I've never read any survey or evaluation of van der Waerden's harvest on
the history of mathematics, although I've leafed through many reviews of
his papers and books. However, right now the best I recall is a short but
juicy interview with Bartel L. van der Waerden (and his wife, Camilla)
by Yvonne Dold-Samplonius, held in Zu"rich in 1993, shortly after Bartel's
90th birthday. The interview was translated into English, and published
in the _Notices of the AMS_ (vol 44, no 3, pp 313-320, March 1997) (*).
An excerpt follows:
Dold: When did you get interested in the history of mathematics?
vdW: When I was a student, when Hendrik de Vries gave a course on
the history of mathematics. After that I read Euclid and some of
Archimedes. Thus, my interest began very early. At Goettingen --
the first time I was there -- I attended the lectures of Neugebauer,
who gave a course on Greek mathematics.
Dold: Neugebauer worked mainly on the Babylonians. Did he also give
seminars on Greek mathematics?
vdW: He lectured also on Greek mathematics. At that time, at
Goettingen, Neugebauer worked above all on Egyptian mathematics
and gave classes on it. His thesis was precisely on Egyptian
mathematics. This was very stimulating. Later I visited him once
at Copenhagen, and then he spoke to me of Babylonian astronomy.
This was most interesting to me.
Dold: When did you begin your work on the history of mathematics?
Your book _Science Awakening_ appeared, it seems to me, at the
beginning of the 50s. Did you write the book while in Holland?
vdW: Yes. Here in the introduction (of the German translation) is
written "Several well-disposed reviewers of my book, Ontwakende
Wetenschap, first published in Dutch in 1950, recommended that
the book be translated into German." Helga Habicht-van der
Waerden, my oldest daughter, has now made a faithful and readable
translation of it (_Erwachende Wissenschaft_, Basel/Stuttgart,
1956). The second, enlarged edition appeared in 1966.
Dold: What were the reactions to the book? To _Erwachende
Wissenschaft_?
vdW: [...]
(*) If you are sufficiently interested you may read the entire interview,
which is available online at:
http://www.ams.org/notices/199703/interview.html
or, in *.pfd format, at:
http://www.ams.org/notices/199703/interview.pdf
Desde el Rio de la Plata, vayan muchas felicidades para todos,
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
On Thu, 31 Dec 1998, Joao Bosco Pitombeira wrote:
| Where can I find a survey and an evaluation of van der Waerden's work
| on the history of mathematics?
|
| Thank you.
|
| Joao Bosco Pitombeira
| Mathematics Department
| PUC-Rio