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Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by superhuzza on Saturday September 05, 2020 @02:15PM (#24385638)
I actually agree with the author's premise, I think she makes a good case that some of these concepts would be both more approachable, and more memorable, with simpler names.

However, coming up with simple names is incredibly difficult. It's easy to write a 10,000 word on a complicated topic, but incredibly difficult to squish it into a few letters.

Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by pbhjpbhj on Saturday September 05, 2020 @02:26PM (#24385725)
Yes, agreed with the second part.

>"Why do mathematicians continue to proffer and accept this courtesy, when it increases their own mental load and makes their own work more opaque?" (the OP) //

I imagine because it doesn't increase their mental load? It might even reduce it; abstraction is a principle component of the field after all.

Using descriptive names sounds like it requires a half-arsed disabstraction, a series of munged verbose partial truths?

Naming for authors is partially self-documenting too, though practically that's probably not often useful.

Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by abnry on Saturday September 05, 2020 @03:03PM (#24386048)
This is exactly how I feel. What I do think you can criticize, however, is the lack of imagination mathematicians have in naming theorems. If only there were more Ham Sandwich Theorems [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_sandwich_theorem

Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by d2v on Saturday September 05, 2020 @03:23PM (#24386193)
> The two-dimensional variant of the theorem (also known as the pancake theorem) can be proved by an argument which appears in the fair cake-cutting literature

This is the first time that reading about math has made me hungry.

Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by YetAnotherNick on Saturday September 05, 2020 @02:27PM (#24385731)
And bad naming might even make things worse as the reader might get the wrong idea.
Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by dorchadas on Saturday September 05, 2020 @05:39PM (#24387062)
Or you end up with things like 'clopen' sets, which are both closed and open!