Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians - MathOverflow

Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T17:56:35Z

Many mathematicians know that Lewis Carroll was quite a good mathematician, who wrote about logic (paradoxes) and determinants. He found an expansion formula, which bears his real name (Charles Lutwidge) Dodgson. Needless to say, L. Carroll was his pseudonym, used in literature.

Another (alive) mathematician writes under his real name and under a pseudonym (John B. Goode). (That person, by the way, is Bruno Poizat: it's no secret, even MathSciNet knows it.)

What other mathematicians (say dead ones) had a pseudonym, either within their mathematical activity, or in a parallel career ?

Of course, don't count people who changed name at some moment of their life because of marriage, persecution, conversion, and so on.

Edit. The answers and comments suggest that there are at least four categories of pseudonyms, which don't exhaust all situations.

Professional mathematicians, who did something outside of mathematics under a pseudonym (F. Hausdorff - Paul Mongré, E. Temple Bell - John Taine),
People doing mathematics under a pseudonym, and something else under their real name (Sophie Germain - M. Le Blanc, W. S. Gosset - Student)),
Professional mathematicians writing mathematics under both their real name and a pseudonym (B. Poizat - John B. Goode),
Collaborative pseudonyms (Bourbaki, Blanche Descartes)

Answer by Harun Šiljak for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:01:22Z

Eric Temple Bell (known for Bell numbers, series, polynomials, as well as his book Men of mathematics) wrote sci-fi novels using pseudonym John Taine.

Answer by Franz Lemmermeyer for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:07:25Z

William Sealy Gosset published a result under the pseudonym Student. (Because his employer, the Guinness brewing company, did not allow their employees to publish for fear of divulging trade secrets.)

Answer by Ryan O'Donnell for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:14:10Z

Noga Alon published half a dozen papers under the name "A. Nilli". Mathscinet links directly from this pseudonym to Noga's publications.

Answer by J.C. Ottem for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:15:39Z

Monsieur Antoine Auguste Le Blanc. (Sophie Germain, 1776–1831)

Sophie Germain hid behind the male pseudonym "M. Le Blanc" to study at the École Polytechnique and to be taken seriously in mail correspondence with other mathematicians, including Lagrange and Gauss.

Answer by Yuval Filmus for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:30:23Z

Felix Hausdorff published philosophical and literary books as Paul Mongré.

Let me mention that Hausdorff committed suicide (along with his wife) in 1942, to prevent his being sent to a concentration camp. He had tried to escape to the US, but unfortunately no one would sponsor him. So he joined the ranks of mathematicians who were victims of World War II (including some Germans who died at Soviet hands, for example Gentzen).

Answer by Mark S for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:33:15Z

It might be a stretch but Ben Franklin spent time on recreational mathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square, http://www.amazon.com/Benjamin-Franklins-Numbers-Mathematical-Odyssey/dp/0691129568/, and called himself a number of pseudonyms (Richard Saunders, Mrs. Silence Dogood) in his other writings.

Answer by Georges Elencwajg for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T18:51:13Z

Rainich=Rabinowitsch (of trick fame : cf. Nullstellensatz).

Here is an anecdote related by Bruce P. Palka, Editor of American Mathematical Monthly in Vol.111 (2004) of that journal (page460).

Rainich was giving a lecture in which he made use of a clever trick which he had discovered. Someone in the audience indignantly interrupted him pointing out that this was the famous Rabinowitsch trick and berating Rainich for claiming to have discovered it. Without a word Rainich turned to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and wrote

                    RABINOWITSCH

He then put down the chalk, picked up an eraser and began erasing letters. When he was done what remained was

                   RA IN  I CH

He then went on with his lecture.

Editing I (Georges Elencwajg) am sorry to have caused some confusion yesterday: not being able to access the library , I gave a reference in the comments which was probably not the intended one! Many readers were very helpful with their comments, in particular Sándor, who took the trouble to copy the text corresponding to my reference and David Roberts who put it here in the answer and which you can read below. Thanks a lot to all.

To quote jstor.org/pss/4145123

"Lance also contributes some new information to the saga of the elusive Mr. Rabinowitsch (see the Editor's Endnotes in the May 2004 issue): Poor Rabinowitsch, whoever he may be. The correct reference is: J. L. Rabinowitsch, "Zum Hilbertschen Nullstellensatz", Math. Ann. 102 (1930), p.520. In various places his first initial is either "A" or "S." On my trip to the library, I saw that Rainich had published in the Annalen under his own name and from Ann Arbor the previous year. Why a pseudonym?" The mystery deepens a bit in a biography of Rainich, where it's mentioned that he was born Rabinowitsch. On the same theme, Herman Roelants of Leuven, Belgium, points out that a Rabinowitsch anecdote similar to the one in the May 2004 MONTHLY is found on page 959 of the MONTHLY paper "Reminiscences of an Octagenarian Mathematican" by L. J. Mordell (November, 1971). Herman goes on to say that details concerning this source, together with references to important number-theoretic work of Rabinowitsch, can be found in the text and in a footnote on page 108 of Richard A. Mollin's book Quadratics (CRC Press, 1996).”

Answer by J. H. S. for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T19:20:28Z

E. S. Pondiczery was a pseudonym used by R. P. Boas Jr. in the paper Power problems in abstract spaces. The name became part of the well-known Hewitt-Marczewski-Pondiczery theorem.

Another pseudonym used by Boas (and F. Smithies) was H. Pétard. I highly recommend that you take a look at the hilarious Lion Hunting and Other Mathematical Pursuits (A Collection of Mathematics, Verse, and Stories by the Late Ralph P. Boas Jr.) for more information in this regard.

Added (Nov 7/2010) In that book you can also learn about other pseudonyms (for instance, Ian Stewart's one) and the memorable feud 'twixt Bourbaki and Boas.

Added (Nov 8/2010) According to page 10 of the said book, H. Pétard was in fact a pseudonym that they made up for the use of E. S. Pondiczey. Isn't this awesome?

Answer by Mark S for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T19:26:38Z

Isaac Newton, in his dabblings in alchemy, called himself Jehovah Sanctus Unus. http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/physicists/isaac-newton3.htm

Answer by Michael Hardy for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T19:46:27Z

Does Plato count? (No pun entirely intended.)

Answer by zhoraster for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T20:15:42Z

I'm surprised that no one named Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci to us (though he didn't use this nickname, and its origin is not completely clear).

Al-Khoresmi is apparently a nickname as well (though this time used by the author), meaning his origin.

(Maybe not exactly an answer to the original question, because these are rather nicknames, not pseudonyms.)

Answer by Yuri Zarhin for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T20:35:35Z

A. Weil published two short papers/letters signed as X.X.X (Amer. J. Math. 79, 1957, 951-952) and R. Lipschitz (Ann. of Math. 69, 1959, 247-251) where he posed as an anonymous correspondent and the XIX century German mathematician residing in Hades respectively. Both letters are reprinted at the very end of the second volume of Weil's Collected papers.

Answer by Richard Stanley for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T20:46:56Z

G. W. Peck originally was the pseudonym of Ronald Graham, Douglas West, George B. Purdy, Paul Erdős, Fan Chung, and Daniel Kleitman. Since then G. W. Peck was the author of sixteen publications, most by Kleitman alone. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._Peck.

Answer by Jim Humphreys for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T21:03:09Z

Since some of those mentioned in other answers are among the living, let me also mention Victor Kac and his teacher Ernest Vinberg. They published a joint paper Spinors of 13-dimensional space in Advances in Mathematics 30 (1978) under the rather transparent pseudonyms V. Gatti and E. Viniberghi. As I recall, Victor said that this came about because he had applied for an exit visa from the USSR and was therefore not allowed to publish anything in the interim.

Answer by Andreas Blass for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T21:25:57Z

I'm not sure whether to count as pseudonyms the altered names that people took (often to avoid antisemitic prejudice) as replacements for their real names. For example, Alfred Tarski's last name was originally Tajtelbaum, and Edward Marczewski's last name was originally Szpilrajn. There must be lots of other examples of this sort.

Answer by Gerald Edgar for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T21:38:03Z

O. P. Lossers has published since 1965, mostly problem solutions in various journals. He has Erdös number 2.

Answer by Dan Petersen for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T21:56:12Z

The history of John Rainwater can be read at the following link: http://at.yorku.ca/t/o/p/d/47.htm He has 10 published articles and several unpublished ones, by varying authors from the University of Washington. The same page also mentions in passing three other mathematical pseudonyms: P. Orno, M. G. Stanley, and H. C. Enoses.

John Rainwater came into existence at the University of Washington in 1952 when Nick Massey, a mathematics graduate student in Prof. Maynard Arsove's beginning real variables class, erroneously received a blank registration card. (In those years, each student filled out a card for every class, which first circulated among various tabulating clerks in the registrar's office before being sent to the professor.) He and a fellow graduate student, Sam Saunders, decided to use the card to enroll a fictional student, and since it was raining at the time, decided to call him "John Rainwater". They handed in John Rainwater's homework regularly, so it wasn't until after the first midterm exam that Prof. Arsove became aware of the deception. He took it well, even when he later opened an "exploding" fountain pen with John Rainwater's name engraved on it which had been left on the classroom table.

[...]

The first of John Rainwater's ten published research papers were written in 1958 and 1959 by John Isbell, a young Assistant Professor. Isbell's response to queries concerning his motivation for using J.R. as a pseudonym has been simply to quote Friedrich Schiller "Der Mensch ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt."

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-07T22:46:39Z

Siegel published The integer solutions of the equation $y^2=ax^n+bx^{n-1}+\cdots+k$, J London Math Soc 1 (1926) 66-68, under the pseudonym, X.

Anecdotal evidence of a non-pseudonym: Once when Littlewood attended an international conference in France, a French mathematician greeted him: “So there really is a Littlewood, and it is not just a pseudonym which G.H. Hardy uses to publish his poorer papers!”

Answer by Chandan Singh Dalawat for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T04:10:04Z

When it became dangerous for Jacques Feldbau to publish under this own (Jewish) name, he briefly wrote under the name Jacques Laboureur before being captured by the Nazis. See Weil's Souvenir d'apprentissage or the commetaries in his Collected papers. See also Une histoire de Jacques Feldbau by Michèle Audin, her article in the Images des Mathématiques and Jean Cerf's article in the Gazette.

Answer by Gunnar Magnusson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T06:06:38Z

Heisuke Hironaka published a result on complex analysis in one variable (see Remmert's "Classical topics in complex function theory", chapter 5) in 1965 under the name Iss'sa. Apparently the name is a reference to a Japanese poet.

Answer by Cat for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T10:29:36Z

Niccolò Fontana best known as Tartaglia.

Answer by Zsbán Ambrus for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T10:49:24Z

T. G. L. Zetters, has proven in 1979 that either player can draw in the 8-in-a-row game. This is a variant of the well known 5-in-a-row where players take turn placing their mark to a square on an infinite square grid, and a player wins if they have a consecutive sequence of 8 or more of his own marks in a row, column, or diagonal. According to the book Csákány Béla, Diszkrét Matematikai Játékok (Polygon, Szeged, 1998), this is a pseudonim of a group of Dutch mathematicians. According to the manuscript András Csernenszky, The Chooser-Picker 7-in-a-row-game (submitted in 2010, arXiv:1004.2460v1), it is a pseudonym for A. Brouwer.

Answer by Hany for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T17:07:44Z

D. H. J. Polymath is a pseudonym for a collective of mathematicians (some of them may be not professional mathematicians).

Answer by fherzig for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T19:03:07Z

Maurizio Boyarski = Bernard Dwork. Even mathscinet knows about that. Does anyone know why Dwork published under a pseudonym?

Dwork, Bernard: On the Boyarsky principle. Amer. J. Math. 105 (1983)

Boyarsky, Maurizio: p-adic gamma functions and Dwork cohomology. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 257 (1980)

Answer by Marco Caminati for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T19:06:03Z

At the height of fascist persecution of jews, Federigo Enriques penned some of his articles as Adriano Giovannini (reputedly coined from the names of his daughter Adriana and of his son Giovanni), as a device to circulate them. I was able to trace back to that pseudonym at least two papers: "Il pensiero di Galileo Galilei" and "L'errore nelle matematiche". As I understand it, that is to be considered a pseudonym used just in publications rather than a fully new name for real life, so I deemed the answer qualifying with regard to the question requirements.

Also, not being able to comment others' answers:

I can add von Neumann as good example of the category depicted in Andreas' answer.
As an anecdotal gloss to the Germain/Le Blanc case, it seems that even a century later that would have been a wise move: apparently Renato Caccioppoli was not so confident in women's mathematical capabilities, and it is said that once he ended examining a brilliant student of him with "Signorina, nonostante lei sia una donna le devo mettere 30 e lode.", which runs like: "Miss, despite you being a woman, it seems like I will have to give you A+".

Answer by Steve Butler for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-08T22:13:39Z

In addition to being the "G" of G. W. Peck (as pointed out by Richard Stanley earlier), Ron Graham also published "On properties of a well-known graph or What is your Ramsey number?" as Tom Odda, a member of the Department of Mathematics from Xanadu University.

Apparently the name was chosen because if said quickly it sounded like the Chinese expression 他妈的 pronounced "ta ma de", a not so polite phrase in Chinese!

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T03:46:15Z

One may type "pseudonym" into an "Anywhere" box at MathSciNet and find 44 hits. Many of these are not relevant to the question at hand, but I'll post any that I find that haven't been posted here already. Here's one: Christian Tapp, Kardinalitat und Kardinale, MR 2006h:01012, the review by Volker Peckhaus says that in Chapter 5, "We learn about [Georg] Cantor's pseudonyms such as Vincent Regnas, Jorge Vincente Monteador de Montemor, and others...."

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T03:54:01Z

Continuing to troll through MathSciNet, I find Yu I Krivonosov, Higher mathematics and higher authority, MR 2002k:01034, reviewed by R L Cooke (and I highly recommend the review). It seems that A I Lapin, a convicted anti-Soviet agitator, confined to an asylum in Leningrad, was allowed to publish under a pseudonym in 1952.

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:00:56Z

Another find on MathSciNet. Dominique Descotes, Genese des corollaires 1 et 2 de la lettre à Carcavy de Blaise Pascal, MR 99g:01016, review by Craig Fraser: In December of 1658 Blaise Pascal began to publish under the pseudonym A Dettonville the mathematical work Lettres de A Dettonville.... According to C B Boyer, "the name Amos Dettonville was an anagram of Louis de Montalte, the pseudonym used [by Pascal] in the Lettres provinciales."

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:07:36Z

Yet another find on MathSciNet. Anita Feferman, Politics, Logic, and Love, MR 93j:01010, reviewed by D J Struik. This is a biography of Jean van Heijenoort. "In 1948 he broke openly with his past in a paper of [sic] the Partisan Review, where he denied the scientific nature of Marxism. He wrote it under a pseudonym (Jean Vannier) - after all he was an alien and it was the McCarthy period."

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:15:01Z

Here's one more from MathSciNet. N Ya Vilenkin, Formulas on cardboard, MR 93a:01039, reviewed by B Rosenfeld. Nikolay S Koshlyakov was arrested in 1942, was denounced as an "enemy of the nation," and was condemned to ten years in the camps. The book written by him in the camp, Investigations of a class of transcendental functions determined by the generalized equation of Riemann, was published ... in 1949 ... under the pseudonym N S Sergeev (Koshlyakov's patronymic name was Sergeevich).

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:19:27Z

According to Daniel Lazard, in his review of Berenstein and Struppa, Recent improvements in the complexity of the effective nullstellensatz, MR 92m:13024, N Fitchas was a pseudonym for a working group led by J Heintz that got results on the membership problem and the representation problem.

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:23:49Z

Volume 1 of Statistical Methods of Model Building, edited by Helga Bunke and Olaf Bunke, was first published under the pseudonym of K M S Humak. See the review by J Kleffe, MR 88d:62121. See also MR 86b:62002.

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:29:42Z

Heinrich Seidel's review of M Lothaire, Combinatorics on Words, MR 84g:05002, says "The name of the author is a pseudonym chosen by the mathematicians who together with D Perrin serve as coauthors." There are about a dozen coauthors.

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:36:02Z

MR 23 #A2744 reads,

Schark, I. J.

Maximal ideals in an algebra of bounded analytic functions.

“I. J. Schark” is a pseudonym for the group: Irving Kaplansky, John Wermer, Shizuo Kakutani, R. Creighton Buck, Halsey Royden, Andrew Gleason, Richard Arens and Kenneth Hoffman. J. Math. Mech. 10 1961

Answer by Gerry Myerson for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-09T04:39:07Z

The review by E Reich of I J Good and K Caj Doog, A paradox concerning rate of information, MR 19, 1245h, informs us that "The name of the second author is understood to be a pseudonym."

Answer by David MJC for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-10T23:07:46Z

Arthur L. Besse - after the round tables held at Besse in France. (The "L." is for Lancelot.)

Answer by Victor Miller for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2010-11-17T19:09:04Z

The paper "Why You Cannot Even Hope to Use Gröbner Bases in Public-Key Cryptography? An Open Letter to a Scientist Who Failed and a Challenge to Those Who Have Not Yet Failed" by Boo Barkee , Julia Ecks , Theo Moriarty , R. F. Ree: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.5.7134

The lead author is Moss Sweedler. Boo Barkee was the name of his dog (so does this count as a pseudonym :-)?).

Answer by Cristi Stoica for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-03-30T19:09:04Z

The mathematician Dan Barbilian was also a poet, having the pen name Ion Barbu. Some of his works are described here and here.

Answer by none for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-03-31T03:14:33Z

Shalosh B. Ekhad, hmm, not sure if that's exactly a pseudonym but it sort of fits this discussion.

Answer by ACL for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-03-31T12:24:28Z

Henri-Paul de Saint Gervais is a collective pseudonym of fifteen mathematicians who recently published a book, Uniformisation des surfaces de Riemann, retour sur un théorème centenaire, about the uniformization of Riemann surfaces. (presentation of the book, in French). They met in Saint-Gervais to work on the book, hence the lastname. The firstname, Henri-Paul, reminds of Henri Poincaré and Paul Koebe, of course! By the way, this book is highly recommended !

Answer by ACL for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-03-31T12:50:51Z

D. P. Parent is the author of a book of Exercises in Number Theory. Its authors are D. Barsky, F. Bertrandias, G. Christol, A. Decomps, H. Delange, J.-M. Deshouillers, K. Gérardin, J. Lagrange, J.-L. Nicolas, M. Pathiaux, G. Rauzy and M. Waldschmidt. The initials of the pseudonym recall the names of Delange, Pisot and Poitou, the three organizers of a Number Theory Seminar in Paris, which runs since 1959.

Answer by Margaret Friedland for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-04-25T20:29:13Z

"Smooth Manifolds and Observables" by Jet Nestruev.

The actual team of Authors: A. M. Astashev, A. V. Bocharov, S. V. Duzhin, A. B. Sossinsky, A. M. Vinogradov, M. M. Vinogradov

Springer-Verlag, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol. 220, 2002

A Russian answer to Bourbaki (see the preface to the book).

Answer by Margaret Friedland for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-04-25T21:14:25Z

Hugo Steinhaus was also an author of aphorisms, which he published in the daily "Slowo Polskie" under a pseudonym Sestertius. Most were just goofy definitions of everyday terms. The following example seems to do OK in translation from Polish: "An opinion that all high-rank officers are stupid: a generalization". The book edition ("Slownik Racjonalny") appeared in 1980 (after his death) under his real name.

Answer by Bruno for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-07-09T15:48:58Z

Noaï Fitchas was a pseudonym for the group of Joos Heintz and his students Leandro Caniglia, Guillermo Cortiñas, Silvia Danón, Teresa Krick, and Pablo Solernó.

Answer by Martin Sleziak for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-07-09T17:10:24Z

As far as I know, Horst Herrlich has some publications as Y.T. Rhineghost. http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~herrlich/public/index.html I do not know the story behind this pseudonym.

Answer by Alain Valette for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2011-07-09T17:44:52Z

In the 1980's there were a few papers by Bill Moran, William G. Hoover and Stronzo Bestiale; the most famous is http://williamhoover.info/Scans1980s/1987-3.pdf If you read italian, it will be obvious for you that there is something wrong with the last name. There is a legend that the first two authors were so upset about the third co-author, that they replaced his true name with this one: see http://individual.utoronto.ca/scharf/bizarre.htm The paper went through the whole refereeing and publishing process!

Answer by Denis Serre for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2012-06-18T13:26:47Z

André Bloch was an active mathematician during his stay (1918-1948) in a psychiatric asylum. During WWII, he wrote under the pseudos René Binaud and Marcel Segond, to hide his Jewish name.

Answer by Michael Renardy for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2012-06-18T22:07:10Z

D'Alembert's name was in a sense a "pseudonym." D'Alembert was abandoned as an infant. However, d'Alembert was neither the name of his birth parents nor his adoptive parents. He made it up when he was a student.

Answer by Alexandre Eremenko for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2012-12-08T17:07:02Z

Joseph Bernstein published a paper under the pseudonym "Yantarov" (which is derived from the Russian translation of the German word "Bernstein" which means "amber"). At the time of writing he was an "otkaznik", a person waiting for permission to emigrate from the USSR, and a paper under his own name would not be accepted.

Answer by Kjetil B Halvorsen for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2012-12-09T16:23:20Z

Albert Gifi is a group pseudonym for a groupf of authors writing "Nonlinear Multivariate Analysis" From this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_de_Leeuw

"De Leeuw is the originator[4] of the Albert Gifi team that wrote Nonlinear Multivariate Analysis.[5] In Multidimensional Scaling, Volume 1,[6] Cox and Cox write that "Albert Gifi is the nom de plume of members, past and present, of the Department of Data Theory at the University of Leiden who devised a system of nonlinear multivariate analysis that extends various techniques, such as principal components analysis and canonical correlation analysis." "

Answer by Rodrigo A. Pérez for Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians

2013-01-02T18:56:47Z

Although some think of Pythagoras as one person, it is now thought that his name is used for geometric and number theoretical discoveries made by anonymous members of his sect.

Thus, we can think of "Pythagoras" as the pseudonym of a collective of Greek intellectuals from about 500 BCE.