Talk:Alexis Clairaut

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dbisch47.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed move

The French Academy of Sciences lists his name as "Clairaut (Alexis-Claude)". At MacTutor the same spelling is used. This page was created with the alternated spelling, presumably based on the EB 1911 entry; yet even in that celebrated encyclopedia the "Clairaut" spelling is common. A web search for 'Alexis Clairault' returns a few hundred hits; a search for 'Alexis Clairaut' returns tens of thousands.

Therefore, I propose this article should be moved to "Alexis Clairaut".

Do we need a formal move tag and extended discussion, or — without objection — can we just make it happen? --KSmrq^T 11:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Things named after Clairaut

It might help resolve some of the confusion amongst other articles (such as Clairaut's theorem vs symmetry of partial derivatives#Clairaut's theorem) to make a point of mentioning on this article each and every one of the things which are currently named for Clairaut. And to distinguish between them clearly. For starters:

• The symmetry of mixed partial derivatives (called his theorem).
• The correspondence between surface gravity and planet flattening. (Confusingly, also called his theorem.)
• A certain class of differential equations (called his differential equation).
• A certain class of partial differential equations (called his equation).
• A conserved quantity, viz. angular momentum, for straight lines on surfaces of revolution (this equation/theorem is called his relation).

Cesiumfrog (talk) 10:55, 12 March 2013 (UTC)