No label defined (Q4940096)

This Dictionary of Mathematics contains 11,652 entries with more than 4,750 cross-references. It consists of three parts. The first part provides the reader with 650 pages of translations, in alphabetical order and with consecutive numbering, of English mathematical terms into German, French, and Russian. In the second part one may find, again in alphabetical order, a list of all German/French/Russian terms cited before, each with the corresponding number assigned in the first part. This is a very effective way to make the Dictionary useful ``in both directions'', on the one hand, but to keep its size in a reasonable extent, on the other. Finally, in the third part the reader may learn how to read and pronounce correctly many important mathematical symbols in English, German, French, and Russian. Glancing through the book ``at random'', the reviewer found only very few errors. For example, the set of real numbers is never called Множество реальных чисел in Russian (p. 987), but Множество действительных чисел or Множество вещественных чисел (as stated correctly on p. 503.) These minor oversights do not devalue, of course, the extremely high usefulness of this book. Useless to say that this is not the first Mathematical Dictionary on the market. Everybody who is concerned with translations of Russian papers knows \textit{A. J. Lohwater}'s Russian-English Dictionary of the Mathematical Sciences [Providence, R. I.: Am. Math. Soc. (1990; Zbl 0704.00010)]. German readers will also find \textit{H. Meschkowski}'s Mehrsprachenwörterbuch mathematischer Begriffe [Mannheim: B.I.-Wissenschaftsverlag (1972; Zbl 0246.00012)] quite useful which, unfortunately, is no longer available. The dictionary under review, however, is without any doubt the most valuable, complete, and useful one. The reviewer found the third part with the comparison of various mathematical symbols in four languages particularly interesting. This enables the reader to read, say, Bessel's inequality \[ \sum^\infty_{k=-\infty} |c_k|^2 \leq{1\over 2\pi} \int^\pi_{-\pi} \bigl|f(x) \bigr|^2 dx \] (``the series over \(c-k\) absolute value square for \(k\) from minus infinity to plus infinity is less than or equal to one over two pi times the integral from minus pi to pi of \(f\) of \(x\) absolute value square'') correctly also in German, French, or Russian. So this dictionary is not only a must for every math library; it should also encourage people to prepare and deliver mathematical lectures from time to time in other languages, not just the language which is used most frequently all over the world for mathematical talks: bad English.