{from, telegraph.uk.co/7-15-08}
 
Einstein, Plato... and You?
 
Last Updated: 15/07/2008
 
The Telegraph is offering its readers the chance to be immortalised in a mathematical discovery. But, as Marcus du Sautoy reveals, the process hasn't always been so easy
 
The Einsteinium atom, the Higgs boson, Halley's Comet. A new scientific discovery always gives its maker the chance to choose a name. Sometimes, they go for their own, giving themselves a little bit of immortality. But, recently, scientists have been honouring their inspirations and heroes.

The planet Venus
The features of the moons of Venus are reserved for female heroines
 
Last year, the singer Neil Young found his name on a new species of trapdoor spider, the Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, discovered by a biologist who was a fan. Sir David Attenborough is linked to a species of echidna found in New Guinea, Zaglossus attenboroughi, although he specialises in extinct creatures, such as a dinosaur known as Attenborosaurus and, more recently, Materpiscis attenboroughi, the earliest known fish fossil to give birth to its young, rather than spawning eggs. Even politicians have made it: George W Bush recently got his name on a new species… of slime mould beetle.
 
There has always been a tradition of honouring great pioneers by naming objects after them. The craters on the Moon read like a Who's Who of historical characters, from Copernicus to Plato, Archimedes to Galileo. The features of the moons of Venus are reserved for female heroines, Agatha Christie, Anne Frank and Barbara Hepworth among them. The rocks tumbling around in the asteroid belt also honour a slew of famous names: Newtonia, Mozartia and Gaussia (after the mathematician who charted the path of the first known asteroid, Ceres).
 
But even if you're not as famous as Newton or Neil Young, do not despair. There is a whole industry out there based on letting people name their own stars, even though the central registry kept by the International Astronomical Union uses numerical nomenclature to navigate the night sky, rather than referring to "the Auntie Mabel Nebula". There are even companies selling individuals plots on Mars or the Moon, because of a loophole in the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967. That banned countries or governments from laying claim to extraterrestrial land, but forgot to include people.
 
However, if Outer Space isn't your thing, how about having your name on a mathematical object in hyperspace? Mathematicians are constantly on the lookout for new symmetrical objects. The first to be discovered were simple shapes such as dice, or footballs made out of patches of hexagons and pentagons.
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But as mathematics became more sophisticated, mathematicians such as myself started concocting symmetrical shapes beyond the three dimensions we live in. These aren't just good for playing around: they turn out to explain the behaviour of viruses and crystals, to be at the heart of many of the codes used in modern technology, and even to explain the menagerie of fundamental particles that make up matter itself.
 
As soon as one of these new symmetrical objects is spotted, it needs a name. But this process is fraught with difficulties. Unlike in astronomy, there is no central registry where you can record your choice. It is only by a process of communal acceptance and use that a name takes off.
 
This rather unregulated attitude to mathematical nomenclature has led to some bitter rivalries: during the Cold War, Soviet and Western mathematicians often came to blows at conferences over the differing names attached to ideas discovered simultaneously in the East and West.
 
In the field of symmetry, the mechanism by which new objects came to light often provoked passions over who should get their name on it. There has often been a two-stage process: first, a mathematician would come up with evidence for the possible existence of a mathematical object with a given number of symmetries. This would inspire other mathematicians to go out and create the new object. But whose name should go on it - the person who made the prediction, or the one who put in the hard graft?
 
The same process happens in physics. Fundamental particles are often predicted before they are seen in the particle accelerator: the theoretical analysis then guides the experimenters as to what they should be looking for. The Higgs boson, for example, has never been observed, but already it is already named after Peter Higgs, who suggested that its existence would solve some of the mysteries of matter.
 
The hope is that when the multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider goes online at Cern, we might see the particle for the first time. While the person who first sees it has already missed their chance to get their name on the particle, the atom-smasher might reveal a host of new particles up for grabs.
 
Sometimes, new objects get more exotic names. In the early Seventies, the German mathematician Bernd Fischer predicted the existence of an extraordinary symmetrical object, totally unrelated to anything anyone had seen before. It had more symmetries than there are atoms in the Sun, and only appeared when you entered 196,883-dimensional space. Its terrifying proportions led the Cambridge mathematician John Conway to christen it simply "The Monster".
 
Some mathematicians doubted if it was possible to conceive of such a ridiculously complex symmetrical object. So when, in 1980, the American mathematician Bob Griess finally mapped out the composition of this Monster, he understandably wanted his name somehow attached to his extraordinary creation.
 
He realised he couldn't hope to convince the mathematical community to give up the colourful name simply for "The Fischer-Griess Group". So he suggested that the Monster should become "The Friendly Giant": the F and the G would recognise his and Fischer's achievements. The name never took off.
 
My own mathematical explorations have revealed a seam of symmetrical objects that connect with one of the major themes of modern mathematics: elliptic curves. These equations, such as like y2=x3-x are some of the most fascinating in mathematics, and were key to the resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem. It is one of mathematics' holy grails to understand what choices of whole numbers X and Y will solve this kind of equation: one of the Clay Problems, for which one can win $1 million, concerns understanding which elliptic curves have solutions or not.
 
But these new symmetrical objects are in need of names. And if you can give someone a star for their birthday, or celebrate an anniversary with territory on Mars, why not let people adopt a symmetrical object? I support a charity called Common Hope that helps street kids in Guatemala get a decent education, health care and shelter. In exchange for a donation to the charity, contributors will get one of my new symmetrical shapes named after whichever hero or loved one they would like honoured.
 
I can't promise that your symmetrical object will explain the particles that make up the fabric of the universe, or be the key to creating a new code, or even help solve those million-dollar equations - but you never know. Even if they just turn out to be playthings of the mind, they will have helped young children in one of the most impoverished countries on the planet. Who said maths couldn't save the world?
 
• Marcus du Sautoy is professor of mathematics at Wadham College, Oxford. His new book 'Finding Moonshine' (HarperCollins, £18.99) tells the story of these new symmetrical objects and is available from Telegraph Books for £16.99 plus £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0870 428 4112 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk
 
WIN A SHAPE OF YOUR OWN
 
Want to become a part of mathematical history? The Daily Telegraph is offering 10 of its readers the chance to have a symmetrical shape named after them. Our Science Editor has taken the plunge with the Roger Highfield Symmetry Group, whose details correspond to his date of birth.
 
To enter the competition, email your name and address to symmetrygroup@telegraph.co.uk and we will pick names at random. Alternatively, you can simply make a donation to Common Hope - and choose the name for the new object - at www.firstgiving.com/findingmoonshine.