Euler's lute and Edwards' oud
History and Overview
2017-03-07 v2
Abstract
In a piece published in 1981, H. M. Edwards touts the benefits of reading the masters. A quarter-century later, Edwards takes seriously his own advice by publishing an encomium on Euler's Institutiones (1755). While we agree with Edwards that we shall all do well by studying the masters, we argue that to derive the full benefit, one must read historically important texts without interposing a lens formed by one's own mathematical accomplishments. We show, in particular, that Edwards misses much of the style and substance of Euler's Institutiones by reading the text through a constructivist lens.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1506.02586,
title = {Euler's lute and Edwards' oud},
author = {Vladimir Kanovei and Karin U. Katz and Mikhail G. Katz and David Sherry},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.02586},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
9 pages, published online first in The Mathematical Intelligencer