Re: [HM] L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert

Subject: Re: [HM] L'Hopital, Pythagoras, Ptolemy and Hilbert
From: John Conway (conway@math.Princeton.EDU)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 14:48:25 EST

On Sat, 18 Mar 2000, James A. Landau quoted and wrote:

>> I need some examples of results which are not named after the people who
>> derived them - ie [sic] - L'Hopital's rule, found by his tutor Johann
>> Bernoulli.

    This raises an interesting point. Since de l'Hopital actually paid
Bernoulli for the right to publish some of the latter's results as his,
shouldn't we respect their agreement by continuing to use his name?

 
> Someone---I cannot recall whom or when---deduced that the universe was
> finite. If it were infinte (and stars were distributed randomly) then any
> line of sight will reach a star and the night sky will not be dark

   This is the so-called "Olbers paradox".

     John Conway

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