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Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

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Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#121

Post by viraptor »

reaperducer wrote: post #112
piaste wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Paris I once saw an original print of Marie Curie's book on radioactivity, where her name is given as "Mme Pierre Curie". This probably shows how difficult it was even then to get something published under your own name as a woman Nothing to do with publishing difficulties at all. It was simply the way a married French woman would be addressed at the time - as "Madame [husband's full name]", eg Michelle Obama wo…

It was simply the way a married French woman would be addressed at the time Not just in France, and not just in centuries past. I've met women in the United States, England, and Austria who refer to themselves as Mrs. husbands_first_name husbands_last_name . It's formal. It's not insulting. You can see it commonly in 19th- and early 20th-century literature. Several of the Christmas cards my wife received this year we…

> It's formal. It's not insulting.

It can be both. Many do consider it insulting.

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#122

Post by reaperducer »

viraptor wrote: post #121
reaperducer wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was simply the way a married French woman would be addressed at the time Not just in France, and not just in centuries past. I've met women in the United States, England, and Austria who refer to themselves as Mrs. husbands_first_name husbands_last_name . It's formal. It's not insulting. You can see it commonly in 19th- and early 20th-century literature. Several of the Christmas cards my wife received this year we…

> It's formal. It's not insulting. It can be both. Many do consider it insulting.

It can be both. Many do consider it insulting.

Personally insulting, or are these people who feel insulted for other people?

The reason I ask is that the women I know who use this convention are not shrinking violets. This is not being imposed upon them by some male-dominated relationship. They are all strong-willed individuals. One is a C-level at a global company.

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#123

Post by Pamar »

amineazariz wrote: post #78
ThePhysicist wrote: post #42

Many women published research under pseudonyms in the past, for example Sophie Germain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain So I'd argue that many past inventions that are credited to men might actually have been achieved by women scientists publishing under their husbands / colleagues / friends name as a pseudonym. In Paris I once saw an original print of Marie Curie's book on radioactivity, where her name…

Didn't knew about her... Fascinating.

http://www.pilloledistoria.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hed...

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#124

Post by gammateam »

Andre607 wrote: post #120
leshow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only reinforces the original claim It didn't though, the "Mme" part stands for mademoiselle, indicating it is a woman. Therefore they weren't pretending to be a man for the purpose of getting a paper published.

> It didn't though, the "Mme" part stands for mademoiselle, indicating it is a woman. Therefore they weren't pretending to be a man for the purpose of getting a paper published. The specific claim I was addressing is not that one had to pretend to be a man to get something published, the original claim is, once again, that it was difficult to publish under your own name as a woman, as quoted several times now: > This…

> The comment that it was customary to use a husband's name preceded by Mme. thus does not negate this original claim, if anything it reinforces it.

We don't have anything to support or negate the idea of whether a French women could have published in her own name if she was single, or if she was married and addressed herself in a non-customary way.

We just don't and the conversation never went that direction. This is in your interest to understand alone but in a conversation where nobody has provided anything. As such it will be impossible for anyone to prove or disprove your assertions, and may have to be your own area of research, alone.

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#125

Post by naniwaduni »

owstr wrote: post #66

Maybe Mike Pall? Author of the LuaJIT.

Indeed, Mike Pall has indicated at various points that the name is a pseudonym:

> Heck, I've done the opposite. There's quite a bit of code out there which I haven't published under my real name (for various reasons). Not any Lua stuff, though. Good luck hunting it down. ;-)

http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-11/msg00106.html

> I’ve only published AFLG (auto-fast-loader-generator) under my real name in the German “RUN” magazine.

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=656

Of course, like many of the other examples here, unmasking him isn't of much interest to the tabloids since he's not much of a "public figure".

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#126

Post by anonlurking »

cosmic_ape wrote: post #77
anonlurking wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how you know that?

I read the article. I see how much published work on the problem is mentioned, and where is it published. In this case, not much. If a mathematical problem is really hard, and really important, of the type to reasonably qualify as a "25 year old problem", you will see a lot of partial results, many different approaches, connections to other ares of mathematics, a lot of work by many people. Nothing like that happened…

It's an educated guess, which is fair, but it came off as a matter of fact in the way you articulated your claim

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#127

Post by BerislavLopac »

leshow wrote: post #118
Andre607 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said it wasn't an example of it, but then presented a historical account which only seemingly reinforces the original claim they were claiming it was not.

> only reinforces the original claim It didn't though, the "Mme" part stands for mademoiselle, indicating it is a woman. Therefore they weren't pretending to be a man for the purpose of getting a paper published.

"Mme" is "Madame", indicating a married woman. "Mmelle" stands for "Mademoiselle", which means an unmarried woman, and in that case it would have her own name (as there is no husband).

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#128

Post by BerislavLopac »

bonzini wrote: post #109
kristopolous wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way more than half. All those people are still white.

Well, they are all Europeans. I am not denying that racism existed at the time, but hardly any non-white person lived in Europe back then. (Even nowadays in most European countries the percentage of non-white people is so low that, in a group of 30, finding none is well within statistical error).

Interestingly, many (if not most) of people on that conference were Jews, which were often treated as second-class citizens even before Hitler.

Also, an additional testament how Marie Curie was exceptional was that she was an immigrant from Poland (which didn't even exist when she was born; her initial studies were in secret), and that she is still the only person ever to win two Nobel prizes for two separate fields (physics and chemistry).

Re: Ask HN: Famous anonymous inventions other than Bitcoin?

#130

Post by btschaegg »

jonny_eh wrote: post #91
ThePhysicist wrote: post #42

Many women published research under pseudonyms in the past, for example Sophie Germain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain So I'd argue that many past inventions that are credited to men might actually have been achieved by women scientists publishing under their husbands / colleagues / friends name as a pseudonym. In Paris I once saw an original print of Marie Curie's book on radioactivity, where her name…

JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book using her initials to hide her gender, which was recommended by her publisher. She could go back on that, but it's too late now that she's known by it.

> She could go back on that, but it's too late now that she's known by it.

Interesting. I read the first Harry Potter novel (i.e. the german translation) as a kid about 3 or 4 years after it was released. I'm pretty sure I knew the "J" stood for Joanne from the get go.

OTOH, I still can't remember what H.G. Wells' first name was, although I must've looked it up a couple of times by now…

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