From the annals of terrible terminology
Nov. 2nd, 2009 02:50 amHey, you want to confuse people? How about instead of saying "intermediate value theorem", you say "Weierstrass Nullstellensatz"?
ADDENDUM: Actually, I suppose some context might be in order. I was looking through an old algebra book and there was a proof of Sturm's Theorem, and it referred to something called the "Weierstrass Nullstellensatz". What the hell does the Nullstellensatz have to do with Sturm's Theorem, I wondered? Turns out it's a (presumably quite old) name for the intermediate value theorem. What a terrible and misleading (though technically sensible) name!
ADDENDUM: Actually, I suppose some context might be in order. I was looking through an old algebra book and there was a proof of Sturm's Theorem, and it referred to something called the "Weierstrass Nullstellensatz". What the hell does the Nullstellensatz have to do with Sturm's Theorem, I wondered? Turns out it's a (presumably quite old) name for the intermediate value theorem. What a terrible and misleading (though technically sensible) name!
