Questions tagged [terminology]
For questions about terms, definitions and related concepts used in science and mathematics.
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From where did the term "context-free" originate?
In Greibach's survey Formal Languages: Origins and Directions, she writes the following paragraph on page 19 about the term "context-free":
The theory of context-free languages was being ...
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Was Freud a scientist? If so, does this mean psychoanalysis is a scientific method? [closed]
Freud was a dominant thinker in 20th c intellectual history, testimony to which is given by the sheer volume of articles, papers and books written by and about him and the psychoanalytic method.
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Origin of the concept of "impulse"
Question:
So, I recently looked back into my physics textbook and found the concept of "impulse" there. Now, upon reading the explanation in the textbook and several definitions online, I ...
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Why is the Mean Value Theorem (of holomorphic functions) called "Gauss's"?
A handy special case of the Cauchy Integral Formula says that, if a complex function $f$ is analytic on and inside a circle of radius $r$ around $a$,
$$f(a) = \frac{1}{2\pi}\int_0^{2\pi} f(a +re^{it}) ...
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Where does the term "reflection" come from?
Earlier today, I was asked why a motion of the plane that fixes a line of points is called a reflection and I was stumped for an answer.
The best explanation I can think of is that the image of a ...
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The Root of a Geometric Progression
Good people!
I'm presently in the process of putting something together on Euler and Gauss and cyclotomy and modular arithmetic, and I noticed that when it comes to the terminology primitive root ...
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Help With Understanding of Constants in Zeller's Congruence
If this would be better suited over on the Mathematics Exchange, please move it appropriately. I thought I would start here for the history type aspect
Background
I'm currently working as a Data ...
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Which mathematical concepts do not have any obvious origin outside mathematics?
Some mathematical concepts, such as that of number and that of geometrical figure, presumably originate from pre-existing notions already used by at least some non-mathematicians.
Others seem to have ...
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F = ma -- How was did we come to understand that this compact form expressed what Newton said in words?
My understanding is, Newton in the 17th century did not use this formula but rather said, in words basically that if you apply a force it will cause a mass to accelerate in the direction of that force....
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When did they start requiring holotypes for species description?
I know they weren't required in the early 1800s but obviously they are now so just wondering when this started being required and/or who coined holotype. Internet research yielded no good answers.
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Sparse matrix ("matrice creuse") etymology in French
I am looking for the etymology of matrice creuse.
According to Wikipedia, it seems James Joseph Sylvester used the term "matrix" in 1850, and Harry Markowitz used the term "sparse ...
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Where is Fock on Klein-Gordon equation?
I was researching a bit about the history of the famous Klein-Gordon equation and I found out that Fock also independently discovered it in the same year as Klein and Gordon, 1926. However, ...
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Origin of "Sierpinski space"?
Nowadays the unique 2 point, nondiscrete, nontrivial topological space goes by the name of the Sierpinski space.
How did that space come to be named after Sierpinski?
The comments to this MathOverflow ...
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A brief history of "delocalization" of electrons
I have been studying the concepts of "resonance" and "mesomerism" recently and a common principle of these concepts is the "delocalization" (of electrons, molecular ...
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Were molecules called atoms in the 19th century?
E.g. a quote from Justus von Liebig, 17th Chemical Letter, 1858, in German:
Wir können ein Stück Zucker, auch wenn wir es noch so fein reiben, nicht flüssig machen, noch viel weniger können wir durch ...
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