No label defined (Q3841982)

This is an interesting, although rather sketchy, publication of substantially commented excerpts from the correspondence (1915--1916) between P. A. Nekrasov -- Professor and Rector of Moscow University -- and K. A. Andreev -- Corresponding Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences and one of the eldest members of the Moscow Mathematical Society. The topics of this correspondence include foundations of mathematics and specifically of probability theory, polemics with A. A. Markov, high-school mathematics teaching, and so on. The authors emphasize the role of P. A. Nekrasov, although they state that his papers were clumsy and difficult to understand. Nekrasov wanted to use logic as the foundation of mathematics (and to introduce a course of logic in all kinds of high schools) while proclaiming that ``the unifyig basic education should be of scientific-religious-national-state character''. The authors are rather sceptical with respect to any and all statements by Nekrasov, while at the same time noting the ``Nostradamus-like'' character of such Nekrasov's deep thoughts as the need to use logic as the foundation of mathematics and his usage of the term ``catastrophe'' and mentioning of ``almost all of the main problems'' of catastrophe theory in a book published in 1916. Unfortunately, no details are provided in the paper about these ideas. The authors note, again in passing, that Nekrasov, in his 1916 letter to P. A. Florensky, considered the Russian translation of Isaac Newton (made by A. N. Krylov who was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences) to be incorrect and biased since it distorted beyond recognition Newton's thoughts and specifically religious thoughts. The authors also observe that Soviet authors in 1943 praised the translation (but they do not state that at that time any discussion on religious and foundational issues was clearly impossible due to censorship); and that Krylov himself noted that he did not use Newton's mathematical terminology.