Mathematical Correspondences and Critical Editions PDF
Preview Mathematical Correspondences and Critical Editions
Trends in the History of Science Maria Teresa Borgato Erwin Neuenschwander Irène Passeron Editors Mathematical Correspondences and Critical Editions Trends in the History of Science Trends in the History of Science is a series devoted to the publication of volumes arising from workshops and conferences in all areas of current research in the history of science, primarily with a focus on the history of mathematics, physics, and their applications. Its aim is to make current developments available to the community as rapidly as possible without compromising quality, and to archive thosedevelopmentsforreferencepurposes.Proposalsforvolumescanbesubmitted using the online book project submission form at our website www.birkhauser- science.com. Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/11668 Maria Teresa Borgato • Erwin Neuenschwander (cid:129) Irène Passeron Editors Mathematical Correspondences and Critical Editions Editors MariaTeresaBorgato ErwinNeuenschwander DepartmentofMathematicsand InstituteofMathematics ComputerScience UniversityofZurich UniversityofFerrara Zurich,Switzerland Ferrara,Italy Ire`nePasseron InstitutdeMathématiquesdeJussieu-Paris RiveGauche CNRS,SorbonneUniversité Paris,France ISSN2297-2951 ISSN2297-296X (electronic) TrendsintheHistoryofScience ISBN978-3-319-73575-7 ISBN978-3-319-73577-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73577-1 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018955311 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG,partofSpringerNature2018 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation, broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology nowknownorhereafterdeveloped. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthisbook arebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsor theeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforany errorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictional claimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations. This book is published under the imprint Birkhäuser, www.birkhauser-science.com by the registered companySpringerNatureSwitzerlandAGpartofSpringerNature. Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland Preface Collected MathematicalWorksandCorrespondences:A ShortHistory andanIntroductorySummary The publication of collected mathematical works and correspondenceshas a long anddistinguishedtradition.ApartfromtheeditionsofclassicalGreekandRoman worksintheRenaissance,itstartedinthesixteenthandseventeenthcenturieswith thepublicationof,amongothers,theworksofFrançoisViète(Operamathematica, London 1589, or Leiden 1646), Niccolò Tartaglia (Opere, Venice 1592/93 and 1606),ChristophClavius(Operamathematica,5vols,1612),SimonStevin(Œuvres mathématiques,6vols, Leiden1634),andGalileoGalilei(Opere,2vols,Bologna 1655/56).Aroundthesametime,thefirsteditionsofmathematicalcorrespondences (Commercium epistolicum of John Wallis, 1658; and John Collins, 1712, etc.) appeared,andintheeighteenthcentury,therefollowedsometwentyfurthereditions of collected mathematical papers (Jacob and Johann Bernoulli, Pierre de Fermat, BernardLamy,PierreLouisMoreaudeMaupertuis,JacopoRiccati,GillesPersonne deRoberval,RobertSimson,etc.). The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a highpoint in the publication of multivolume and often nationalistically driven collected mathematical works. The most voluminous of these were the editions of the works of Leonhard Euler (ca. 100 volumes, 1911−), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (ca. 50 volumes, 1923−), Augustin-Louis Cauchy (27 vols, 1882−1974), Johannes Kepler (26 vols, 1937−2017),Christiaan Huygens(22vols, 1888−1950),Galileo Galilei (20vols, 1890−1909),Paul Tannery (17 vols, 1912−50),Joseph-LouisLagrange (14 vols, 1867−92), Pierre-Simon de Laplace (14 vols, 1878−1912), Arthur Cayley (13 vols, 1889−97), René Descartes (12 vols, 1897−1910), Nicolas de Condorcet (12 vols, 1847−49), Carl Friedrich Gauss (12 vols, 1863−1933), etc. The best of these editions include, besides the collected works, also unpublished papers, letters, commentaries,translations, biographies,bibliographies,etc., that are often unavailableanywhereelse. These developments led in the twenty-first century, the age of “Digital Hu- manities,” to large-scale projects such as the D’Alembert edition with its new interfaceD’Alembertentouteslettres, or platformslike CirculationofKnowledge andLearnedPracticesinthe17th-centuryDutchRepublic,whichcurrentlycontains about 20,000 letters that were written by and sent to various scholars who were activeintheNetherlandsintheseventeenthcentury.SimilarprojectsareEarlyMod- ern Letters Online, or even the Stanford project Mapping the Republic of Letters, v vi Preface which includes also other media besides printed works and correspondences. For a compilation and description of the approximatelyone thousand printed editions of collected mathematical works and correspondencespublished to date, we refer thereadertothe“CollectedworksinMathematicsandStatisticsCollection”ofthe Stanford University Libraries or to the comprehensive bibliographyof Steven W. Rockey.Thelatterappearedinaprintversionin1991andisnowavailableonlinein anupdatedversiononthewebsiteoftheMathematicsLibraryofCornellUniversity. The present volume originates from a symposium held at the sixth ESHS Conferencein Lisbon in 2014.It presents 16 mostly ongoingprojects on editions of collected works and correspondences. The first group of papers deals with the edition of large-scale collected works and correspondences in the past, present, and future. LuigiPepe gives a shortsummary of the publicationsin this field and describes in detail the history and scope of Lagrange’scollected works. Eberhard Knobloch deals with the history of Series VII and VIII of the Leibniz edition, whereasKarinReichandElenaRoussanovaofferacriticalsurveyandinventoryof the editedworksof CarlFriedrichGauss. IrènePasseronand AlexandreGuilbaud describe the mathematical correspondence of D’Alembert and its digital edition, Sulamith Gehr presents the online edition of the Bernoulli letters, and Philip Beeley contributes a survey of the history of the nine-volume print edition of the correspondenceofJohnWallis. AfurthergroupofpapersconsiderstherenewalofmathematicalresearchinItaly at the time of the Risorgimento,the Italian unificationaround1870.Maria Teresa BorgatoandIolandaNagliatiprovideanoverviewofthecreationandconsolidation ofanetworkofpersonalrelationsamongItalianmathematiciansandleadingEuro- peanscholarsinthisperiod.Otherpapersofthisgroupcontaindetaileddescriptions andevaluationsofthecorrespondencesofGiustoBellavitis,EnricoBetti,Francesco Brioschi, Luigi Cremona, Placido Tardy, etc. The third and last group of papers presents a variety of other projects on European mathematical correspondences from different centuries. Nicolas Rieucau discusses the scientific correspondence ofCondorcet,ErwinNeuenschwanderdescribesthemajorcorrespondencesofB.L. van der Waerden, and Catherine Goldstein and Scott A. Walter present different aspects of the correspondences of Hermite-Lipschitz and Hilbert-Poincaré. For further information about the sixteen contributions, we refer the reader to the followingintroductionandtheabstractsoftheauthors. Thepresentvolumeofcoursecannotgiveacomprehensiveoverviewofthevast topic of the publication history of collected works and correspondences over the lastfivecenturies.Nevertheless,wehopethatitwillproveusefultofutureeditorsin accomplishingtheirtaskandthatitwillpromotefurtherhistoricalworkinimportant fields of study such as knowledge transfer and communication networks, where scientific,societal,andeconomicinterestsallcomeintoplay. Zurich,Switzerland ErwinNeuenschwander Introduction Correspondences andeditionsofcollected works: problems, situations,perspectives Letterwritinghasalwaysbeenveryimportantforthespreadingofscientificideas, evenintimesofagreatnumberofspecializedjournals. Thecorrespondencesonmathematicalissuesorthoseofinterestinthehistoryof mathematicsinvolveavastfieldoftopics,notonlythoseofascientificnature.They include letters between mathematicians and from mathematicians to politicians, publishers,and men andwomen of culture.Leibniz, Euler,D’Alembert,Lambert, Lagrange,Laplace,Gauss,Hermite,andCremonaareundoubtedlyauthorsofgreat interestandtheirlettersarepreciousdocuments,butthecorrespondenceoflesswell- knownauthorscanalsomakeanimportantcontributiontothehistoryofscience. All of these kinds of correspondence constitute an essential component in the reconstructionofbiographies,aswellasthegenesisofscientificideas,inanalyzing relations and debates and, ultimately, in the correct dating and interpretation of variousmemoirs.Theirpublicationis,therefore,importantforthesuccessofcritical editionsofthe worksofgreatmathematicians(Galileo,Newton,Wallis, Huygens, Euler,theBernoullifamily,etc.). Indealingwithoursubject,onemustalsotakeintoaccountthevaryingeditorial standards and formats for editions carried out in the past, especially in the nine- teenth century,the most prolific period for collected works (Galileo, D’Alembert, Lagrange,Laplace,Huygens,Cauchy,Fourier,Weber,Gauss,Riemann,Kronecker, Dirichlet,etc.).Theyvarygreatlyintheirpresentationandstructure;generally,they containonlyprintedworks.Attimes,theyareorderedchronologically,oraccording to discipline or type of publication. Only rarely are the correspondences,whether completeorpartial,includedintheedition. Variety in editorial criteria is also to be found in twentieth-century editorial projects, some of which are still ongoing (Galileo Edizione Nazionale, Leibniz, Bernoulli, Brioschi, Betti, D’Alembert,...) and are gradually being supported by digitalization processes. In fact, the digital editions make mathematical works of thepastincreasinglyavailabletoawiderpublicandfacilitatetheresearchprocess ofscholarsbyallowingthemtoeasilyaccessandbrowseraretexts.Thisposesnew problemsinadditionto thoseofthetraditionalprintededitions,particularlyinthe choiceofthetargetaudienceandcorrespondingsuitabletechnicaltools. vii viii Introduction Theeditorsofthepresentvolumeinvitedscholarstoreflectonthesetopicsina symposium within the frame of the 6th InternationalConference of the European SocietyofHistory ofScience entitled“CommunicatingScienceand Technology,” held in Lisbon, September 4–6, 2014. The topic generated considerable interest and the symposium on “Mathematical Correspondences and Critical Editions” was a great success in terms of participation and debate. Subsequently, a project aimed at collecting these contributions came into being, and other scholars were invited to intervene on the theme, since the publication of collected works and correspondencesisofmajorinterestinthefieldofthehistoryofmathematics. This volume contains sixteen contributions by various researchers from five different European countries. It offers a fairly broad spectrum, albeit partial, of the researchbeing carried out, as well as the argumentsunder debate,such as the complementaryrole ofprintedand digitaleditions, integralandpartialeditionsof correspondences, reproduction techniques of manuscripts, pictures and formulas, and tools for identifying dates and correspondents. These problems may involve differentapproachesaccordingto the period and the subject, in this wide-ranging volumethatfocusesoncorrespondencesandcollectedworksfromtheseventeenth tothetwentiethcenturywithreferencetoallmathematicalsciences. Our intention was not to present a simple collection of various projects of editions, but rather to relate correspondencesand works and compare the various typesofedition,theproblemsencountered,andthesolutionsfoundtosolvethem. Of particular interest was the way in which the editions of correspondences and works should be linked and prioritized. For example, in the edition of Huygens, lettersprecedetheworks;forLagrange,lettersfollowthe works;andforFavaro’s editionofGalileo,lettersfollowtheworksinthefinalvolumesoftheseries,butwere collected before and organized within a unique editorial plan. Important editions, however,likethoseofLaplaceandCauchy,donotcontainthecorrespondence. All of the contributions are related to editorial projects of correspondences or collected works. In some cases, the papers deal with projects of print edi- tions (Leibniz, Wallis, Lagrange, Gauss) or online or mixed editions (Bernoulli, D’Alembert, Poincaré). In other cases, they refer to a correspondence between twomathematicians,relevantforspecificmathematicalcontents(Germaine–Gauss, Betti–Brioschi, Hermite–Lipschitz), or are aimed at reconstructing a particular periodforthe history of mathematics(Cremona,Tardy),or a networkof relations (D’Alembert,vanderWaerden).Otherarticlesdiscusspolicyandmethodsfordat- inglettersanddiscoveringunknowncorrespondents(D’Alembert,Condorcet,...), orcriticallyexaminepreviousnon-satisfactoryeditions(Lagrange,Gauss). It is not our aim to create an exhaustive discussion of the best method for producinganedition,whichdependsonmanyvariables,suchasthehistoricalperiod and range of correspondences,the multiplicity of correspondentsand overlapping withothereditions,aswellasthecontentsandtargetaudience.Webelieve,however, thatavolumethatallowsustocomparevarioussituationsbypresentingareasonably wide picture may be a publication that arouses considerable interest for many scholarsofthehistoryofmathematics. Introduction ix The very first article of the volume, for instance, poses fundamentalquestions regardingeditionsofcorrespondences:shouldtheybecompleteorpartial?Should they feature only unedited material? Should previously published material be included? In the case of a partial publication of selected letters, on what basis shouldthecriteriabechosen:subject(scientific,political,privateetc.),importance, orcorrespondents?Whateverthechoice,acensusofallexistingdocumentsmustbe asthoroughaspossible. The author of the first article, Philip Beeley, describes the stages that led to the edition of the correspondence of John Wallis, beginning with Christoph J. Scriba’s research carried out at Oxford in the early 1960s. Scriba’s cultural and methodologicalbackgroundoriginated from the Leibniz edition carried on by the GermanAcademyofSciencesatBerlin,accordingtotheguidelinesoftheLeibniz scholarJosephEhrenfriedHofmann.Beeley’spaperoutlinesScriba’sprofoundand systematic investigation into Wallis’s manuscripts, letters, and other materials, at Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Vienna, which produceda whole series of card cataloguesandalistofWallis’scorrespondenceof800orsoletters.Fromtheinitial ideaofpublishingonlyasignificantselectionofWallis’sletters,ofinterestforthe historyofscienceingeneralorthehistoryofmathematicsinparticular,theproject went in a new direction with the discovery of up to over 2000 new letters. After 30years,thisledtoa collectionofuptotenvolumes,thefirstfourofwhichwere publishedfrom2003to 2014,with the fifthcurrentlybeingprinted.Philip Beeley enteredtheprojectwhenhewasadoctoralstudentattheTechnischeUniversitätof Berlin, taking overas the successor of the previouscollaborator,SigmundProbst, atthebeginningofNovember1996.TogetherwithScriba,andafterScriba’sdeath, he acted as editor of John Wallis’s entire correspondence in chronological order, complete with a critical analysis and introductoryessays on the themes discussed in the letters. Beeley explains, in his contribution,the various choices that had to be made during the course of the project, due to the developmentthat took place withinthe methodologyofthe historiographyof sciencein the last decadesofthe previous century, shifting from an internal historiographical approach to a more generalsurveyofthehistoryofideas. EberhardKnobloch’sessay introducesus to one of the biggestedition projects ever planned: the Leibniz edition, which cannot possibly be described in a few pages. It includes more than 50 published volumes of the expected 130 and has been a reference point for other edition projects. Eberhard Knobloch provides a detailed examination of its VII series, modified in 1975, and exclusively devoted to the manuscripts concerning mathematics (30 volumes), whereas the scientific, medical,andtechnicalwritingsweretobepublishedinanewseries,theVIII,which was to follow.In 1976,Knoblochwasassigned the editorialwork onthe first two volumes of Series VII, the first to be completed within 10 years, and the second within the following 5 or 7 years, with the help of a research assistant, Walter S. Contro. Knobloch describes the difficulties and events involved in that edition, which accompaniedthe increasinglyprofessionaland academicgrowth of the youngbut alreadyexperiencedresearcher,andwhichwereaffectedbytheperiodofunification
The list of books you might like
