Am Donnerstag 18 Februar 2010 17:10:08 schrieb Nick Rudnick: > Hi Daniel, > > ;-)) agreed, but is the word «Ring» itself in use?
Of course, many people wear rings on their fingers. Oh - you meant "in the sense of gang/group"? It still appears as part of the name of some groups as a word of its own, otherwise, I can at the moment only recall its use in compounds. > The same about the > English language... de.wikipedia says: > > « Die Namensgebung /Ring/ bezieht sich nicht auf etwas anschaulich > Ringförmiges, sondern auf einen organisierten Zusammenschluss von > Elementen zu einem Ganzen. I don't know whether that's correct. It may be, but then the french "anneau" is a horrible mistranslation. > Diese Wortbedeutung ist in der deutschen > Sprache ansonsten weitgehend verloren gegangen. Einige > ältereVereinsbezeichnungen </wiki/Verein> (wie z. B. Deutscher Ring > </wiki/Deutscher_Ring>, Weißer Ring </wiki/Wei%C3%9Fer_Ring_e._V.>) oder > Ausdrücke wie „Verbrecherring“ weisen noch auf diese Bedeutung hin. Das > Konzept des Ringes geht auf Richard Dedekind > </wiki/Richard_Dedekind> zurück; die Bezeichnung /Ring/ wurde allerdings > von David Hilbert </wiki/David_Hilbert> eingeführt.» > (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringtheorie) > > How many students are wondering confused about what is «the hollow» in a > ring every year worlwide, since Hilbert made this unreflected wording, You know, a "field" is a "Körper" in german, ("corps" in french), a "Ring" is a "Körper" with a hole in it (no division in general). > by just picking another term around «collection»? Although not a > mathematician, I've visited several maths lectures, for interest, having > the same problem. Then I began asking everybody I could reach -- and > even maths professors could not tell me why this thing is called a > «ring». That's often a problem with things that were named by Germans in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. They had pretty undecipherable ways of choosing metaphors and coming up with weird associations. > > Thanks for your examples: A «gang» {of smugglers|car thieves} shows even > the original meaning -- once knowed -- does not reflect the > characteristics of the mathematical structure. > > Cheers, > > Nick > > Daniel Fischer wrote: > > Am Donnerstag 18 Februar 2010 14:48:08 schrieb Nick Rudnick: > >> even in Germany, where the > >> term «ring» seems to originate from, since at least a century nowbody > >> has the least idea it once had an alternative meaning > >> «gang,band,group», > > > > Wrong. The term "Ring" is still in use with that meaning in composites > > like Schmugglerring, Autoschieberring, ... _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe