I looked at a very interesting paper today (that I need to read carefully) that refers to a paper called the "modified MKdV" equation, which is called the MMKdV equation for short. Let's unpack this name:
The KdV equation stands for the Korteweg-de Vries equation. In other words, it's named after two people.
The MKdV equation stands for the "modified KdV" equation, which means that the MMKdV is in fact the "modified modified KdV" equation, which I would prefer to called the (modified)^2 KdV equation, although I'd really prefer a different adjective entirely be applied to KdV.
It's not close to as bad as "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" (which means "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim" or (The)^2 (Angels)^2 of Anaheim), but it's not exactly great. I have started to get a little bit of personal experience in how equation names arise. Namely, I wrote a paper and found myself in a paper constantly citing the book of a guy who formulated an equation that showed up in what we were doing, so my collaborators and I decided to name the bloody thing after the guy just so we wouldn't have to awkwardly cite the equation from his book so many damned times. He can thank us later.
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