## Tuesday, April 10, 2012

### a mathematically historical whodunit? (fixed)

i'm used to historical notes where an established result in the west was known earlier to russian mathematicians .. such as the Cauchy-Schwarz-
$$\vec{a} \cdot \vec{b} \;\leq\; \|\vec{a}\| \|\vec{b}\|$$ today, however, i learned that Егoров's theorem is supposed to be the Severini-Егoров theorem [1]!
if you believe the wiki, Severini published the result in 1911 in italian, whereas Егoров wrote his article in french in 1911, which was more widely circulated.

not being fluent in italian, i didn't bother to check the first reference.  it's also worth noting that Lebesgue wrote his ph.d. thesis "Intégrale, longueur, aire" in 1902 ..

.. so in that 8-year gap, could someone else have proven it first?

at any rate, enough speculation: i still have some LaTeχing to do .. (-:

[1] never mind the fact that Его́ров's theorem is usually listed as one of "Littlewood's three principles" .. so maybe the russians lost out again? \-: