Stigler's conjecture
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Stigler's conjecture is the theorem proposed by the economist George Stigler that the credit for every idea in economics (and possibly other fields) is always given to the second person to have discovered it, the original initiator failing to get a mention.
As it happens, the Stigler conjecture applies to the Stigler's assertion itself, as it didn't become a "conjecture" until named so by George Stigler's son, Stephen.
[edit] Examples of the conjecture
- Cournot's anticipation of Alfred Marshall's supply and demand framework in 1848.
- Copernicus's earlier formulation of Gresham's law
- Gossen's earlier elaboration of the theory of marginal utility in 1854, which became credited to Jevons, Menger, and Walras in the 1870's.
- Ibn Sahl's discovery on the Snell's law.
- Dirac's discovery of Fermi's Golden Rule.
[edit] References
- Stigler, G. J. (1982a). The Economist as Preacher, and Other Essays. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
- Stigler, S. M. (1980). Stigler's law of eponymy. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 39: 147-58 (Merton Frestschrift Volume, F. Gieryn (ed)).
- Stigler, S. M. (1983). Who discovered Bayes's theorem? The American Statistician, 37(4): 290-6.
