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A full professor teaching the history of mathematics at Masters level recently told a friend of mine that there was nothing of interest left to explore in the mathematics written in Latin over the last 1000 years. Given that a significant part of Euler's work has never been translated into a modern language, and that I recall a recent discovery about Gauss's invention of what is now called the fast Fourier transform (FFT), I was very surprised. I think my confusion is caused by my lack of familiarity with the field. So, how do we explain the lack of activity in the study of Latin mathematics?

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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user19422
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    This is a subject I study in my spare time. I don't think there's any distinction between "Latin" mathematics and 17th-18th century mathematics, the language is just the medium but the content is the mathematics and that is studied mostly by historians and hobbyists, I'd imagine. I personally am involved in translating Latin works, and there are online journals like Euleriana and prolific translators like Ian Bruce. – Sam Gallagher Dec 04 '23 at 15:51
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    Always remember that “full professor” just means the person knows a lot about something — not that they’re an expert on everything that comes out of their mouth. – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Dec 05 '23 at 10:51
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    Maybe with "written in Latin over the last 1000 years " he does not mean "from 1000 AD to 2000 AD" but he mean during Ancient Roman civilization (that wrote in Latin), spanning from founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Dec 05 '23 at 11:03
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    user19422, Can you check with your friend and the professor to clarify what he meant? – Mikhail Katz Dec 06 '23 at 10:04

2 Answers2

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Since the full professor in question certainly hasn't read all of "the mathematics written in Latin over the last 1000 years," one can assert with certainty that he literally does not know what he is talking about. Half of Leibniz's writing has not even been digitalized, although this project has been going on for exactly 100 years. I don't read Latin but some of my coauthors do, and we recently used decisive evidence found in unpublished Latin texts by Leibniz; see this and also this.

A current controversy related to the Leibnizian calculus was summarized in this article in The Mathematical Intelligencer.

To respond to one of the comments: at least one of the sides in the debate is very well funded. Thus, David Rabouin received a 3 million euro grant to pursue his study and interpretation of Leibniz's Latin texts. He has also taken every opportunity to try to sink my work; luckily, without much success.

Mikhail Katz
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    Thank you for the references – user19422 Dec 04 '23 at 16:37
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    @user19422, you're welcome. Leibniz scholarship (related to his mathematics) is a very active field today, including some interesting controversies. Most of the relevant texts are in Latin, though some are in French. It certainly cannot be said that there is "lack of activity in the study of Latin mathematics". – Mikhail Katz Dec 04 '23 at 16:46
  • If you could give one or two references to these controversies, I would be happy to accept your reply. Thank you for your time – user19422 Dec 04 '23 at 16:58
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    Yes, I do also think the original question is ill-founded. Among other reasons, Latin (of a certain idiomatic sort) was the common language in Europe for centuries, and remained a sort of standard in science until 1850. (The mathematician Jacobi apparently did not finish his degree since he could not defend in Latin.) Analogously, we can wonder whether anyone will be able to read the 21st-century English in 500 years (if we survive...) – paul garrett Dec 04 '23 at 23:49
  • @njuffa, I responded to your comment above in the body of my answer. – Mikhail Katz Dec 05 '23 at 09:56
  • Was there a confusion here between "founded" in the comment, and "funded" in the answer? – LarsH Dec 05 '23 at 11:16
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    @LarsH, No, the issue was "funded". User njuffa asked (in a comment now deleted) whether possibly low levels of activity in studying Latin texts are due in part to difficulty of obtaining funding for this sort of activity. I just fixed the link to the ERC site in my answer. – Mikhail Katz Dec 05 '23 at 11:20
  • OK. I didn't pay attention to the username you were responding to. – LarsH Dec 05 '23 at 13:35
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    @paulgarrett Jacobi was very adept at Latin; perhaps you were thinking of Dirichlet. – Alexander Campbell Dec 05 '23 at 21:00
  • @AlexanderCampbell, ah, maybe you're right! It was just a casual recollection! :) – paul garrett Dec 05 '23 at 21:56
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    @AlexanderCampbell, and anyone else reading this, at least Wiki confirms that it was Dirichlet who had some complications because of his difficulties with Latin... but, as I'd not known previously, eventually had that requirement waived, so did obtain his Habilitation... :) – paul garrett Dec 05 '23 at 22:01
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Mathematics written in Latin during the last 1000 years is usually not designated as "Latin mathematics". Contrary to what your professor says, most of mathematical papers of Euler have been translated into English:

http://eulerarchive.maa.org/

Papers of Gauss, Jacobi and other great mathematicians who wrote in Latin are not translated but they were intensively studied, and most mathematicians who study them have no difficulty with reading mathematics in Latin.

Alexandre Eremenko
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