Cauchy, Schwarz, Bunyakovsky

[Fredrik]

I was once told that the inequality that most books in English seem to call "the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality" is called "Cauchy's inequality" in France, "Schwarz's inequality" in Germany (or Austria or whatever...I'm too lazy to find out where he's from), and "Bunyakovsky's inequality" in Russia and other countries that used to be part of the Soviet union. I'm just curious if this is true. Have you encountered the inequality in a text written in French/German/Russian? What was it called?

[Robert1986]

I was once told that the inequality that most books in English seem to call "the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality" is called "Cauchy's inequality" in France, "Schwarz's inequality" in Germany (or Austria or whatever...I'm too lazy to find out where he's from), and "Bunyakovsky's inequality" in Russia and other countries that used to be part of the Soviet union. I'm just curious if this is true. Have you encountered the inequality in a text written in French/German/Russian? What was it called?

I have Apostle's Linear Algebra book and he calls it Cauchy-Schwarz. I have Bartle's Real Analysis book and he calls it Cauchy. Both are English. So, I haven't read a French or German or Russian book, but it is interesting that some things have so many different names.

[chiro]

Sounds like intellectual patriotism, but I myself haven't seen the inequality labeled anything other than Cauchy-Schwarz.

[Dickfore]

Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz. Chronologically.

[micromass]

I had a german professor, and he always called it the inequality of Schwarz. So there could be some truth to the story :biggrin:

I always call it the inequality of Cauchy-Bunyakovsky-Schwarz though...


It's the same with the Cech-Stone compactification. In america it's called the Stone-Cech compactification. In eastern europe they reverse the order...