Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The zeroth theorem of the history of science, enunciated by E. P. Fischer, states that a discovery (rule,regularity, insight) named after someone (often) did not originate with that person. I present five examples from physics: the Lorentz condition partial muAmu = 0 defining the Lorentz gauge of the electromagnetic potentials; the Dirac delta function, delta(x); the Schumann resonances of the earth-ionosphere cavity; the Weizsacker-Williams method of virtual quanta; the BMT equation of spin dynamics. I give illustrated thumbnail sketches of both the true and reputed discoverers and quote from their "discovery" publications.