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41 votes
67 answers
14k views

What are examples of mathematical concepts named after the wrong people? (Stigler's law)

It's a common observation in Lie theory that Cartan matrices and the Killing form are named after the wrong people; they were discovered by Killing and Cartan, respectively. I remember learning about ...
67 votes
16 answers
9k views

What do named "tricks" share?

There are a number of theorems or lemmas or mathematical ideas that come to be known as eponymous tricks, a term which in this context is in no sense derogatory. Here is a list of 11 such tricks (the ...
15 votes
2 answers
910 views

Terminology: Lost in translation or multiple-meanings

I was reading Uniformization of Riemann Surfaces by Henri Paul de Saint Gervais (not a real person, but a group of French mathematicians), and the translator kindly points out that the name of "the ...