On 04-Nov-08 11:27, Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>>> Is there any specific reason why all great mathematicians were foreign?
>>
>> Because 99% of the people in the world are foreign for you?
> 
> Mmm. Yes, that must be it...
> 
>> I can think of Newton, Babbage, Turing and Darwin off the top of my 
>> head as very famous British scientists/mathematicians, I am sure there 
>> are many many more.
> 
> Heh. Imagine going to school and learning about "Dave's forces" or 
> "Bob's law". Wouldn't be quite the same as van der Waals forces and 
> Hooke's law, would it?

First names of van der waals were: Johannes Diderik so if they followed 
your convention it might have been Johan's law (or Jan's or Diderik or 
Rik, I don't know what his family called him). Aside I studied in 
Amsterdam and had lectures in the room they built for him there. A 
theater with the names of famous physicist in friezes (if that is the 
correct term) on the wall. Like we have the famous composers in the 
Concertgebouw.
They also had the foundation of the workshop there separately from the 
rest of the foundations. Just to make sure they did not ruin the 
experiments.

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