Jan de Witt's Elementa curvarum linearum. Liber secundus. Edited by Albert W. Grootendorst, Jan Aarts, Miente Bakker and Reinie Erné
The first textbook on analytic geometry was \textit{Elementa Curvarum Linearum} written in Latin by the Dutch statesman and mathematician Jan de Witt and first published in 1659. It consisted of two volumes. In 2000 Springer published the English translation of the first volume [Jan de Witt's `Elementa curvarum linearum -- liber primus'. Text translation, introduction, and commentary by Albert W. Grootendorst. With the help of Miente Bakker. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. New York, NY: Springer (2000; Zbl 0952.01007 or ME 2011d.00621)] (it presents the geometric generation of the conics). The book under review is the English translation of the second volume. It deals with the classification of quadratic curves. It forms the core of the \textit{Elementa}. The book has the same format as the English translation of the first volume. It contains the text both in Latin and (on the opposite page) its translation. In addition to this a general introduction, a summary of the theorems, annotations and an appendix have been supplemented. In the summary the theorems and their corollaries are restated (without proofs) in the modern notation. An Appendix gives information on background of Pappus's problem, Descartes's dissertation on plane curves as well as Descartes's treatment of Pappus's problem for five lines. The book contains also a bibliography and an index. The book -- published very carefully and beautifully -- makes the work of Jan de Witt broadly accessible to today's mathematicians.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5821560