I cannot remember but am almost certain matrices à la
\begin{pmatrix} 1 & x_1 & x_1^2 & \cdots \\1 & x_2 & x_2^2 & \cdots \\1 & x_3 & x_3^2 & \cdots \\\vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \ddots \end{pmatrix}
have a special name and meaning, what is it?
I cannot remember but am almost certain matrices à la
\begin{pmatrix} 1 & x_1 & x_1^2 & \cdots \\1 & x_2 & x_2^2 & \cdots \\1 & x_3 & x_3^2 & \cdots \\\vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \ddots \end{pmatrix}
have a special name and meaning, what is it?
It's called Vandermonde matrix.
It's interesting to remark that "no such expression occurs in Alexandre-Theophile Vandermonde's published writing"(From Ian Stewart's book Galois Theory), so the matrix gets its name for "obscure reasons"