Comment by traes
1 day ago
Not to pick on you specifically, but as someone who spends a lot of time unproductively reading AI math discourse it's truly shocking how incapable all the supposed math enthusiasts are of spelling Riemann.
1 day ago
Not to pick on you specifically, but as someone who spends a lot of time unproductively reading AI math discourse it's truly shocking how incapable all the supposed math enthusiasts are of spelling Riemann.
I just did a quick search on this and apparently the misspellings are German surnames as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reimann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinmann
I just don't understand how it happens. If they had ever taken an intro to real analysis class they would learn to spell his name. If they were just parroting what an AI told them... shouldn't they still just say his name? An individual could just be dyslexic or mistaken but it seems to be a substantial volume. I guess they just don't care enough about it to commit the correct name to memory, only remembering the "pattern" of the name and filling in the spelling via guesswork?
My last name is Hebert.
There’s about a 1 in 10 chance when someone spells it (or says it) they say Herbert.
Even in situations where they just read it or I just said it.
I’ve had Herbert soccer trophies, health insurance cards, etc.
The mind fills in a lot of blanks and doesnt always get them right.
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Maybe they skipped straight to Lebeg integrals.
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Autocorrect might be doing it
iPhone would be my guess
People just don’t spell that seriously buddy, especially when it is so immaterial to the point.
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Yes sure but they are different surnames and pronounced differently.
I didn't mean to oppose OP's point, I just found it interesting as a non-German speaker!
Human brains seem to have somewhat similar failure modes to LLMs and how many 'r's in strawberry.
They're mathematicians, not linguists :)
The mathematicians don't make this mistake, I assure you. I doubt there is a math professor on planet earth who would spell Riemann as Reinmann. In fact, I imagine no one who has ever heard the name pronounced would do so.
One of the best mathematicians I've had the pleasure of learning under added 6 to 7 and got 15 during a lecture... I assure you they're capable of misspelling last names too.
Mathematicians aren't exactly known for being well rounded.
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Still, enough misspell Lebesgue as Lebesque.
Uh oh, no true scottsman....
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If they’re mathematicians they have written this name down about a 100 different times throughout a standard Real Analysis course. Riemann was foundational in that field.
“How many Ns in Riemann?”
Let's figure it out! First, draw little boxes over all the letters. Then add up their areas. Then make the boxes smaller and repeat, until you have forgotten how to count.
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Don't be a jerk.
Okay but who cares? Results are results.
If the proofs work thennwe can put them to work doing more things.
It is not particularly important that Einstein discovered relativity, just that it was discovered (Maxwell was very close).