History of Science and Math Stack Exchange
History of Science and Math Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [terminology]

For questions about terms, definitions and related concepts used in science and mathematics.

This tag should be used when asking a question about the origin, development or other historical aspects of past or present scientific and mathematical terminology. Note that it should not be used to indicate that a question contains a lot of terminology.

367 questions
20
votes
4 answers

Emmy Noether or Emmy Nöther?

Is it OK to write Emmy Nöther instead of Emmy Noether? I always assumed that the oe was an anglicization of ö (o with an umlaut). But when I look her up, I never see Nöther.
Stephen Montgomery-Smith
  • 319
  • 2
  • 6
9
votes
2 answers

What is the reasoning behind using "moment" in the "moment of inertia"?

Linear inertia is called mass. Rotational inertia is called moment of inertia. Moment of inertia is an odd choice for the term for this property. It doesn't seem to "fit" with the style or pattern of a simple term like mass, although it is the…
Steeven
  • 260
  • 2
  • 8
8
votes
3 answers

Origin of "Spline" word

I was studying interpolation by Splines in numerical analysis and started to wonder the word's origin. I've found that it was a system used in technical drawings using weights but couldn't find why they where called like that in that context. Any…
bk.us
  • 83
  • 4
8
votes
4 answers

What was the definition of a scientist and how did it evolve? When was science categorized?

I'm asking this question as I've noticed that scientists like Gauss, Newton, Euler, Lagrange etc developed theories in many scientific fields(these ones that I know of were mostly interested in math and physics). When I asked my physics teacher, he…
UserX
  • 409
  • 1
  • 3
  • 8
7
votes
1 answer

Why do English volume units use base 2?

I would post this on Quora, since it is more of a "just wondering" sort of question, except that I much prefer StackExchange's platform: As weird as Imperial units generally are, English volume units surprisingly make a lot of sense. I'm thinking…
Mike Williamson
  • 173
  • 4
7
votes
1 answer

What are the most famous examples of theory rebranding?

This question was sparked by the observation that the rebranding of the field called "neural networks" into "deep learning" is quite impressive. I wonder whether there have been similar renamings in the past.
Franck Dernoncourt
  • 3,273
  • 1
  • 16
  • 40
6
votes
1 answer

Why do we say "Matrices" and "Vertices", but "Complexes" rather than "Complices"?

I had a professor point out that it is odd we refer to more than one chain complex as "complexes." It seems that in most other definitions in math we stick to the typical latin plural, i.e. we say vertices instead of "vertexes", matrices instead of…
AnotherPerson
  • 309
  • 2
  • 6
5
votes
1 answer

Why is the meaning of "linear" different in school and college use?

Is the map $y=2x+3$ linear? "Of course it is." -- a high school teacher will answer. "Nope; it's affine, but not linear." -- a college student will contradict. This difference terminology that basic ought to have historical roots. Could you point…
Michael
  • 183
  • 4
5
votes
1 answer

When was the term "union" first used?

I found out that the symbol for union, ∪, was created in 1895 by Giuseppe Peano in his Formulario Mathematico but of course the use of the word "union" in mathematics was older. Do you have a source for the earliest occurrence?
mau
  • 1,277
  • 10
  • 13
5
votes
1 answer

Who in history coined the term "character" of a group and why is it called so?

I first read the term in an introduction of Fourier transform on locally compact groups. In this article on Character of a group from Encyclopedia of Mathematics, a character of a group is defined as a homomorphism of the given group into some…
user4178
4
votes
2 answers

What is the origin of "law of excluded middle"?

Reading an article I have stumbled across the concept of law of excluded middle. Wikipedia mentions that original expression is principium tertii exclusi which literally translates to principle of the excluded third. My native language (Romanian)…
Alexei
4
votes
3 answers

Where does the name "geometric sequence" come from?

On this and other Stack Exchange website, there have been question about the so-called geometric series, and where its name comes from. My problem is that most answers follow one of two different ideas. Either they show an ingenious, but obviously…
Rodrigo A. Pérez
  • 367
  • 1
  • 7
4
votes
3 answers

Was the word 'gravity' an invention of Newton?

Before Newton many phycisists try to understand nature and the rotations of planets. But Newton founded his laws of gravity. But was he the first who used the word gravity or when was it first used? And comes the word gravity from the word…
Marijn
  • 383
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
4
votes
1 answer

Hamiltonian $H$ named after Huygens?

This seems an unlikely origin of the abbreviation $H$ for Hamiltonian. Is there evidence for this nomenclature?
Carlo Beenakker
  • 994
  • 5
  • 13
4
votes
1 answer

How did "fisike" shift from meaning "natural science" to "medicine"?

What's the antecedent of "its meaning"? I'm guessing fisike. Can you please expound on this shift that I embolded? The author didn't. physics [16] Physics comes ultimately from Greek phúsis ‘nature’, a derivative of phúein ‘bring forth, cause…
user3478
1
2