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The name 'Kronecker delta' is meaningful to me. There are two delta functions commonly used in mathematics, the Dirac Delta function, and Kronecker's delta. One is a discrete function, the other is continuous. Kronecker, a mathematician who was obsessed with the finite, who tried to destroy Cantor's Set Theory, and to some extent, Cantor himself, is unsurprisingly the one associated with the discrete version. Dirac, a physicist, used in in his book on Quantum Mechanics, and finds lots of use in Physics. Unsurprisingly, it's going to be the continuous version of the thing. In mathematics, the history of ideas is caught up in the function of the ideas. Sometimes, to understand something, the easiest way is to look back at the problems that resulted in the development of the idea. In times before source control and git blame, it's actually quite helpful to attach the inventor's name to the concept. This is not, of course, the primary reason for the attachment (and many times, the history is more complicated and interesting), but it doesn't mean that it isn't useful. |