[seqfan] Re: Who named Catalan numbers?

Reinhard Zumkeller reinhard.zumkeller at gmail.com
Tue Feb 11 13:26:52 CET 2014


What Neil said is an empirical rule, not a normative one  ;-)

See also "Eponymy in Mathematical Nomenclature: What's in a Name, ans what
Should Be?", The Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol 2 No 4 1980, p. 204ff

Best,
Reinhard



2014-02-11 Christian Perfect <christianperfect at gmail.com>:

> That would be Stigler's rule, discovered by Robert Merton.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 6:33 AM, Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Isn't there a well-established rule that says that a
> theorem/lemma/formula
> > in mathematics must not be named after the person
> > who discovered it? Of course there are exceptions.
> > But it avoids a lot of debate!
> > Neil
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 8, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Peter Luschny <peter.luschny at gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > HWG> In my work over the past 60 years I have sometimes
> > > HWG> called the numbers 1, 2, 2, 5, 14, 42, ... the
> > > HWG> 'Euler-Fuss-Segner-Catalan' numbers, especially in
> > > HWG> my well-known Bibilography. But I always agreed with
> > > HWG> my old friends John Riordan and Leonard Carlitz that
> > > HWG> the single name 'Catalan' was sufficient unto the
> > > HWG> purpose thereof.
> > >
> > > Maybe even better then 'Euler-Fuss-Segner-Catalan' would
> > > be 'Euler-Fuss-Segner-Lamé'. It was Gabriel Lamé who
> > > proved Euler's conjecture P_{n+1}=P_{n}(4n-6)/n in 1838.
> > > Thus the most important relations of the Catalan numbers
> > > were investigated and proved before Catalan entered the scene.
> > >
> > > (See page 19 of this nice talk on the history of Catalan numbers
> > > which shows a paper of Catalan deriving some consequences
> > > from Lamé's proof:
> > > http://www.mathnet.or.kr/real/2010/01/OtfriedCheong(0112).pdf )
> > >
> > > HWG> but the appellation 'Cauchy-Schwartz-Bouniakovsky Inequality'
> > > HWG> is rather a mouthful to keep saying and so in his lectures he
> > > HWG> sometimes just called it 'inequality 3.19'.
> > >
> > > Certainly 'Cauchy-Schwartz' is better than 'inequality 3.19' as
> > > 'Catalan numbers' is better than 'A000108'.
> > >
> > > On the other hand the name 'Euler-Lamé' seems to me both
> > > historical appropriate and short enough to use in a lecture.
> > >
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > >
> > > Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dear Friends, I have now retired from AT&T. New coordinates:
> >
> > Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation
> > 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA.
> > Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
> > Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com
> > Email: njasloane at gmail.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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> >
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