Briefwechsel zwischen Alexander von Humboldt and C. G. Jacob Jacobi. Hrsg. von Herbert Pieper. (Correspondence between A. von Humboldt and C. G. J. Jacobi). (German) Zbl 0642.01019

von Humboldt, Alexander; Jacobi, C. G. Jacob

Beiträge zur Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschung, 11. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. 312 S. (1987).

Presented here are the texts (or, where nonextant, summaries) of 44 letters between A. von Humboldt (1769-1859) and C. G. J. Jacobi (1804-1851) with detailed annotations. Dating from the periods 1827-1828, 1839-1840 and 1843-1851, they cover a wide range of scientific, historical, philosophical and current topics, in particular astronomy and Greek mathematics. They are accompanied by an editorial introduction, three appendices (von Humboldt’s observations on history of mathematics, a letter from Legendre to von Humboldt on Jacobi’s elliptic function research, translations of non-German passages in the text), indices of sources, names and topics and four plates with pictures of the correspondents and samples of their script.

Reviewer: E.Barbeau

MSC:

01A75	Collected or selected works; reprintings or translations of classics
01A70	Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
01A20	History of Greek and Roman mathematics
26-03	History of real functions
01A55	History of mathematics in the 19th century

Keywords:

astronomy; Greek mathematics; Legendre; elliptic function