List of examples of Stigler's law

Stigler's law concerns the supposed tendency of eponymous expressions for scientific discoveries to honor other than their respective originators.

Examples include:

• Alzheimer's disease, though named after Alois Alzheimer, had been previously described by at least half a dozen others before Alzheimer's 1906 report which is often (wrongly) regarded as the first description of the disorder.
• Benford's law, named after physicist Frank Benford, who stated it in 1938, although it had been previously stated by Simon Newcomb in 1881.
• Cartan matrices: first investigated by Wilhelm Killing
• Cobb-Douglas: A production function named after Paul H. Douglas, and Charles W. Cobb, developed earlier by Philip Wicksteed.
• Euler's number: the "discovery" of the constant itself is credited to Jacob Bernoulli, but it is named after Leonhard Euler.
• Euler's formula: an equivalent formula was proved by Roger Cotes 30 years before Euler published his proof.
• Evolution by Natural Selection. Charles Darwin mentions, in an annex to "The Origin of Species", eighteen people who had previously expounded the idea, including Lamark, Saint Hilaire, Herbert, Grant, Matthew, Haldeman and of course Wallace.
• Gaussian distribution: the normal distribution was introduced by Abraham de Moivre in 1733, but named after Carl Friedrich Gauss who began using it in 1794.
• Gresham's law was described by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1519, the year of Thomas Gresham's birth.
• Halley's comet was observed by astronomers since at least 240 BC, but named after Edmond Halley who computed its orbit and accurately predicted its return.
• Killing form: invented by Élie Cartan
• Leibniz formula for π: The formula was first discovered by 15th century Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama, but it is named after Gottfried Leibniz.
• Mandelbrot set was discovered by Pierre Fatou and Gaston Julia at the beginning of the 20th century, but named after Benoît Mandelbrot by Adrien Douady and John H. Hubbard in 1984.
• Matthew effect, named by Robert K. Merton after the writer of the Gospel of Matthew.
• Pell's equation, studied in ancient India, but mistakenly attributed to John Pell by Leonhard Euler. Apparently Euler confused Lord Brouncker (first European mathematician to find a general solution of the equation) with Pell.
• Playfair cipher, invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1854, but named after Lord Playfair who promoted its use.
• Poisson spot: predicted by Fresnel's theory of diffraction, named after Poisson, who ridiculed the theory, especially its prediction of the existence of this spot
• Salmonella, named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, but discovered by Theobald Smith.
• Stigler's Law, attributed by Stigler himself to Robert K. Merton.
• The Tetralogy of Fallot was described in 1672 by Niels Stensen, but named after Étienne-Louis Arthur Fallot who also described it in 1888.
• 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.
• 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.
• Arabic Numerals, which were invented in India.