Originally posted by Tygert
That is interesting, I didn't that. You'd think it would be pronounced the same as principal.
We had a physicist/math guru genius type working for our company once, Malcom Lines, who wrote a book called 'a number for your thoughts' which caused Isaac Asimov to write to him and they became pen pals till Isaac died. He was the one pointed out the correct pronunciation. That book is interesting, it showed that you could have a number system based on negative numbers! Instead of base 2, like binary, you could have base MINUS 2 or minus 12 or any other digit just like positive number bases.
That is what tickled the imagination of Isaac Asimov.
He wrote a lot of books, including 'on the shoulders of giants' after that famous saying by Isaac Newton.
He also has real scientific books out too, not for popular science readers.