All Questions
Tagged with terminology reference-request
17
questions
3
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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 ...
- 53
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0
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83
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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 ...
- 101
1
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1
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185
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Was "potency set" used for power set?
Cross posted at Math Overflow
For historical reasons, the English term "power set" in set theory is a translation of the German "Potenzmenge", which is still in use in German ...
1
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1
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241
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Who proclaimed separation of science from philosophy?
Historically (since 2500 years ago), philosophy - "love of wisdom" in Greek - encompassed all intellectual endeavors, and natural philosophy was seen as its part. However, these days the ...
- 149
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What is the earliest use of the $\perp\!\!\!\!\perp$ symbol in statistics to denote statistical independence?
The symbol $\perp\!\!\!\!\perp$ in statistics is a way to denote statistical independence of a collection of random variables. I have seen two forms of it. The first is highly suitable in writing ...
- 309
11
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2
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338
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Who introduced the divisibility symbol $a\vert b$ ("$a$ divides $b$") and when?
I have just stumbled across this post and became curious about the same question, namely the part regarding the origin/history of the vertical bar symbol $a\vert b$ that we use to denote "a ...
- 357
3
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1
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2k
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Why are complex numbers called 'complex'?
I'm a high school teacher, and I was just wondering why complex numbers are called 'complex'. I have read that Gauss coined the term. But I couldn't find any reference where it was explained.
I also ...
- 33
4
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2
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185
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Have orthogonal complex matrices appeared in the literature?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_matrix,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_matrix, and
Friedberg et al.'s Linear Algebra (4th edition), a matrix $A\in F^{n\times n}$
is ...
- 585
3
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96
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Where does the notion of "three crises of mathematics" come from? [duplicate]
Update: It can be traced back to Fraenkel-Bar-Hillel's Foundations of Set Theory, originally published in 1958. Further discussions can be seen at the linked question.
The notion of "three crises ...
- 261
2
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1
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3k
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How did the early chemists determine the atomic weight of hydrogen?
In early history, the relative atomic weight of hydrogen was assigned as 1 (exactly) and all other elements were compared against hydrogen. What is difficult to find who determined the absolute atomic ...
- 4,184
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65
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First use of the term/name "curved exponential family"?
Question: What was the first recorded use of someone calling exponential families (in probability/statistics) for which the dimension of the natural parameter space is strictly less than the dimension ...
- 111
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383
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Etymology of 'qubit'; is there any relation to cubits?
Whilst several not-very-authoritative sources e.g. Wikipedia state that the word qubit was derived, partially, as a play on the word cubit (obviously it also stands for 'quantum bit'), is there any ...
- 131
31
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1
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52k
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Who first defined the "equal-delta" or "delta over equal" ($\triangleq$) symbol?
The symbol $\triangleq$ is sometimes used in mathematics (and physics) for a definition. It is instantiated for instance in the Unicode Character 'DELTA EQUAL TO' (U+225C).
The notation $t \triangleq ...
- 1,193
5
votes
1
answer
194
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Origins and history of branched covering
During my research on branched coverings of the projective plane, I am interested to know the origins and history of branched coverings of the projective plane and the projective line, together with ...
- 51
5
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1
answer
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What is the origin of the term "Ordinary Differential Equation"?
Who first used the term "Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE)"? Is it known why the word "ordinary" is used here? What makes an ODE "ordinary"?
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