Timeline for Origins of Mathematical Symbols/Names
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 13, 2010 at 1:08 | comment | added | François G. Dorais | I can't think of an English word that exactly matches the common usage of faisceau in French; I could use any of cone, beam, ray, spray, jet, stream, or sheaf (thanks to Tom) depending on context. The best description I can come up with is: things tied together in a directed way. It has lots of uses from light ray (faisceau lumineux) to muscle fibres (faisceau musculaire). | |
| Apr 13, 2010 at 0:33 | comment | added | Tom Leinster | Ah, thanks François. That's definitely a sheaf, or indeed a wheatsheaf, then. | |
| Apr 13, 2010 at 0:16 | comment | added | François G. Dorais | In French, the word "gerbe" commonly refers to an arrangement of wheat like this upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/… | |
| Apr 12, 2010 at 20:04 | comment | added | Tom Leinster | Surely a native French speaker will read this? I'm not one, but I thought the French noun gerbe meant "spray", as in a spray (bouquet) of flowers. This also explains why gerber is slang for "to vomit". | |
| Dec 11, 2009 at 17:10 | comment | added | Kevin H. Lin | Yeah, one of the definitions of "faisceau" in my French dictionary is "stack", as in a stack of arms. Arms as in weaponry, I guess. | |
| Dec 11, 2009 at 4:20 | comment | added | Yuhao Huang | btw, I don't know if I recalled the following correctly: "faisceau" are tranlated as "stack" in early papers of Atiyah in the 1950s... Maybe in the one joint with Hodge on 2nd differential forms on algebraic varieties. | |
| Dec 9, 2009 at 22:39 | comment | added | Kevin H. Lin | I don't know either, but "Garbe" in German means "sheaf" (in mathematics and otherwise). "Garbe" at least superficially looks like it could be related to "gerbe"... | |
| Dec 9, 2009 at 19:19 | comment | added | Jonathan Wise | I've always liked to translate "gerbe" as "bouquet" or "wreath", though my French isn't good enough to say which is closer to the meaning in French. | |
| Dec 9, 2009 at 14:16 | comment | added | Kevin H. Lin | Indeed wikipedia has a brief explanation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Etymology | |
| Dec 9, 2009 at 6:45 | comment | added | Kim Morrison | It's in fact the same etymology for "fascism". Go look up your Roman history for why "bundles" have anything to do with government. | |
| Dec 9, 2009 at 3:15 | history | edited | Kevin H. Lin | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
deleted 7 characters in body; added 42 characters in body; Post Made Community Wiki
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| Dec 9, 2009 at 3:09 | history | answered | Kevin H. Lin | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
