Subject: Re: [HM] Klein and Poincare
From: Udai Venedem (venedem@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sun Jun 04 2000 - 12:20:55 EDT
On Sun 4 June 2000 6:47, Bill Everdell, Brooklyn, wrote:
> Poincare made a 27 page translation of Cantor's 41 page paper in Acta
> Mathematica 2 (1883).
which indeed may not be other than ***Fondement d'une the/orie g/ene/rale
des ensembles*** p. 381-408 in Acta mathematica 2 (1883), a "translation"
of Cantor's "Grundlagen einer Mannichfaltigkeitslehre", Leipzig, Teubner
1883 (this reference given by Poincar/e in his memoir on Klein's groups,
note p. 78).
In fact, what I had said was that the translation was not only Poincar/e's,
but rather a priest's, revised by Poincar/e, Appell, Picard and Cantor
himself.
This obscure (and anonymous?) priest, from Saint-Sulpice's Seminar, was
hired by Hermite to translate papers by Cantor for publication in the Acta.
The question may be: did the priest translate all papers, or all except
this one attributed to the sole Poincar/e ?
And if what I understand is correct, the paper by Poincar/e, ***Me/moire
sur les groupes kleine/ens***, given in Acta mathematica 3 (1883), might
well be the first alluding or using notions by Cantor ?
Indeed, I read, by from p. 78, that Poincar/e refers to Cantor's notions
of:
- Punktmenge
- Ableitung of a Punktmenge
- perfecte und zusammenhašngende Punktmenge
in German in his (Poincar/e's) text.
Which somehow contradicts Tom Archibald's opinion quoted by Bill Everdell,
from historia-matematica, 13 Sep 1998:
> "He found [Cantor's] papers much too philosophical at the time (as we
> know from Hermite's correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, published by
> Dugac). Poincare's French versions reorder the material and omit much
> of the philosophical discussion, apparently with Cantor's agreement
> since the translations were revised by him."
Much too philosophical, but useful? It seems Hermite's opinion was not
entirely Poincar/e's one.
Udai Venedem
venedem@wanadoo.fr
welcomes you at
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alta.mathematica/
a site devoted to collector's books of mathematics
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sun Jun 04 2000 - 12:29:37 EDT