tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?)

Ben Webster comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12226)

Ben Webster — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:12:10 -0800

Right, but that's hard to figure out, especially for dead people. Does anyone, for example, know how "Dirichlet" pronounced his name? It's derived from the name of a town in the Francophone part of Belgium, but the man himself grew up and studied in the Rhineland, so it's rather hard to guess.

Mariano comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12225)

Mariano — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:02:22 -0800

@Ben, I'd settle for a canonical choice of pronounciation, like the one the actual person would use/have used.

Ben Webster comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12224)

Ben Webster — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:52:56 -0800

Mariano- Burau is pronounced in German roughly like it would be in Spanish, I think, accounting for the difference between Spanish and German r's.

Ben Webster comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12223)

Ben Webster — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:47:51 -0800

Mariano- This seems like it would be a pretty tricky task. For example, American mathematicians who don't pronounce their names as their European ancestors would have (or people who've made comparable transnational moves) create a real minefield here ; for example, the pronunciation of "Koszul" is a discussion I've had many a time and never truly resolved.

José Figueroa comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12212)

José Figueroa — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:34:18 -0800

Mariano: Since apparently Werner Burau was German, I'd say 'yes'.

Mariano comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12211)

Mariano — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:06:47 -0800

(Some enterprising soul should build an online database of sound files giving the pronounciation of the names of mathematicians!)

Mariano comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12210)

Mariano — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:05:44 -0800

While we are on the subject... is the au in Burau (like the representation) pronounced like German auto?

José Figueroa comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12205)

José Figueroa — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 12:50:19 -0800

+1 for the cool link! (I knew the pronunciation in this case, but hard to convey this in writing... not knowing IPA.)

Bruce Arnold comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12203)

Bruce Arnold — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:57:32 -0800

http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en&query=maurer

Kevin Lin comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12202)

Kevin Lin — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:18:09 -0800

BTW... I've never been sure about this: How to pronounce "Maurer"? (Sorry for being a dumb American! And sorry for asking an off-topic question!)

José Figueroa comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12192)

José Figueroa — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 06:50:06 -0800

So it has. This thread should probably be closed then.

Wadim Zudilin comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12188)

Wadim Zudilin — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 04:45:54 -0800

The question seems to be deleted by the author.

José Figueroa comments on "Who was Maurer or Maurer-Cartan?" (12183)

José Figueroa — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:19:37 -0800

This question has been reopened after it was closed. Since I cast the first vote to close, I thought I would try to explain why in case my comment was insufficient. Also enough people seem to have upvoted Petja's comment that it was closed too quickly, hence I'm starting this thread.

It seems to me the way that the question is written that the OP did not even try very hard to answer the question. The wikipedia page on Maurer-Cartan form identifies the Maurer in question, points to a stub entry on Ludwig Maurer with links to his mathematical genealogy page, where you find that he had (at least) 5 PhD students. The encyclopedia of mathematics link that Gjergji Zaimi pointed out has a link to his paper, whereas the wiki page has a link to a book by Borel describing this work. All this can be found easily by googling and in principle answers the question as posted.

Petja has cast doubt on the proceedings by pointing out some oddities about dates. This seems to me to be a separate question.