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Cool terms in mathematics

Post Icon Posted: Submitted by cj on 6 June 2007 - 7:24pm.

Joined: 2006-10-10
Posts: 519

A casual list of all the awesome sounding names in mathematics. Gogogogogogo (P.S. give a brief explanation, or a link to wikipedia. Also, cool topics with mundane names are frowned upon). A couple to start:

Kurtosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurtosis)
Killing form (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_form)

Oh yeah, the actual thing it describes doesn't have to be interesting in any way.

‹ Algebra II Cleanup Script ›
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2007 - 7:58pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1017

Calabi-Yau Manifold
Functor (classic)

I'll post more when they occur to me, I can't be asked to actively remember them but I had a list of some.
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2007 - 8:57pm

Joined: 2006-10-10
Posts: 519

Leviathan number - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_number
Writhe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writhe
Post Icon Posted: 7 June 2007 - 2:48am

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 427

WOW. Follow the link from leviathan number on wiki (the one to mathworld), and you get some really weird things...

People, it would seem, have a lot of time on their hands {he said after looking up random maths terms at 3 in the morning}... apparently the golden ratio = sin(666o)+ cos(6×6x6o). Hmmm....

My favourite link (I followed them for a while!) is to the "monster group"- a set of rotations in 196883-dimensional space.

Why...?
Post Icon Posted: 7 June 2007 - 9:21am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1017

Yes, the monster group was on my list! :p

Edit: Damn it my exam starts in 10 mins, what am I doing home?...

Edit 2: Hmm. It's in fact $ -\varphi $ by my calculations, and it's also close to within $ 5.04\cdot 10^{-29} $. Impressive. Also, a funny thing is that each of those approximates $ -\varphi/2 $ extremely well (both within $ 2.52 \cdot 10^{-29} $! In fact those are so close that they might just be equal and it's a computation error (and apparently some sites claim so, I'll look into it in some time, I need to take a quick look at Logic now I guess...)
Post Icon Posted: 14 June 2007 - 12:39pm

Joined: 2006-11-04
Posts: 53

I stumbled across this revising for Thermal Phys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiggers_diagram
Not maths but... it's a diagram. And it has a quality name.
Post Icon Posted: 8 May 2008 - 2:19pm

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 382

It's not really a cool term, but I find that "banachable vector space" sounds quite odd.
Post Icon Posted: 9 May 2008 - 2:58pm

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 109

You reckon Monster Group is a wacky name? Apparently two of the other sporadic groups are called the Held Group and the Tits Group. The monster group also gives its name to something called the Monstrous Moonshine conjecture. Speaking of sporadic groups, I gather several of them can be found using something called the Leech Lattice. No idea what that is, so I ought to give a link if I knew how. But I think it solves the kissing problem in 24 dimensions. Or something like that.
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 11:27am

Joined: 2007-03-03
Posts: 129

Apparently, the existence of the Monster was hard to prove (much like various other monsters).
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 10:22pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1017

?
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 10:26pm

Joined: 2007-10-01
Posts: 170

Post Icon Posted: 14 May 2008 - 12:24am

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 427

Last 4 posts = forum posts of the week. Deffo.
Post Icon Posted: 14 May 2008 - 1:22am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 382

Ok, I'll do that whenever I'm at the maths block then :p
I should be less picky with what I admit as post of the week, I haven't updated it in ages...
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 3:09am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 26

6×6x6=216
666$ \equiv $306 (mod 360)
306-216=90
So of course the sin of one is the cos of the other.
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 3:24am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1017

Indeed, but you're one year late. :D
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 3:28am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 26

yeah, I dont read the times for each post - i just read the one for the last post and assume that each thread has no particularly large gaps
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 3:29am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1017

Which is right for all threads not massively bumped by Sam. :p
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 3:38am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 26

thread necromancy ftl

although tbh Sam didn't have the chance to post in this thread when it started, so I'll let him off
Post Icon Posted: 28 May 2008 - 11:32am

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 109

Soul theorem
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2008 - 5:55pm

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 382

I've got a new one : Symplectomorphism
Post Icon Posted: 8 June 2008 - 12:45pm

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 109

Blimey Sam, you ought to have wished this forum thread a happy birthday.

Sexy prime
Post Icon Posted: 9 June 2008 - 8:02pm

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 109

I've come across one which might be unbeatable: Nice name.
Post Icon Posted: 18 June 2008 - 8:03am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 382

Something I just read, not really a term but possibly the best sounding theorem :
$\displaystyle \mathbf{Theorem : } \text{ A plane convex hedgehog of constant width has at least six vertices.} $

(Poor thing.)

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