Bøger i Sources in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences serien

The present essay stems from a history of polyhedra from 1750 to 1866 written several years ago (as part of a more general work, not published). So many contradictory statements regarding a Descartes manuscript and Euler, by various mathematicians and historians of mathematics, were encountered that it was decided to write a separate study of the relevant part of the Descartes manuscript on polyhedra. The contemplated short paper grew in size, as only a detailed treatment could be of any value. After it was completed it became evident that the entire manuscript should be treated and the work grew some more. The result presented here is, I hope, a complete, accurate, and fair treatment of the entire manuscript. While some views and conclusions are expressed, this is only done with the facts before the reader, who may draw his or her own conclusions. I would like to express my appreciation to Professors H. S. M. Coxeter, Branko Griinbaum, Morris Kline, and Dr. Heinz-Jiirgen Hess for reading the manuscript and for their encouragement and suggestions. I am especially indebted to Dr. Hess, of the Leibniz-Archiv, for his assistance in connection with the manuscript. I have been greatly helped in preparing the translation ofthe manuscript by the collaboration of a Latin scholar, Mr. Alfredo DeBarbieri. The aid of librarians is indispensable, and I am indebted to a number of them, in this country and abroad, for locating material and supplying copies.

Like all classical Greek texts on science, Euclid's works on optics initially came to the West mainly through medieval Arabic texts and commentaries. This book presents a critical translation of an Arabic texts and of Arabic commentaries on the text, and places the whole in a historical context.

Pierre-Simon Laplace is remembered among probabilitists for his "Theorie analytique des probabilites", published in 1812. This is a translation, providing a commentary by the translator including histographical and mathematical remarks and various proofs.

The aim of this book is to make accessible the two important but rare works of Brook Taylor and to describe his role in the history of linear perspective. Taylor's works, Linear Perspective and New Principles on Linear Perspective, are among the most important sources in the history of the theory of perspective.

I seem to have had trouble with such words as tadwlr (epicycle), which was not to be found in my standard dictionary, and with the concept of solid-sphere astronomy, which, when found, was pooh-poohed in the standard sources.

This edition of Books IV to VII of Diophantus' Arithmetica, which are extant only in a recently discovered Arabic translation, is the outgrowth of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Brown University Department of the History of Mathematics in May 1975.

Pauli wrote this volume of letters during the last two years of his life and it completes the publication of his extensive correspondence. It includes over 700 letters between Pauli and other leading physicists such as Wu, Telegdi and Lederman.

With the publication of this book I discharge a debt which our era has long owed to the memory of a great mathematician of antiquity: to pub lish the /llost books" of the Conics of Apollonius in the form which is the closest we have to the original, the Arabic version of the Banu Musil.

I am grateful to the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, and the Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Leid'en, for providing me with microfilms of manuscripts I wished to consult, and to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, for granting me access to its manuscripts.

With the publication of this book I discharge a debt which our era has long owed to the memory of a great mathematician of antiquity: to pub lish the /llost books" of the Conics of Apollonius in the form which is the closest we have to the original, the Arabic version of the Banu Musil.

From the final decade of Pauli's life, nearly 2000 letters survive. These are collected in this fundamental work on the history of physics in the post-war era. Going beyond physics, these letters also shed light on the cultural and philosophical background of our natural sciences.

So many contradictory statements regarding a Descartes manuscript and Euler, by various mathematicians and historians of mathematics, were encountered that it was decided to write a separate study of the relevant part of the Descartes manuscript on polyhedra.