Sunday, February 03, 2008

List of eponymous laws

List of eponymous laws
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list of eponymous laws provides links to articles on laws, adages, and other succinct observations or predictions named after a person. In some cases the person named has coined the law — such as Parkinson's law. In others, the work or publications of the individual have led to the law being so named — as is the case with Moore's law. There are also laws ascribed to individuals by others, such as Murphy's law; or given eponymous names despite the absence of the named person.

Amara's law — "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run". Proposed by Roy Amara.
Amdahl's law — Used to find out the maximum expected improvement to an overall system when only a part of it is improved. Named after Gene Amdahl (born 1922)
Ampère's law — In physics, it relates the circulating magnetic field in a closed loop to the electric current passing through the loop. Discovered by André-Marie Ampère.
Asimov's three laws of robotics — also called, more simply, the Three Rules of Robotics, a set of rules which the fictional robots appearing in the writings of Isaac Asimov (19201992) must obey.
Subsequently, a Zeroth Law was added to precede these three: A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Avogadro's law — In chemistry and physics, one of the gas laws, relating to the volume and molarity of a gas.

Beer-Lambert law — in optics, the empirical relationship of the absorption of light to the properties of the material the light is travelling through. Independently discovered (in various forms) by Pierre Bouguer in 1729, Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1760 and August Beer in 1852.
Biot-Savart law describes the magnetic field set up by a steady current density. Named for Jean-Baptiste Biot and Félix Savart.
Boyle's law — In physics, one of the gas laws, relating the volume and pressure of an ideal gas held at a constant temperature. Discovered by and named after Robert Boyle (16271691)
Brooks' law — Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Named after Fred Brooks, author of the well known tome on Project Management, The Mythical Man-Month.
Buys-Ballot's law is concerned with the notion that the wind travels counterclockwise around low pressure zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Named for C.H.D. Buys Ballot, who published an empirical validation of an existing theory, in 1857.
Callahan's Principle- You can't argue with stupid. A corollary to Hanlon's razor and Finagle's law, normally taking the form "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Charles's law states that at constant pressure, the volume of a given mass of a gas increases or decreases by the same factor as its temperature (in kelvins) increases or decreases. Named for Jacques Charles.
Clarke's three laws. Formulated by Arthur C. Clarke. Several corollaries to these laws have also been proposed.
Third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Comroe's principle: If a job is worth doing, the body has more than one way of doing it.
Conway's Law: Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. Named for Melvin Conway
Coulomb's law is an inverse-square law indicating the magnitude and direction of electrostatic force that one stationary, electrically charged object of small dimensions (ideally, a point source) exerts on another. It is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.
Dalton's law — In chemistry and physics, states that the total pressure exerted by a gaseous mixture is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of each individual component in a gas mixture. Also called Dalton's law of partial pressure, and related to the ideal gas laws, this empirical law was observed by John Dalton in 1801.
De Morgan's laws — apply to formal logic regarding the negation of pairs of logical operators.
Dermott's Law — the sidereal period of major satellites tends to follow a geometric series. Named after Stanley Dermott.
Dollo's Law — "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors." Simply put this laws states that evolution is not reversible.
Duffy's law — "Most people are wrong about most things most of the time."
Duverger's law — After Maurice Duverger. Winner-take-all (or first-past-the-post) electoral systems tend to create a 2 party system, while proportional representation tends to create a multiple party system.

Edwards' law — "You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem."
Faraday's law of induction states that a magnetic field changing in time creates a proportional electromotive force. Named for Michael Faraday, based on his work in 1831
Faraday's law of electrolysis states that the mass of a substance produced at an electrode during electrolysis is proportional to the number of moles of electrons transferred at that electrode; again named for Michael Faraday.
Fick's laws of diffusion describe diffusion, and define the diffusion coefficient D, and were derived by Adolf Fick in the year 1855.
Finagle's law — Generalized version of Murphy's law, fully named Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives and usually rendered "anything that can go wrong, will". Not strictly eponymous, since there was no Finagle.
Fourier's law, also known as the 'law of heat conduction states that the time rate of heat flow Q through a slab (or a portion of a perfectly insulated wire) is proportional to the gradient of temperature difference; named for Joseph Fourier.
Gauss's law — In physics, gives the relation between the electric flux flowing out a closed surface and the charge enclosed in the surface. It was formulated by Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Goodhart's law — When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Graham's law — In physics, a gas law which states that the average kinetic energy of the molecules of two samples of different gases at the same temperature is identical. It is named for Thomas Graham (18051869), who formulated it.
Grimm's law — explains correspondence between some consonants in Germanic languages vs. other Indo-European languages. Discovered by Jacob Grimm, (1785 – 1863), German philologist and mythologist and one of the Brothers Grimm.
Gustafson's Law (also known as Gustafson-Barsis' law) is a law in computer engineering which states that any sufficiently large problem can be efficiently parallelized. Coined by John Gustafson in 1988

Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation — "any statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror".
Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle — States that one cannot measure values (with arbitrary precision) of certain conjugate quantities, which are pairs of observables of a single elementary particle. The most familiar of these pairs is the position and momentum.
Henry's law — The mass of a gas that dissolves in a definite volume of liquid is directly proportional to the pressure of the gas provided the gas does not react with the solvent.
Hlade's Law — If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they will find an easier way to do it.
Hooke's law — The tension on a spring or other elastic object is proportional to the displacement from the equilibrium. Named after Robert Hooke (1635–1703)
Hubble's law — Galaxies recede from an observer at a rate proportional to their distance to that observer. Formulated by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
Hutber's law — "Improvement means deterioration". Coined by financial journalist Patrick Hutber.
Hume's Law — In meta-ethics, the assertion that normative statements cannot be deduced exclusively from descriptive statements.
Kepler's laws of planetary motion — govern the motion of the planets around the sun, and were first discovered by Johannes Kepler
Kerckhoffs' law on secure cryptography by Auguste Kerckhoffs a cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge
Kirchhoff's laws — one law in Thermodynamics and two about electrical circuits, named after Gustav Kirchhoff.

Linus's law — named for Linus Torvalds, states "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". This law is, incidentally, the only one on this list to use the forename rather than the family name.
Little's law, in queueing theory, says The average number of customers in a stable system (over some time interval) is equal to their average arrival rate, multiplied by their average time in the system. The law was named for John Little from results of experiments in 1961.
Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. Coined by Professor J E Littlewood, (18851977)
Macfarlane's law — You can talk faster than you can type, but you can read faster than you can listen. [late 1970s]
Meadow's law is a precept, now discredited, that since cot deaths are so rare, "One is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder, until proved otherwise." It was named for Sir Roy Meadow, a discredited paediatrician prominent in the United Kingdom in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Metcalfe's law — In communications and network theory, states that the value of a system grows as approximately the square of the number of users of the system. Framed by Robert Metcalfe in the context of the ethernet.
Murphy's law — Most commonly formulated as "if anything can go wrong, it will", less commonly "If it can happen, it will happen". Ascribed to Edward A. Murphy, Jr.

Newton's laws of motion — In physics, three scientific laws concerning the behaviour of moving bodies, which are fundamental to classical mechanics (and since Einstein, which are valid only within inertial reference frames). Discovered and stated by Isaac Newton (16431727).
Second law: The acceleration of an object of constant mass is proportional to the force acting upon it.
Third law: Whenever one body exerts force upon a second body, the second body exerts an equal and opposite force upon the first body.
Newton's law of cooling — the rate of cooling (or heating) of a body due to convection is proportional to the difference between the body temperature and the ambient temperature.
Occam's razor — States that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. Named after William of Ockham (ca.12851349)
Ohm's law — In physics, states that the ratio of the potential difference (or voltage drop) between the ends of a conductor (and resistor) to the current flowing through it is a constant, provided the temperature doesn't change. Discovered and named after Georg Simon Ohm (17891854).
Parkinson's law — "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Coined by C. Northcote Parkinson (19091993)
Peter principle — "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence". Coined by Laurence J. Peter (19191990)
Poisson's Law of Large Numbers — For independent random variables with a common distribution, the average value for a sample tends to the mean as sample size increases. Named after Siméon-Denis Poisson (17811840) and derived from "Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements en matière criminelle et en matière civile" (1837; "Research on the Probability of Criminal and Civil Verdicts").

Raoult's law — In chemistry, Raoult's law states that the vapor pressure of mixed liquids is dependent on the vapor pressures of the individual liquids and the molar vulgar fraction of each present in solution.
Reilly's law — of Retail Gravitation, people generally patronize the largest mall in the area.
Rothbard's law — everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.
Say's law — attributed to economist Jean-Baptiste Say and contrasted to Keynes' Law (discussed above), saying that "supply creates its own demand," i.e., that if businesses produce more output in a free market economy, the wages and other payment for productive inputs will provide sufficient demand so that there is no general glut[1].
Snell's law is the simple formula used to calculate the refraction of light when traveling between two media of differing refractive index. It is named after one of its discoverers, Dutch mathematician Willebrord van Roijen Snell (15801626).
Stevens' Power Law — In physics this law relates the intensity of a stimulus to its perceived strength. It supersedes the Weber-Fechner law, since it can describe a wider range of sensations. The theory is named after its inventor, S. Smith Stevens (19061973).
Stigler's law — No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer, named by statistician Stephen Stigler who attributes it to sociologist Robert Merton, making the law self-referential.
Stokes' law — an expression for the frictional force exerted on spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers, named for George Gabriel Stokes, (18191903)
Sturgeon's law — "Nothing is always absolutely so." Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (19181985)
Sturgeon's revelation — "90 percent of everything is crud."

Verner's law — Stated by Karl Verner in 1875, Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s and *x, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively *b, *d, *z and *g.
Weber-Fechner law — This law named after Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner attempts to describe the human perception of various physical stimuli. In most cases, Stevens' power law gives a more accurate description.
Wirth's law — Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
Zawinski's Law — Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
Zipf's law — in linguistics, the observation that the frequency of use of the nth-most-frequently-used word in any natural language is approximately inversely proportional to n, or, more simply, that a few words are used very often, but many or most are used rarely. Named after George Kingsley Zipf (19021950), whose statistical work research led to the observation. More generally, the term Zipf's law refers to the probability distributions involved, which are applied by statisticians not only to linguistics but also to fields remote from that.

List of eponyms
Lists of etymologies
List of paradoxes
Scientific laws named after people
Scientific phenomena named after people
List of adages named after people
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