Talk:Wacław Sierpiński

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The article gives two different dates for Sierpinski's death.
S.

About the name.

Solkoll posts to the mailinglist sci.fractals:

In article <IriIc.1751$vH5.1184@amstwist00>, SunCode wrote:

Hello!
 
A short question; Is it "Sierpinsky" or "Sierpinski"? Does anyone have the
correct name?  I have seen more variations but those are the common ones.
 
This is why I'm asking : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpinski as far as I
know it's "Sierpinsky" and the wikipedia is not correct.
 
SunCode.

reply 1:

Interesting, I always thought it was "i". I grabbed "Science of fractal
images off the shelf" and in the index it is "y" but in lots of the text
it is "i".....very conffusing.

I know it's hardly definitive but a google search for the "y" version
gives about 1,700 entries while the "i" version gives 49,000.

This looks reliable
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Sierpinski.html

reply 2:

I would say Sierpinski if it is from Polish (as it is), Sierpinsky if
it is from Russian (it is not).

Perhaps the erronesous "Sierpinsky" spelling is what comes out when you
transliterate to Cyrillic and then back again.

reply 3:

To be perfectly true his surname should be written with
polish dialectal chars: "Sierpiñski"

Stinkin' what?!

Where and when was he born? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver The Slammer (talk • contribs) 23:12, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

The article also says he died in Warsaw and Moscow... can anyone confirm one of these? Also, I'm a bit confused at the article's seemingly anti-Polish slant (at least in my eyes), particularly since he's often considered a Polish rather than Russian mathematician. How can he have refused to have his work published in Polish until 1907 if he first worked at the University of Warsaw sometime around 1904? Something doesn't smell quite right to me - CheeseOfGlory