Arlen Ward dot com

One of the benefits of a scientific career, assuming you are wildly sucessful, is the chance to name something after yourself. These eponyms are a staple of science, math, and engineering. Newton’s Laws of Motion, Occam’s Razor, the Lame’ Constants. The normal steps are:

1. Spend years working in an obscure area of science
2. Find some aspect that lends itself to a formula or something
3. Name it after yourself

Over at The Science Creative Quarterly, Samuel Arbesman suggests that you can reverse the process. Name something after yourself, then figure out what it means. He also provides a handy list of things you can use to create your eponym:

Law
Dictum
Razor
Principle
Rule
Scale
Effect
Score
Number
Test
Criterion
Paradox
Symbol
Shift
Index
Formula
Measure
Postulate
[any Greek letter]
Distance
Curve
Constant
Phenomenon

Samuel also puts his recommendation into action, and uses the article as an opportunity to introduce the Arbesman Limit, or the limit to the number of things that can be named after one person. He estimates the number to be around twenty or so, but aparently hasn’t run across all the things named after Carl Friedrich Gauss.

So I started the process. I give you the Ward Criterion, or maybe Ward’s Number. Ward’s Law sounds like something my grandfather would have come up with. In fact, I think he had one at one point. Something about how everything tastes good with enough whipped cream. Anyway, now I need a definition for the Ward Criterion (or Ward’s Number).

• The numerical limit to the times you can have pizza for dinner before your spouse disowns you?
• The number of pictures you have to take of a scene before there is a decent one?
• The criteria necessary for get an employer to pay for your education?
• Suggestions? Add them to the comments!