History
Steiner triple systems were defined for the first time by W.S.B. Woolhouse in 1844 in the Prize question #1733 of Lady's and Gentlemen's Diary. The posed problem was solved in (Kirkman 1847). In 1850 Kirkman posed a variation of the problem known as Kirkman's schoolgirl problem, which asks for triple systems having an additional property (resolvability). Unaware of Kirkman's work, Jakob Steiner reintroduced triple systems in (Steiner 1853), and as this work was more widely known, the systems were named in his honor.
Read more about this topic: Steiner System
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)