Origins of Mathematical Words: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Latin, Greek, and Arabic Roots

E

118 E e The letter e is the symbol for the Eulerian constant, 2.718281828 to nine decimal places. The mnemonic device, of use only to those competent in American history, is that 1828 was the year when Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States. eccentricity This is the measure of how different a conic section is from a circle. The eccentricity of the Colosseum is .5588; that of St. Peter’s Square, is .708. The Greek adjective œkkentroj means off center. echelon This is the French corruption of the Latin scala, staircase. Échelon is French for the rung of a ladder. ecliptic The Greek verb ™kle…pw means to leave (le…pw) off (™k), to come short. The associated noun is ™kle…yij, which means a coming short, a falling off. From this noun was formed the associated adjective ™kleiptikÒj with the meaning pertaining to a falling off. The ecliptic is the apparent path of the sun through the starry heavens, so-called because an eclipse is only possible when the moon is near this path. efficient [estimator] The Latin verb efficio, efficere, effeci, effectus means to do, produce, make. Its present participle efficiens, efficientis means bringing about. Our adjective is just the stem of this participle. The verb efficio is the compound of the preposition ex meaning from, out of, and the verb facio, facere, feci, factus, to do. elastic This is the stem of the Greek adjective ™lastikÒj, propulsive, formed from the addition of the adjectival suffix -ikÒj to the stem of the noun ™last»r, a driver, from the verb ™laÚnw, to propel, to drive forth. election This is the Latin noun electio, electionis. The noun is formed from the fourth principal part of the verb eligo, eligere, elegi, electus, which means to choose (lego) out of (e-), to elect. Election or ballot 119 problems form an indispensable part of any course on probability. The solution of ballot problems suggested by episodes to be found in history books is a profitable diversion. They indicate how the highest authorites in other subjects may demonstrate a credulity impossible in a mathematician. The following stories are related by Dean Milman in volume 7, pages 121 and 538 of his History of Latin Christianity (Sheldon & Company, New York, 1861): In the play of votes, now become usual in the Conclave, all happened at once to throw away their suffrages on one for whom no single vote would have been deliberately given. To his own surprise, and to that of the College of Cardinals and of Cristendom, the White Abbot, the Cistercian, James Fournier found himself Pope. The contest lay between a Spaniard and a French prelate. Neither would make concessions. Both parties threw away their suffrages on one whom none of the College desired or expected to succeed: their concurrent votes fell by chance on the Cardinal of Siena. A similar event is claimed almost to have happened by a less reliable source: Twenty-five cardinals enetered the conclave. The absence of the French element left practically only two contending parties—the young and the old. The former had secretly settled on Giovanni de’ Medici; the second openly supported S. Giorgio, England’s candidate…The Sacred College had been assembled almost a week before the first serious scrutiny took place. Many of the cardinals, wishing to temporize and conceal their real intentions, had voted for the man they considered least likely to have any supporters. As luck would have it, thirteen prelates had selected the same outsider, with the result that they all but elected Arborense, the most worthless nonentity present. This narrow shave gave the Sacred College such a shock that its members determined to come to some agreement which would put matters on a more satisfactory basis for both parties. (V. Pirie, The Triple Crown, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1936, p. 49) 120 For more on this topic, see Chapter 19 of Paul J. Nahin, Digital Dice, Computational Solutions to Practical Probability Problems, Princeton University Press, 2008. element This is the stem of the Latin noun elementum. On the etymology of this word, Allen and Greenough write (§239), “So elementum is a development from L-M-N-a, l-m-n’s (letters of the alphabet [or, as we would say, a-b-c’s]), changed to elementa along with other nouns in -men.” It was used...