---
title: "List of examples of Stigler's law"
chunk: 5/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_Stigler's_law"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:46:08.081898+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== R ==
The Reynolds number in fluid mechanics was introduced by George Stokes, but is named after Osborne Reynolds, who popularized its use.
Richards equation is attributed to Richards in his 1931 publication, but was earlier introduced by Richardson in 1922 in his book "Weather prediction by numerical process." (Cambridge University press. p. 262) as pointed out by John Knight and Peter Raats in "The contributions of Lewis Fry Richardson to drainage theory, soil physics, and the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum" EGU General Assembly 2016.
Russell's paradox is a paradox in set theory that Bertrand Russell discovered and published in 1901. However, Ernst Zermelo had independently discovered the paradox in 1899.

== S ==
The Sankey diagram was invented by Charles Joseph Minard
The Schottky diode was neither discovered by Schottky nor its operation correctly explained by him. The actual nature of the metal–semiconductor junction was noted by Hans Bethe. 
The Schröder–Bernstein theorem in set theory was first stated without proof by Georg Cantor and first proved by Richard Dedekind
Shuey's equation from 1985, which is an approximation of the Zoeprittz Equation first published in 1919.
Simpson's paradox, a term introduced by Colin R. Blyth in 1972; but Edward Simpson did not actually discover this statistical paradox.
The Simson line in geometry is named for Robert Simson, but cannot be found in Simson's works. Instead, it was first discovered by William Wallace in 1797.
The Smith chart in radio frequency engineering is named after Phillip Hagar Smith, who published about it in 1939. However, it was independently invented by Tosaku Mizuhashi in 1937 and Amiel R. Volpert in 1939.
Snell's law of refraction, named after Willebrord Snellius, a Dutch scientist, also known as Descartes law of refraction (after René Descartes) was discovered by Ibn Sahl.
the Snellius–Pothenot problem was solved by Willebrord Snellius only, and restated by Laurent Pothenot 75 years later
Steiner triple systems named for Jakob Steiner's work in 1754 were first found by Thomas Kirkman in 1746–1750.
Stigler's law, attributed by Stephen Stigler himself to Robert K. Merton, though the phenomenon had previously been noted by others.
Stirling's approximation, which was presaged in published work by Abraham de Moivre.
Stokes's theorem discovered by Lord Kelvin
Student's t-distribution, previously derived by  Helmert and Lüroth.

== T ==
The tetralogy of Fallot was described in 1672 by Niels Stensen, but named after Étienne-Louis Arthur Fallot who also described it in 1888.
Taylor's law in ecology was discovered by H. Fairfield Smith in 1938 but named after L. R. Taylor who rediscovered it in 1961.
Thévenin's theorem in circuit theory was discovered by Hermann von Helmholtz in 1853 but named after Léon Charles Thévenin who rediscovered it in 1883.
Tai's model was known in antiquity.
Tsiolkovsky rocket equation was independently arrived at by William Moore in 1810, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1903, Robert Goddard in 1912, and Herman Oberth about 1920.

== V ==
Venn diagrams are named after John Venn, who popularized them in the 1880s, but Leonhard Euler had already introduced them in 1768.
Vigenère cipher was originally described by Giovan Battista Bellaso in his 1553 book La cifra del. Sig. Giovan Battista Bellaso, but later misattributed to Blaise de Vigenère in the 19th century.
The Von Neumann architecture of computer hardware is misattributed to John von Neumann because he wrote a preliminary report called "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" that did not include the names of the inventors: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
Voronoi diagrams are named after Georgy Voronoy, who defined and studied the general n-dimensional case in 1908, but have already been used by Descartes (1644), Lejeune Dirichlet (1850) and Snow (1854).

== W ==
Wang tiles were hypothesized by Hao Wang not to exist, but an example was constructed by his student Robert Berger.
Wheatstone bridge, an electrical measuring instrument invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833, but named after Sir Charles Wheatstone who improved and popularized it in 1843.
Widmanstätten patterns, named after Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstätten in 1808, but previously reported by William Thomson (mineralogist) in 1804.
Wike's law of low odd primes, a principle of design of experiments, was stated by Sir Ronald A. Fisher in 1935 but named by Edwin Wike in 1973.
Wilson Cycle, named in 1974 by Kevin C. A. Burke after the Canadian geologist J. Tuzo Wilson for Wilson's 1966 proposal that the Atlantic Ocean had previously closed and then opened again, a theory that the Swiss geologist Émile Argand had proposed in the 1920s.

== Y ==
Yagi–Uda antenna, a successful and popular beam antenna, whose primary inventor was Shintaro Uda, but which was popularized by, and formerly popularly named for, his collaborator Hidetsugu Yagi.

== Z ==
Zipf's law states that given some corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. The law is named after George Kingsley Zipf, an early twentieth century American linguist. Zipf popularized Zipf's law and sought to explain it, though he did not claim to have originated it. Jean-Baptiste Estoup was the first person to note this regularity in word frequencies.

== See also ==
List of misnamed theorems
List of multiple discoveries
List of scientific priority disputes

== References ==