3 ms·
The single letters are pretty bad, but when we use a persons name instead of a concept to describe something is where it gets truly awful. What the heck is an
by krupan 6y ago
The single letters are pretty bad, but when we use a persons name instead of a concept to describe something is where it gets truly awful. What the heck is an Eigen vector? Gaussian curve? Cartesian coordinates? Hilbert space? Julia set? Mersenne prime? Zero chance of intuiting any of that
- marshallward 6y agoJust to quickly clarify: eigenvectors are not named after a person. It's a German word meaning "own" or "inherent" and was meant to denote something which resembled itself. https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/5563/where-does-the-name-eigenvalue-come-from https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/5563/where-does-the-... https://jeff560.tripod.com/e.html https://jeff560.tripod.com/e.html
- username90 6y agoMath needs way more names than English can support and since they are used by humans they lack namespaces. Human names are both easy for humans to speak and plentiful enough to satisfy the need for names in math, I don't see a better solution.