[I'm not so good at titling blog entries. It's hard to title something when you have no idea what you're going to type....]
1) What is the origin of the apparently British (?) convention that scientific papers should not list the author's first name, but instead only his/her first initials, viz:
R. Bott
E. E. Fairchild
J. W. Vick
A. H. Taube
etc.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Don Knuth gets on the phone to call people and find out what their middle name is. They're all there for you to see in the TAOCP indices. People will thank him, and continue to thank him, probably, long after he's gone.
2) viz: as an abbreviation. What an affectation.
3) Bernard Schutz, in Geometrical methods of mathematical physics (pg 186 of my possibly "Southeast Asian" bootleg copy, which has a crappy binding and suspiciously distorted (ie, probably photocopier-induced) distortion, throughout):
Most physicists are aware that Einstein's theory of general relativity has given modern physics a consistent and fruitful framework in which to study cosmology, the large-scale structure of the universe. Most are also aware that, at least at the simplest level, there are only three basic cosmological models: the 'closed', 'flat', and 'open' universes. What is probably less well-known is that this simplicity of having only three models is not at all a prediction or consequence of Einstein's equations. Rather, it is simply a consequence of assuming that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic in its large-scale properties [...] General relativity, like all fundamental theories of physics, is a dynamical theory: given initial conditions, it will predict the future evolution and past history. The uniformity of the universe is part of the initial conditions we put in to construct the simple models. The important contribution of general relativity is that it permits us to choose the geometry of space --- its metric tensor field --- as a part of the initial conditions. This is not possible in Newtonian gravity, of course [ooooh, Bernard, that 'of course' shouldn't be in there, c'mon, man!]. Once we decide to choose the most uniform initial conditions, it is differential geometry that tells us only three metric tensor fields are possible. Our aim in the next sections is to find these metrics. We shall use the mathematics of symmetry and invariance developed in chapter 3, but we will not need to know anything about general relativity nor even about Riemannian geometry.
So, this is a great example of why I like Schutz's books so much --- he takes the high-level, heavyweight machinery, and says, "put the front-end loader here, put the bulldozer there, set up the crane over there, and I'll show you how to create some real damage in your own obscure, and very much partial understanding of physics."
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