Second, the copy of *Mathesis enuncleata* at the United States Military
Academy at West Point is bound together with Sturm's *Introduction to
Specious Analysis*. Is this an exceptional copy, or do other copies of
the 1700 edition of *Mathesis enuncleata* contain this bonus? If Sturm's
*Mathesis enuncleata* went through several editions, it must have been
fairly popular in its time; how rare is it today? (I had never heard of
it before coming upon the West Point copy.)
Third, volume 1 (of three volumes) of Sturm's *Mathesis juvenilis* (1709),
translated into English by George Vaux, is also at West Point. (Ed
Sandifer might find this especially convienent.) In this volume are
discussions of arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, and fortification.
Joe Albree
On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Prof. Dr. Ivo Schneider wrote:
>
> Sturmius is identical with Leonhard Christoph Sturm, born in 1635 in
> Hippoltstein, died in 1703 in Altdorf near Nu"rnberg; his Mathesis enucleata
> was published in Nu"rnberg in 1689.
>
> Ivo Schneider
>
>
> > Milo Gardner expresses a small degree of increculity:
> >
> >> The recent post that cited 0-4 counting as base 4 may have meant
> >> base 5, as Egyptians from the Lower Kingdom may have practiced,
> >> as Greek may have been told by oral histories.
> >
> > Yet, I assure you that my citation is accurate. Sturmius,
> > sometime a little before 1700, indeed invested more than a dozen
> > pages to the virtues and arithmetic properties of base 4 arithmetic,
> > and cited both Aristotle and Wallis to back his claims.
> >
> > I was surprised, too.
> >
> > *************************************************************************
> > * Ed Sandifer * sandifer@wcsu.ctstateu.edu *
> > * Professor of Mathematics * *
> > * Western Connecticut State University* www.wcsu.ctstateu.edu/~SANDIFER/*
> > * Danbury, CT 06810 * *
> > *************************************************************************
>