Re: [HM] origin of the term "curl"

William C Waterhouse (wcw@math.psu.edu)
Tue, 29 Sep 1998 15:24:14 -0400 (EDT)

On Sep 26, Jeff Miller <JeffM@sanctum.com> asked:
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....However, I see in a calculus
textbook that Maxwell wrote a letter to Tait on Nov. 7, 1870, in which he
wrote "so for Cayley's sake I might say Curl (after the fashion of Scroll)."

Was Scroll a person to whom he was attributing the term, and if so,
who was he?
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No, Maxwell only means that he is willing to follow Cayley's
example in adopting a term of ordinary language for a technical
idea. "Scroll" is the name Cayley introduced for certain ruled
surfaces occurring in algebraic geometry.

William C. Waterhouse
Penn State