Daniel Bernoulli’s Hydrodynamica (1960)

Abstract

Daniel Bernoulli’S name is familiar to every mathematician, but few have any knowledge of his work beyond the vague generalities, inaccurate details, and dubious anecdotes handed down in popular histories. Most mathematical libraries in the U.S.A. do not contain a single work by him. His papers have never been republished in a collected edition; to the best of my knowledge, this printing of Bernoulli’s great classic work, the Hydrodynamica, is only the second, the date of the first edition being 1738. The contents of the book are so completely unknown among mathematicians and specialists in fluid mechanics that a detailed review, as if it were a new work, would be appropriate. I have discussed it briefly and have translated a few of the most important paragraphs1 into English; it is to be hoped that the edition now under weigh in Basel will not be too long delayed.