Always wanted to achieve intel­lec­tual immor­tal­ity? Now it’s pos­si­ble thanks to Samuel Arbesman—a post­doc­toral fel­low at Har­vard Med­ical School—who shows us how to get a the­o­rem, for­mula or law named after your­self, in a few easy steps.

Of course, before you go out and begin to grace the world with your newly minted epony­mous idea, don’t for­get Stigler’s Law of Eponymy: “No sci­en­tific law is named after its orig­i­nal dis­cov­erer.” (Stephen Stigler attrib­utes this to Robert Mer­ton.) This law, which we shall gen­er­ously apply to all realms of knowl­edge, has the fol­low­ing impli­ca­tion: By nam­ing a con­cept after your­self, you have just estab­lished that some­one else thought of the idea first. But that’s the risk you have to take in achiev­ing intel­lec­tual immor­tal­ity, and mak­ing your way toward the Arbesman Limit.

via Seed