Re: [HM] Poincare on Dreyfus?

Tom Archibald (tom.archibald@acadiau.ca)
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 13:47:48 +0400

There are some details on this matter in Paul Appel's memoir,
Souvenirs d'un alsacien. It does indeed deal with the issue of the
handwriting analysis.

On 27 Aug 98, at 16:43, William C Waterhouse wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, cxm7@po.CWRU.Edu (Colin McLarty) wrote:
>
> > A bibliography of Poincare's works includes:
> >
> > "Sur l'application du calcul des probabilites" in AFFAIRE
> > DREYFUS.
> > LA REVISION DU PROCES DE RENNES. ENQUETE DE LA CHAMBRE CRIMINELLE DE LA
> > COUR DE CASSATION, 5 MARS--19 NOVEMBRE 1904 t.3. Paris: Ligue des Droits
> > de l'Homme 1909. pp.500-600 (with Darboux and Appell).
>
> > Has anyone here seen this work? Does it comment on the Dreyfus
> > case
> > or is it entirely math exposition? Is the citation quite correct? Is it
> > included in Poincare's OEUVRES? I suspect it is not, since it has joint
> > authorship. ...
>
> I have not seen the work, and it is not in the OEUVRES. But there
> is a reference to it in M. Drouin (ed.), _L'Affaire Dreyfus de A a` Z_
> (Flammarion, 1994), p. 493:
>
> Trois des plus grands mathe'maticiens franc,ais, tous
> signataires de l'Appel, Henri Poincare', Gaston Darboux
> et Paul Appell, de'molissent l'imposture scientifique
> de Bertillon dans un rapport adresse' a` la Cour de
> cassation en 1904.
>
> So I expect it dealt specifically with the handwriting analysis
> in the Dreyfus case.
>
> William C. Waterhouse
> Penn State

**********************************************************

Tom Archibald
Head, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
Acadia University, Wolfville, N. S. B0P 1X0
Tel: 902-585-1475 Fax: 902-585-1074
email: Tom.Archibald@acadiau.ca
Home Page: http://ace.acadiau.ca/MATH/ARCHIBAL/archi1.htm