M?moires Math?matiques, Contenant ce en quoy s?est exerc? le tr?s-illustre, tr?s-excellent Prince et Seigneur Maurice Prince d?Orange, Conte de Nassau ? translate en Fran?ois par Jean Tuning

STEVIN, Simon

Edité par Jan Paedts Jacobsz, Leyden, 1608

A propos de cet article

Double-entry bookkeeping. Very rare first edition in French of this collection of works, which was published almost simultaneously in Dutch, French and Latin. They deal, among other topics, with geometry, trigonometry, perspective, and double-entry book-keeping ? Stevin was one of the first authors to compose a treatise on governmental accounting. The Appendice Alg?braique, which Sarton called ?one of Stevin?s most important publications,? is the first published general method of solving algebraic equations; it uses what is now called the ?intermediate value theorem,? a remarkable anticipation, as it was not rigorously formulated by mathematicians until the nineteenth century. All the works appearing in this volume were first published in this collection (with one exception, where the version here is the earliest extant ? see below). Stevin (1548-1620) was perhaps the most original scientist of the second half of the 16th century (the major works of Galileo did not appear until the 17th century). ?He was involved in geometry, algebra, arithmetic (pioneering a system of decimals), dynamics and statics, almost all branches of engineering and the theory of music? (Kemp, p. 113). ?Stevin unconditionally supported [the Copernican system], several years before Galileo and at a time when few other scientists could bring themselves to do likewise? (DSB XIII: 48). In 1593 Prince Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625) appointed Stevin quartermaster-general of the Dutch armies, a post he held until his death. From 1600 Stevin organized the mathematical teaching at the engineering school attached to Leiden University. ?The Prince used to carry manuscripts of [Stevin?s lectures] with him in his campaigns. Fearing that he might lose them, he finally decided to have them published, not only in the original Dutch text [Wisconstighe Gedachtenissen] ? but also in a Latin translation by Willebrord Snel [Hypomnemata mathematica] ? and in a French translation by Jean Tuning [offered here]? (Sarton, p. 245). The Dutch and Latin editions were published in five parts, of which the fourth consisted principally of reprints of his works on statics that had appeared separately in 1586. This fourth part was not translated into French because, we are told at the beginning of the fifth part, of the printer?s impatience ? he was tired of keeping the sheets already printed and suggested that additional materials could be published later when the author had prepared them. The printer?s impatience also accounts for the fact that several works that are announced on the title pages of the individual volumes did not in fact appear in the Dutch, French or Latin editions. The only other complete copy of this French edition listed by ABPC/RBH is the De Vitry copy, in a nineteenth-century binding (Sotheby?s, April 11, 2002, lot 779, ?15,200 = $21,935). OCLC lists Columbia, Harvard and UCLA only in US. Provenance: L. Cundier, early inscription on title-pages, i.e., Louis Cundier (c. 1615- 1681), French geometer, surveyor and engraver. He was professor of mathematics at Aix, and was responsible for a Carte g?ographique de Provence, published about 1640. Contemporary marginal annotation on R6v of final part. The first part of the work, entitled Cosmographie (1608), is a treatise on the trigonometrical techniques used in the observation of the heavens, together with extensive tables of sines, tangents and secants. ?The first to use the term trigonometry seems to have been Pitiscus, whose book Trigonometria made its first appearance in 1595, but in 1608, when Stevin?s book appeared, the term had not yet been generally accepted. The book consists of four parts, the first dealing with the construction of goniometrical tables, the second with plane triangles, and the remaining two parts with spherical trigonometry ? It is mainly of interest to those who wish to see what trigonometry was like in the sixteenth century, long before Euler, in 1748, introduced the present notation. It also.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: M?moires Math?matiques, Contenant ce en quoy s?est exerc? le tr?s-illustre, tr?s-excellent Prince et Seigneur Maurice Prince d?Orange, Conte de Nassau ? translate en Fran?ois par Jean Tuning
• Éditeur: Jan Paedts Jacobsz, Leyden
• Date de parution: 1608
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: First edition.
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Classical Physics, Mechanics, Optics
  • Mathematics, Analysis, Algebra