Subject: Re: [HM] Source cited by Goedel
From: Walter Felscher (walter.felscher@uni-tuebingen.de)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 03:19:47 EDT
Dear Mr. Dawson,
your question should be easy to answer.
The "J.G.Goeschen'sche Verlagshandlung" before WW1 was a Berlin
publishing house, founded earlier in the 19th century. In about 1919,
a number of publishers (among them Tr"ubner formerly in Strassburg,
and the old literary house of Georg Reimer) joined themselves into a
new company which, in the mid-twenties, accepted the name "Walter de
Gruyter". This company exists to this day; it publishes, apart from
many important philological works, Crelle's journal and good books on
mathematics.
Already the house of Goeschen must have started a series of short,
concise books presenting the content of - mainly introductory -
university courses in sciences and mathematics; the books appeared in
a uniform exterior and size, 10.5 x 15.3 cm (that is smaller than
duodez, probably the French "in-16"), greyish colour, both paperback
and cloth, and at a very low price. Further, they appeared with the
series' name "Sammlung Goeschen" on their covers, and the series was
sufficiently established such that this name was kept even when the name
of the Goeschen publishing house slowly disappeared; the name is current
still today.
During the twenties, several Goeschen series booklets appeared which
set standards for their fields; I mention in particular
Helmut Hasse: H"ohere Algebra I , II
about 1928 and the first 'modern algebra' at all, and
Konrad Knopp: Funktionentheorie I , II
on complex variables, as well Bieberbach's Konforme Abbildung. Copies
of these booklets should have made it also into US libraries. Also,
most of these editions contained, at their end, a few pages listing
the other titles of the Goeschen series. All you have to do is to
visit some mathematics department's library in which these editions
stand, and look at their closing pages for titles from the twenties
such as "(Einf"uhrung in die) Differential- und Integralrechnung",
"Analysis" or "Infinitesimalrechnung". As we can be rather certain
that at one time only one booklet covering this field was in print in
the Goeschen series, we then have a high likelyhood that it was that
work which came into G"odel's hands.
As I remarked above, the books in the Goeschen series covered
university courses; it is, therefore, most unlikely that the one
G"odel read was "in use at" a Realgymnasium or any other secondary
school. We must rather assume that to study it was either recommended
to G"odel by one of his teachers or that he discovered it on his own.
W.F.
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