[math-fun] Jordan, prizes
Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous. Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame... Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.
But Jordan did get the credit for Jordan algebras. -- Gene
________________________________ From: Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2014 9:02 AM Subject: [math-fun] Jordan, prizes
Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous.
Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame...
Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.
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But not for Jordan almonds. --Dan On Aug 28, 2014, at 9:35 AM, Eugene Salamin via math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
But Jordan did get the credit for Jordan algebras.
-- Gene
________________________________ From: Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2014 9:02 AM Subject: [math-fun] Jordan, prizes
Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous.
Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame...
Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.
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Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT.
Wasn't that Gauss? I mean, as long as we're talking about re-invention... Charles Greathouse Analyst/Programmer Case Western Reserve University On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 12:02 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous.
Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame...
Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.
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Indeed. Here's are two nice pieces on Gauss, the FFT, and the orbits of Juno and Pallas: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~rockmore/cse-fft.pdf http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf To be fair, Gauss never derived O(n log n) for large integer n (with lots of prime factors). But he did understand that a Fourier transform over N=pq points can be treated as p Fourier transforms over q points each, just as Cooley and Tukey did. - Cris On Aug 28, 2014, at 11:34 AM, Charles Greathouse <charles.greathouse@case.edu> wrote:
Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT.
Wasn't that Gauss? I mean, as long as we're talking about re-invention...
Charles Greathouse Analyst/Programmer Case Western Reserve University
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 12:02 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous.
Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame...
Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.
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Cristopher Moore Professor, Santa Fe Institute The Nature of Computation Cristopher Moore and Stephan Mertens Available now at all good bookstores, or through Oxford University Press http://www.nature-of-computation.org/
* Cris Moore <moore@santafe.edu> [Aug 29. 2014 08:45]:
Indeed. Here's are two nice pieces on Gauss, the FFT, and the orbits of Juno and Pallas:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~rockmore/cse-fft.pdf http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf
To be fair, Gauss never derived O(n log n) for large integer n (with lots of prime factors). But he did understand that a Fourier transform over N=pq points can be treated as p Fourier transforms over q points each, just as Cooley and Tukey did.
- Cris
James W.\ Cooley, Peter A.\ W.\ Lewis, Peter D.\ Welch, {Historical Notes on the Fast Fourier Transform} Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.55. no.10, pp.1675-1677, (October-1967) http://148.204.64.201/paginas%20anexas/voz/articulos%20interesantes/IEEE%20T... reprint: http://www.signallake.com/innovation/FFTHistoryJun67.pdf C.\ Sidney Burrus: {Notes on the FFT}, unpublished, (29-September-1997) <--= date may be incorrect http://jjj.de/fft/fftnote.txt
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participants (6)
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Charles Greathouse -
Cris Moore -
Dan Asimov -
Eugene Salamin -
Joerg Arndt -
Warren D Smith