On Thursday 03 March 2011 02:11:35 Andy Latto wrote:
On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 7:10 PM, Mike Stay <metaweta@gmail.com> wrote:
Does the OED have anything to say on it? They're a pretty canonical arbiter of such things...
I don't think the OED is really the best source for what is essentially a question of history of mathematics. There is a definition of elliptic, but it won't tell you that elliptic functions are called that because they are the inverses of the integrals used to describe the arc length of ellipses.
It's not that far off, actually. "2. elliptic integrals: a class of integrals discovered by Legendre in 1786, so named because their discovery was the result of the investigation of elliptic arcs. elliptic functions: certain specific functions of these integrals. (Formerly the term elliptic functions was applied to what are now called elliptic integrals.)"
"The term geometrical points to the fact that problems involving multiplication were originally dealt with by geometry and not by arithmetic".
But I think that's just wrong. The babylonians knew how to multiply, and did it arithmetically, rather than by use of geometry.
Yeah, "originally" is probably wrong. If it had said, say, "formerly", I don't think we know it's wrong. (It's referring to the ancient Greeks rather than the Babylonians, right?) -- g