> In the "Preface for the Teacher", Landau remarks (p. 9): "I do
> not, to be sure, prove the consistency of the five Peano axioms
> (because that can not be done), ...."
and then goes on to give the German:
>
> On the other hand, Landau's words "weil man es n”mlich nicht
> kann" might just mean, "because I don't know how".
and ask
> So I wonder what Landau had in mind.
I would think that the translation by Steinhardt is simply wrong or
misleading, and Landau simply meant that one was not able to prove it
(meaning at that time). Can someone with a better ear for German comment?
Landau's Grundlagen der Analysis was, in my day in graduate school, the
first introduction into German for those who knew none and had to satisfy
a requirement in mathematical German. A four page glossary sufficed to
cruise through it.
Bill Tait