoverflow.net/questions/44946/why-is-abelian-infr...
- WhiteSage 7y agoIf it is a name it gets capitalized. If it is an adjective derived from the name (abelian, cartesian, euclidean, ...), it depends on the language, the author and the literature around the word.