In lieu of a
Wikipedia page

Independent researcher
in Austin, Texas.

Historian of mathematics.


The mathematician George Bruce Halsted while in Austin at the University of Texas in the late nineteenth century borrowed from the Greek to coin the term “neomon” for the square root of minus one. By referring to it simply as the “new unit” he probably hoped thereby to remove the arcane aura conveyed by “imaginary number”. He published several of his books under the imprint of “The Neomon.”


Detail from “Aeronautical Image” embroidery by Elspeth Kemp