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GuB-42 2 hours ago

Besides the usual jargon, what I find interesting is that the tradition of always naming things after their discoverers: Fourier, Falconer, Furstenberg, Kakeya. 4 names in one sentence.

Other fields do it, but it is almost systematic in math, and arguably, it makes things even harder to understand as people names are not descriptive.

nine_k an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There are no way to name most problems both compactly and descriptively. The inability to attach an acceptably descriptive moniker to a problem leads to calling the problems (and solutions, theorems, etc) after the author.

CogDisco an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

But then there's the opposite in maths where there's an overload on "plain" terminology. "Normal" means a billion different things. Same as "regular" or "simple".

Omitting the human history of a field does not automatically make it easier.