From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/816 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Taylor Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Upper case and lower case Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:37:43 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <199807131537.QAA28460@ruby.dcs.qmw.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241017198 27478 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 14:59:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:59:58 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: cat-dist Mon Jul 13 17:15:19 1998 Original-Received: (from Majordom@localhost) by mailserv.mta.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA28594 for categories-list; Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:03:09 -0300 (ADT) X-Authentication-Warning: mailserv.mta.ca: Majordom set sender to cat-dist@mta.ca using -f Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Original-Lines: 29 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:816 Archived-At: > In mathematics many structures are named after some one's name. A questionable practice in many cases, and not necessarily complimentary to the person concerned. For example, G. H. Hardy is famous in genetics for a rather trivial lemma in Bayesian statistics which was his answer to a question over High Table lunch in Trinity one day. How on earth is anyone meant to know what might be meant by "Gauss's Lemma/Theorem/etc"? On the other hand, things can be knocked off inappropriate pedestals by giving them eponymous names. For example, what others call "simple type theory" or "higher order intuitionistic logic" I call "Zermelo type theory" in my book. This has certainly given me a more balanced view of its (limited) importance in mathematics, and I hope to have the same effect on my readers. Given that you're doing it, whether to use a capital depends on national and linguistic custom. The German phrase "hilbertische Raum" looks very peculiar to me, for example. I was brought up to give people capital letters, whether they're nouns or adjectives. I tend *not* to do this if it seems to me that usage of the word has strayed rather a long way from what the person in question actually did, for example "cartesian transformation" for a natural transformation whose naturality squares are pullbacks. Peter Freyd, who of course comes from a different culture from me, will probably tell you his views. Paul