It is obvious that hyperdeterminants are not well known amongst mathematicians, but just how unpopular are they? One way to test this question is to count the number of entries that google reports for the word hyperdeterminant as compared to other purely mathematical terms. So here is a selected league table according to google
- algebra 28,300,000
- determinant 7,670,000
- polynomial 6,990,000
- quadratic 6,120,000
- tensor 6,100,000
- elliptic 4,170.000
- tetrahedron 2,190,000
- discriminant 1,940,000
- toric 1,780,000
- hypergeometric 1,360,000
- covariant 1,020,000
- polyhedron 963,000
- cohomology 951,000
- automorphism 600,000
- functor 584,000
- quaternion 469,000
- hyperbola 411,000
- quartic 391,000
- diophantine 369,000
- multilinear 334,000
- polytope 294,000
- dodecahredon 278,000
- endomorphism 204,000
- pseudodifferential 202,000
- contravariant 162,000
- grassmanian 105,000
- cobordism 79,000
- pfaffian 56,200
- profinite 36,600
- octonion 33,000
- antiprism 30,100
- circumsphere 11,100
- zonohedra 4,770
- disphenoid 4,620
- hyperdeterminant 4,480
- cubicuboctahedron 745
Obviously I have used a very random selection of terms but it illustrates just how unpopular hyperdeterminants are. Only the most obscure geometric terms are less common. Hyperdeterminants are rich in structure and properties and there are many mysteries and unsolved problems related to them. Their neglect makes them all the more interesting to study.
Advertisement
October 8, 2008 at 7:36 am
[...] way to understand an unfamiliar concept is to relate it to a more familiar one. According to the Google unpopularity test, hyperdeterminants are 400 times more unpopular than discriminants, but there is a close relation [...]
May 16, 2010 at 8:46 am
[...] May 16, 2010 I am sure you all remember how I looked into the unpopularity of the word “Hyperdetermiant” according to the returns from a google search. It came second from bottom in a random list of [...]