who coined the term "real numbers" (was Re: Against PEP 240)

[Alex Martelli]

"Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.991357681.5817.python-list at python.org...
    ...
> > Those wacky reals. Makes you wonder how they got the name.
>
> Probably some Dutch guy; heck, they even name languages after snakes.

Nope, a French one -- Rene Descartes.  In "La Geometrie", 1637:
"""
tant les vrayes racines que les fausses ne sont pas tousiours
réelles; mais quelquefois seulement imaginaires
"""
(the spelling looks strange, but it's apparently the way they
did spell French in the 17th century:-).


"Complex" is due to Gauss, 1831, specifically at first for numbers
of the form a+bi with a and b both integers -- "Tales numeros
vocabimus numeros integros complexos, ita quidem, ut reales
complexis non opponantur, sed tamquam species sub his contineri
censeatur".  Earlier, they were called "imaginary".


An excellent site where you can get these fascinating tidbits,
and many others, is "Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words
of Mathematics", http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathword.html,
whose maintainer, Jeff Miller, I've courtesy-copied.  The sense
of fascination for history, "word trivia", etc, is wonderfully
well communicated by his several sites on such issues.  Sharing
such fascination and interests, I envy his students!-)


Alex