One of the best mathematicians I've had the pleasure of learning under added 6 to 7 and got 15 during a lecture... I assure you they're capable of misspelling last names too.
replyMathematicians aren't exactly known for being well rounded.
Oh god, that reminded me of my linear algebra teacher in college. Doing matrix multiplication by hand and ending up with 9x6 = 45, and then having to direct him to the cell with the wrong number. Loved the topic, hated the class.
replyPure mathematicians getting arithmetic wrong is a bit of a meme it’s so common. I don’t think it’s the same as a misspelling of a popular mathematician, not that either are indicative of much tbh.
replygoogle "Grothendieck prime"
replyStill, enough misspell Lebesgue as Lebesque.
replyUh oh, no true scottsman....
replyIt's just a name you write so many times as a math undergraduate or first year graduate student due to the number of load bearing results and objects named for him. The name even appears in lower division coursework
replyYes, you can be an amateur mathematician who manages to avoid such classes and may not know those results or objects, but if you haven't read and written down the name enough to avoid habitually misspelling it, you are outing yourself as a meat proxy unless you are dyslexic.
I regularly heard lots of names during my 3 year math undergrad degree. I couldn't remember how to spell many of them then and can spell fewer now. I imagine most people on the course were similar, and me nor no one I knew were dyslexic.
replyMostly we wrote initials in our notes and the exams didn't ask about them. The lecturers only wrote initials on the chalkboard after maybe writing the name once when introducing it the first time. We weren't there to do mathematical history and remember names or something.
Google existed then and now and we could look them up if needed.