Talk:List of misnamed theorems

message: This is the section in which the originator of this list tries to provide useful information/advice for prospective editors.  See sections below for discussion of other topics. ---CH 22:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Important information for prospective editors of this list

message: Please try to follow the model of the entries I wrote.  For each item on the list, if possible cite the original works, and be sure to cite one carefully chosen modern work discussing the historical flummox.  The intention is certainly not to try to provide an exhaustive bibliography, only to provide verification for the claims and to help interested readers find more citations (a modern history of mathematics paper will almost certainly have many relevant citations, both period and modern).  ---CH 21:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What each item in this list should contain

message: It would be a good idea to ask in the section below, since your information might be incomplete or wrong!  (Particularly if you lack an up-to-date citation from the literature on the history of mathematics!). ---CH 21:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What items are suitable for inclusion?

message: The syntax is unforgiving, and even one error anywhere will typically destroy the entire page, so please be careful.
# Don't forget to add  immediately before each citation template.  Here, don't omit the quotation marks around the reference name, e.g. Poincaré_1885.
# Don't forget to add  immediately after each citation template.
# Cite subsequent citations to the same paper by using .
# The  in the "References" section is not optional.
Please ask for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates or Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) if you get into trouble.
Good luck.---CH 21:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Common syntax errors

message: Here are some models for using common citation templates:
*Book:
*
*Article in a research journal:
*
*arXiv eprint (since published):
* gr-qc/0004016
*arXiv eprint (unpublished):
*
*Article in a book:
* See section 2-5.
*Biography in the MacTutor archive:

*Article at the Living Reviews website:
*
These have the following effects:
*
*
* gr-qc/0004016
*
* See section 2-5.
*
*
Thank you for your cooperation! ---CH 21:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation templates

message: This is a bit of a long-term project.  I intend to create a new article (complete with nifty illustrations) of the nifty Cramer's paradox, and I also need to cancel the redirect and create a new article for Pólya enumeration theorem, since the whole point of that theorem (and most of the work in proving it!) involves giving the sizes of the fixsets in terms of the cycle structure from the Pólya cycle index polynomial (which arises from an action by a group, not to the abstract group, of course). ---CH 05:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Systematically add information contained in this list to linked articles

message: I do not know if you want to include physics, but consider the Lorentz contraction (so called at Special relativity#Consequences) which was first discovered by FitzGerald. Lorentz acknowledged FitzGerald's priority, but who cares? JRSpriggs 09:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not wish to include physics (create your own list for that!).  But see Lorentz gauge for another example :-/ ---CH 21:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What about physics? 

message: Pell's equation is so-named because Pell wrote up the solution that was discovered by Lord Brouncker, and Euler got them confused. -- Dominus 02:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch.  I even used Pell's equation in my diss, but had forgotten that this has long been on my little list. ---CH 21:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Pell's equation]]

message: It looks very odd to see sentences that say see [1] for a readable description. It might be better if the sentence read: so-and-so wrote a readable description.[1] Also note that refmarks should generally be after punctuation according to WP:FN. Gimmetrow 03:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, point taken, I might try to change all that tommorrow.  I haven't used this particular style of footnoting since high school, which might explain my faltering attempts to use it gracefully here. (In latex, the analogous constructions might be more graceful for an AMS style article).---CH 08:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor style concern 

message: There's a couple of indefinite statements in the article that could do with being made definite. Namely:
* "The first rigorous formulation and proof seems to be due to Theodore P. Hill in 1988."
* "The statement may have been made first by Isaac Newton in 1665."
* "In Europe, it seems to have been rediscovered by Fermat"
Mike Peel 08:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may take me some time, but I'll try to find a more graceful way to convey that history of mathematics is fraught with errors even when it comes to the facts of the matter, much less the infinitely more important task of placing original papers in their contemporary context. ---CH 20:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indefinite statements 

message: I once heard that Fermat's Last Theorem was called a theorem even before it was proven (i.e. when it was a conjecture). Is that notable?--HereToHelp (talk to me) 02:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fermat 

message: I found a good proof of the citation here not sure about the name though.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.209.134.28 (talk) 16:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frobenius 

message: See Student's t-test. Might be different to others in this list because Gosset's employers insisted he deliberately hide his identity. (Chorleypie (talk) 12:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student's t-test 

message: Should this page be merged into the more exhaustive list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_Stigler%27s_law
If the goal is to limit the list here to mathematical theorems, then maybe we should consider renaming the list to something like "List of misnamed mathematical theorems"? 
I would also consider changing "misnamed" to "misattributed". Abandeali (talk) 01:00, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with "List of examples of Stigler's law" 

message: "misnamed" suggests that there is a correct name for these theorems.  There is also an underlying assumption that theorems ought to be named for their discoverers.  Almost all of these theorems have perfectly good reasons why they carry the names they do; this list suggests that these names are wrong, simply because someone has a belief about how theorems ought to be named.
if I knew how to nominate articles for deletion, I would put this article up. 199.17.27.67 (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Totally agreed. For example, the first entry on Benford’s law cites sources which show that Benford didn’t discover it first. To infer then that “The theorem is named incorrectly” involves a normative claim of how theorems ought to be named that isn’t stated in any of the sources, and is a clear-cut case of WP:SYNTH. I suspect that most of the items on the list have the same problem. Nukeychess (talk) 03:03, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "misnamed"?