No label defined (Q4223203)

In 1994 an excellent French translation of Grassmann's first Ausdehnungslehre was published [\textit{H. G. Grassmann}, La science de la grandeur extensive. Trad. et préface de Dominique Flament et Bernd Bekemeier. Trad. rev. par E. Knobloch. Paris: Albert Blanchard (1994; Zbl 0849.01042)] now follows the translation into English. The English translation is sometimes quite unusual, there should have been taken the French translation as an example: \[ \begin{matrix} \underline{\text{German original}}\quad & \underline{\text{French}}\quad & \underline{\text{English translation}}\\ \text{Strecke}\quad & \text{segment}\quad & \text{displacement}\\ \text{Verknüpfung}\quad & \text{liaison}\quad & \text{conjunction}\\ \text{Vertauschungsgesetz}\quad & \text{loi de permutation}\quad & \text{interchange law} \end{matrix} \] and so on. The English version ends with an ``Index of defined terms'' (p. 296f) (=Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der gebrauchten Kunstausdrücke, Coll. Pap. I, 1, p. 313f) including their English translation and notes (p. 298-312) (= Coll. Pap. I, 1, p. 404-415) which are now numbered consecutively so that it is not anymore easy for the reader to find out to which page they belong. The English volume contains more than the first Ausdehnungslehre, it also includes the ``Geometric Analysis'' (p. 314-414) and some selected papers (p. 415-542). Unfortunately the reader is not correctly informed, in which journals these papers were originally published nor where one can find them within the Collected Papers. Sometimes it is quite difficult to recognise the difference between the forms of the German and Latin letters in the English version, this concerns especially the different forms of the German `s' for example p. 538 = Coll. Pap. II, 1, p. 281f. The volume ends with a bibliography of Grassmann's principal works (p. 543-545) and an index (p. 547-555) which does not completely contain the above mentioned index of the Ausdehnungslehre. The best solution would have heen a glossary in both directions, English-German and German-English combined with an index. There is no extensive introduction, no biography and no bibliography. In the French translation the reader gets 50 pages information on and about Grassmann, including a bibliography! The English translation, however does not seem to have been done by a professional historian but by a mere translator.