Abstract
MR. BASSET'S objection to the term “non-singular” (see NATURE, Oct. 11, p. 572), arises from a misunderstanding. The ordinary use ot the term by English-speaking mathematicians is natural and legitimate; it is applied to curves without double points when the curve in question is defined by a relation among the coordinates of its points. In the case of a curve defined in another manner, for instance by a tangential equation, “non-singular” could not possibly be used in the sense. In fact, the phrase which Mr. Basset denounces as “exceedingly infelicitous and misleading” is one which, standing by itself as Mr. Basset quotes it, strikes a geometrician as unfamiliar; “non-singular cubic curve,” “non-singular curve of the nth order,” are familiar to him, and are un-objectionable.
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RICHMOND, H. Curves without Double Points. Nature 63, 58 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/063058b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/063058b0
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