David, FN (1962, 1998) Gods, Games and Gambling: a History of Probability and Statistical Ideas. | ||
---|---|---|
page | problem | solution |
39, index 270 |
Connington, S(usan) | Cunnington, Susan: author of The Story of Arithmetic: A Shorter History of the Origin and Development. Sonnenschein 1904. |
54 | Jerome Cardano ; a biographical study | Waters William George (1844-1928). Jerome Cardan ; a biographical study. London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1898 |
69, 80, 122, 139, index 272 |
Hoeffer | Hoefer or Höfer, Jean-Chretien Ferdinand (1811-1878, dir.), Nouvelle
biographie générale (universelle) [46 volumes]. Paris, Firmin Didot 1853-1866. The mysterious Hoeffer, S. mentioned in the index is probably caused by the phrase Hoeffer's on page 69 |
82 | V. Sandford | Vera Sanford: author of A Short History of Mathematics (1930; rpt. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1958). Student of D.E. Smith |
99, 109, index 269 |
Bell, ET | Bell, Walter George, who wrote The Great Plague in London in 1665 (Londen, John Lane, 1924). Eric Temple Bell was the author of Men of Mathematics (1937) |
xvi, 110, index 272 |
Christianus Huygens | This should be Christiaan. Christianus the latinized version is only used in the full latinized name 'Christianus Hugenius'. In this form Huygens name appears for example in Van Schooten's preface of Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Geluck. NB the English 1698 translation of Kosmotheoros carries the name Christianus Huygens on the title page. |
110 | His father, also Christianus, | Christiaan Huygens' father was called Constantijn, David probably confused the name of Christiaans father with that of his grandfather. |
111, index 274 |
Stampisen | The name of the the tutor of Christiaan Huygens is Stampioen (Johan Jansz Stampioen the younger: 1610 - after 1690); in 1639-40 Stampioen came in conflict with Descartes as result of his book on Mathematics, that was interpreted by Descartes as a critique on his own approach. |
111, 120, 121 | Ludovick | This should be Lodewijk. Ludovick seems short for Ludovicus, the latinized version of Lodewijk. |
111 | Doublet | Philips Doublet junior, son of Constantijn Huygens' sister Geertruyd |
112 | became the fifth book | became the last part of the fifth book |
113-115 | There are two forewords | The translation of these two prefaces is allmost certainly based on the
French translation of the Dutch text in the Oeuvres Complètes de
Christiaan Huygens, (tome 14, 1920, pages 54, 56 and 58).
Just one example of what translating a translation can result in:
Note in this example the influence of the Latin text on the wording of the French translation. Note also that the Latin text only uses one verb evolvere for the two verbs that are used in Dutch (ondersoecken and doorgronden) and French (examiner and approfondir) and that can be recognized in Davids translation (examine and to go deeply). |
114 | I presume that his wit will please you,... | I presume that his writing will please you,.. The French text has "Je présume que son Écrit te plaira". I would be curious to see David's manuscript of her book because some errors, like this one, seem to be of a type that could very well be explained by illigible handwriting |
115 | But these savants,... | This translation also points directly to the rather interpretative French translation (on page 58 of the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens) 'Mais ces savants'. The Dutch text has 'Doch sy luyden', the Latin text 'Cæterum illi' both of which can be translated as 'But those people'. |
115 | Chr Huygens de Zuylichem | Chr Huygens of Zuylichem. Just one more example of bad translation. The phrase Chr Huygens de Zuylichem was probably simply copied from the French text on page 58 of the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens. | 116-118 | 'translations of problems' | These translations are also based on the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens. Hald (1990, p 69) assumes them to be translated from the De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae. |
118 | These exercises are ... sampling with and without replacement... | Huygens' exercises as well as his solutions are all based on the implicit assumption of sampling with replacement. This is also explicitly stated on page 119. It is only after the publication of the text that it was suggested by other authors e.g. Hudde and Jacob Bernoulli, that other sampling strategies were possible. This was not however how Huygens stated these exercises and thought about them. So these exercises have served as a stepping stone, a launch pad for others to start thinking about new way's of interpreting and dealing with the problems posed. This is rather different from Davids statement that 'for the first time sampling with and without replacement occurs in the literature'. This error seems to have propagated also in later publications see e.g. Droesbeke |
122 | 'References": twenty volumes, Netherlands Society, 1920 | Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens publiées par la Société
Hollandaise des Sciences (Dutch Society of Sciences, Hollandsche
Maatschappij der Wetenschappen), La Haye : Martinus Nijhoff (1888-1950), 22
books in 23 volumes.
|
151, 154 | fifth (part) | Should probably be fourth part?. |
181 | G. Buckley | Should probably be W. Buckley. As his Memorable Arithmetic (Arithmetica Memorativa) was translated from Latin, it seems reasonable to assume that G. stood for Gulielmus, the Latin form of William |
194 | table | For no apperent reason the table on this page differs from that in the
Italian text of the 1898 edition of Galileo's work in that the left colum,
containing the number of possible throws, originally was located on the
right side of the table. |
225 | Isaac Beertman | This is probably Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637). Although the translator (Maxine Merrington) makes a note about inconsistent spelling which is left as it occured, this error seems to be of a different order |
Droesbeke, J-J, Tassi, Ph (1990) Histoire de la Statistique | ||
page | problem | solution |
24 | entre 1650 et 1660 | 1656: Huygens wrote the first draft of the Dutch text before march 10, 1656. He wrote several additions during the same year. Van Schooten translated the text in Latin which was finally published in september 1657. The Dutch text was published in 1660 |
24 | ...avec ou sans remise... | See comment above on David page 118. |
34 | datent de 1899 | datent de 1799. Christian Kramp (1760-1826) in Analyse des refractions astronomiques et terrestres Imprimé a Strasbourg: Chez Philippe Jacques Dannbach, 1799 |
Hald, A (1990) A History of Probability and Statistics and their Applications before 1750 | ||
page | problem | solution |
43 | Psacal | Pascal |
67 | contains a reprint | In variance with pages 74 and 558, this is a correct representation of the contents. |
69 | David has translated | Davids text is not a translation of the Latin text but of the French translation found in Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens (1920). It should be noted that the wording of Halds translations indicates that they are based on the Dutch text. |
69 | difference in wording | Huygens also uses the word 'kans' meaning 'chance/occasion', which is avoided by Van Schooten in his translation |
74 | 2) Korteweg's edition (1920) in Huygens collected work, Vol 14; | The 14th volume of the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens does not contain the text of De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae. As both 1) (Ars Conjectandi) and 3) (idem) refer to the Latin text, it seems improbable that Hald refers to the Dutch text when he mentions Korteweg's edition |
106 | Lodewijk (Ludwig) Huygens | It is not clear to me why Hald mentions Ludwig, the German version of
the name Lodewijk. Hald seems to do something similar when discussing James
(Jacob, Jacques) Bernoulli on page 221. In the latter case however Hald
could have been adding, in parentheses, the more original (German and French)
versions of James, the Anglicized version. This does not seem a valid
explanation in the former case. NB David E. Smith mentions in his History of Mathematics that he prefers Jacques or Jacobus over Jacob and James because Bernoulli published only in French and Latin. Therefore according to Smith one should use either the French or Latin version of Bernoullis name. |
110 | Betnoulli | Bernoulli |
558 | Reprinted in Oeuvres | The 14th volume of the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens does not contain the text of De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae. It only contains the text of Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Geluck with a translation in French, side by side. |
Huygens, Chr (1660, 1998) Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Geluck vertaald en toegelicht door Wim Kleijne. | ||
page | problem | solution |
7 | Degenen die de 'Rekeningh' wilden bestuderen, waren aangewezen op de oorspronkelijke uitgave... | In theory people could find the Dutch text + French translation in the Oeuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens tome XIV. There were also two other editions of the Dutch text published in 1895 and in 1897 and a French translation of the Dutch text by KR Gallas, published in 1898. All these editions are (somewhat) difficult to obtain. |
49 | Al in april 1656...meldde hij...aan...Roberval | He wrote march 10, 1656 already to Van Schooten about the Dutch text. |
50 | ...dat Huygens van 1655 to 1675 in parijs woonde. | Instead of 'living' (woonde), this should be 'stayed' (verbleef); at least for the year 1655. Together with his brother, his nephew and a friend, Huygens first arrived in Paris in july 15, 1655 and returned home on december 15, 1655. This trip to Paris was more like a 'Grand Tour'. In this period he also bought a degree in Law in Angers. |
50 | In Parijs heeft hij in de jaren '50 zijn tekst... | He wrote the Dutch text in the Hague in 56 ... |