I appreciate your thoughts, and I write with
hesitation, since I don't really want to get
involved in a bootless controversy.
However, much of the information that I have seen
in general purpose "histories" is not what it
should be -- some of those on the internet are
quite flawed especially the "treasure trove" that
you referenced, and of course the Encyclopaedia
Britanica has always been in a class by itself.
Gauss did so much and was such a great man that
the is often credited where he should not be. I
would place long odds on what Herman said about
"eigenvalue" being correct. On this sort of thing
he is seldom wrong. There are a number of reliable
histories of statistics. Hald has written and
extensive one, and of course the most readable
are those by Stigler. You will of course find
justification for my comments therein, and as for
Fisher, one only has to read his papers.
Werner Wittmann wrote:
>
> Hi folks back again:
> Bob, yes I said guess (which is the only strategy if one does not know
> exactly). Here is what I found in:
> Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary -includes definition (English),
> illustration, phonic pronunciation, origin, thesaurus (indexed Oct 10 1997)
> Main Entry: ei·gen·val·ue
> Pronunciation: 'I-g&n-"val-(")yü, -y&(-w)
> Function: noun
> Etymology: part translation of German Eigenwert, from eigen own, peculiar +
> Wert value
> Date: 1927
> : a scalar associated with a given linear transformation of a vector space
> and having the property that there is some nonzero vector which when
> multiplied by the scalar is equal to the vector obtained by letting the
> transformation operate on the vector; especially : a root of the
> characteristic equation of a matrix
> Here are two links to Gauss:
> http://www.treasure-troves.com/bios/Gauss.html
>
> http://britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,117281+2+109423,00.html
>
> Herman here is what Britannica says:
> "About 1820 Gauss turned his attention to geodesy--the mathematical
> determination of the shape and size of the Earth's surface--to which he
> devoted much time in theoretical studies and field work. To increase the
> accuracy of surveying he invented the heliotrope, an instrument by which
> sunlight could be utilized to secure more accurate measurements. By
> introducing what is now known as the Gaussian error curve, he showed how
> probability could be represented by a bell-shaped curve, commonly called the
> normal curve of variation, which is basic to descriptions of statistically
> distributed data."
>
> Here is the history of matrices and determinants:
> http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/HistTopics/Matrices_a
> nd_determinants.html
>
> This source says that Gauss coined the term determinant, but not in the
> meaning we use it today.
> The origin and first use of "Eigenwert" eigenvalue unfortunately is not
> discussed.
> I guess(again in the same meaning as above) that Herman's explanation about
> its origins is too complicated to be true,given
> the whole history of matrices, but I may be wrong.
>
> Bob you're right pointing to the problem that Gauss often claimed having
> found something earlier, but not having it published.
> He also was accused of plagiarism, but his diaries showed the contrary,
> unless he had not falsified these (p<??).
>
> Cohen: Jacob (Jack) Cohen is one of our heroes in psychology (and behavioral
> sciences understood broadly):
> Here is an obituary:
> "Jacob Cohen made at least three major contributions to quantitative
> methods, any one of which would have been enough to secure a world-wide
> reputation as a leader in this field. Cohen’s kappa is cited in his
> Distinguished Lifetime Contribution Award as "the gold standard for the
> measurement of agreement between categorical judgments." He championed the
> use of multiple regression as a general data–analytic framework,
> illustrating the relationships between what are often treated as separate
> methods of analysis, and he developed multivariate analogs (e.g., set
> correlation) that allowed researchers to apply the regression framework to
> virtually any data-analytic problem in the social and behavior sciences.
> Finally, his work in statistical power analysis changed the way we think
> about the meaning of significance tests, and his emphasis on effect-size
> measures foreshadowed the development of meta-analysis."
> Here is a full obituary for Jack:
> http://web.missouri.edu/~psycmm/bgnews/1998/msg00036.html
>
> The cite for Jack's seminal paper is:
> Cohen,J.(1968) Multiple regression/correlation as a general data analytic
> system.Psychological Bulletin.(sorry don't have the
> exact ref.not handy because I'm at home)
> This developed into the bestseller with his wife Patricia:
> Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation
> analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd edition). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
> Jack once told me that the 1968 paper was almost not published due to the
> resistance of the editors who where all educated
> in seeing a real split between ANOVA and regression as maybe Elliot still
> sees it.
>
> BTW: Switzerland had had Euler on their 10Franken bill(6th banknote series
> 1976):
> http://www.snb.ch/e/banknoten/alle_serien/alle_serien.html
> Euler's bio is here:
> http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Euler.html
>
> There is no reason for any national pride.All the giants are standing on the
> shoulders of other normal people and other giants and that pyramid is truly
> international!
> But it would be nevertheless interesting just in case the new "too close to
> call" President of the United States proposes
> to put a leading figure from science and one from math/statistics on dollar
> bills, just to have a cheap intervention to boost
> the attitude towards science and math/statistics, whom would you propose?
> If I had a vote my choices would be:
> Richard Feynman and John Tukey.
>
> Werner
>
> Werner W. Wittmann;University of Mannheim; Germany;
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Im Auftrag von Bob Wheeler
> Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Januar 2001 02:21
> An: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Betreff: Re: AW: eigenvalue: origin of term
>
> Your national pride does you credit. Gauss was one
> of the greats, and he may have used "eigenvalue"
> or its equivalent, but I don't know for sure -- do
> you really, or are you guessing?
>
> It is hard to be certain with Gauss, because of
> his brilliance, but I doubt that he used the
> general linear model as we now know it, and
> although he did solve least squares equations, he
> may not have have invented the technique --
> Legendre was the first to publish in 1809. No one
> has been able to verify Gauss' use of least
> squares before Legendre, because he either made
> calculational errors in his analysis or used
> something other than least squares. Gauss often
> said in his later years upon being shown a new
> technique, that he had used it himself but had not
> published. Who is to say.
>
> However, your 10DM bill to the contrary, Gauss was
> not the first to use the normal distribution:
> DeMoivre used it as an approximation the the
> binomial about 50 years before Gauss was born.
>
> The thrust of Fisher's ANOVA was in the
> partitioning of sums of squares and in the use of
> significant tests there upon -- brilliant ideas.
> The fact that some of the computations can be done
> with linear models does not make the procedures
> equivalent, and Fisher's early papers clearly show
> that he was well aware of the connection.
>
> Calculation was no great problem. Pearson once
> said, while twiddling the handle of his
> calculator, that he had never encountered a
> calculation too difficult for him; and his tables
> of various functions are still as extensive and as
> accurate as any produced by modern computers.
>
> I can't find a paper by anyone named Cohen with a
> title resembling what you give in CIS. Perhaps you
> can improve the citation.
--
Bob Wheeler --- (Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
ECHIP, Inc.
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