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Cool terms in mathematics

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

Joined: 2006-10-10
Posts: 524

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.

‹ Marc Jacobs Cosmin. ›
cosmin
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2007 - 6:58pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1291

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.
cj
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2007 - 7:57pm

Joined: 2006-10-10
Posts: 524

Leviathan number - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_number
Writhe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writhe
Newtonswig
Post Icon Posted: 7 June 2007 - 1:48am

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 439

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...?
cosmin
Post Icon Posted: 7 June 2007 - 8:21am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1291

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...)
Sammy P 06
Post Icon Posted: 14 June 2007 - 11:39am

Joined: 2006-11-04
Posts: 56

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.
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 8 May 2008 - 1:19pm

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

It's not really a cool term, but I find that "banachable vector space" sounds quite odd.
Colin
Post Icon Posted: 9 May 2008 - 1:58pm

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 111

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.
Sleeping Yeti
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 10:27am

Joined: 2007-03-03
Posts: 196

Apparently, the existence of the Monster was hard to prove (much like various other monsters).
cosmin
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 9:22pm

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1291

?
richardhp
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 9:26pm

Joined: 2007-10-01
Posts: 239

Newtonswig
Post Icon Posted: 13 May 2008 - 11:24pm

Joined: 2006-10-01
Posts: 439

Last 4 posts = forum posts of the week. Deffo.
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 14 May 2008 - 12:22am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

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...
Smithers
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 2:09am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 41

6×6x6=216
666$ \equiv $306 (mod 360)
306-216=90
So of course the sin of one is the cos of the other.
cosmin
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 2:24am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1291

Indeed, but you're one year late. :D
Smithers
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 2:28am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 41

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
cosmin
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 2:29am

Joined: 2006-11-02
Posts: 1291

Which is right for all threads not massively bumped by Sam. :p
Smithers
Post Icon Posted: 23 May 2008 - 2:38am

Joined: 2006-10-18
Posts: 41

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
Colin
Post Icon Posted: 28 May 2008 - 10:32am

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 111

Soul theorem
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 6 June 2008 - 4:55pm

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

I've got a new one : Symplectomorphism
Colin
Post Icon Posted: 8 June 2008 - 11:45am

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 111

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

Sexy prime
Colin
Post Icon Posted: 9 June 2008 - 7:02pm

Joined: 2007-10-17
Posts: 111

I've come across one which might be unbeatable: Nice name.
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 18 June 2008 - 7:03am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

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.)
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 1 April 2009 - 10:58am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

It's me again, I was reading about phantom maps.
owen.daniel
Post Icon Posted: 1 April 2009 - 2:33pm

Joined: 2007-10-07
Posts: 93

I am particularly interested in Mathematical Anti Telharsic Harfatum Septomim... but that's quite a broad area really.
Callan
Post Icon Posted: 17 September 2009 - 2:29pm

Joined: 2008-09-30
Posts: 173

I like all the silly names at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_curves.

Also I've always found the lamely nondescript K-theory quite amusing.
Sam
Post Icon Posted: 10 October 2010 - 12:52am

Joined: 2007-10-03
Posts: 562

Topological group chunks are a good one.
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Post Icon Posted: 21 March 2012 - 1:34am

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