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Comment by traes

1 day ago

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.

  • My last name is Kvick - the Swedish word for quick. I live in Sweden. I get a lot of people thinking my name is spelled Kvik, Quick, Kwick, ... My father once got a mail addressed to Mr. Kvack (Swedish for quack, like a duck).

People just don’t spell that seriously buddy, especially when it is so immaterial to the point.

  • My point is it is crazy to make public claims about how important or not important a mathematical result is when you can't spell Riemann. Yes, it technically doesn't matter, but it betrays a damning lack of familiarity with introductory mathematics.

    • Then ignore them? I dont get these types of mysteries. It's easy enough to find math majors these days to ask them their opinions on things. There're so many of them. You most likely know some from your highschool. They'd probably say the same things though, or even freak out harder.

      While it takes a good math person to make breakthroughs it's much easier to find someone who has a feel of whats important/hard and not. Even a mediocre math major/master is far more authoritative than an expert at adjacent fields (CS,physics). Or to listen to webdevs 'ai skeptics' or whatever on the internet.

    • You’re (as Claude would say) absolutely right, and I suspect the original commenter has no idea what they’re talking about.