The edition of the bernoulli correspondence: A historical overview and insights into the most recent developments

Abstract

The aim of the online Basler Edition der Bernoulli-Briefwechsel (BEBB) is to make all as-of-yet unpublished letter exchanges of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mathematicians Daniel Bernoulli, Jacob II Bernoulli, Johann I Bernoulli, Johann II Bernoulli, Nicolaus I Bernoulli, Nicolaus II Bernoulli and Jacob Hermann available to the scientific community. Some of their correspondents were outstanding scientists. The edition of the Bernoulli correspondence has a long history that goes back to the eighteenth century, when the edition of the Commercium epistolicum between Johann I Bernoulli and Leibniz was prepared under the supervision of the Bernoullis. Despite the early interest in a scholarly edition of large parts of the Bernoulli correspondence and the repeated attempts by historians of mathematics to realize such a project, the undertaking experienced numerous setbacks. However, the digital age seems to provide the necessary conditions for a complete edition of the correspondence. In the context of the BEBB, around 1500 letters have been edited and published online in the last 10 years. In the next 10 years, another 2505 edited letters will be made available online. The present paper focuses on the main phases of the history of the Bernoulli letter edition and aims to give an overview of the on-going preparation of a modern online edition. This will include all related data, such as metadata, critical, emended transcriptions, digital facsimiles, commentaries, and indices, accessible through new technologies and tools that are currently being developed for the project.