| Author: | Pierre-Simon Laplace |
| Traité de mécanique céleste | |
| Language: | French |
| Published: | 1798 to 1825 |
Traité de mécanique céleste is a five-volume treatise on celestial mechanics written by Pierre-Simon Laplace and published from 1798 to 1825 with a second edition in 1829.[1] [2] [3] [4] In 1842, the government of Louis Philippe gave a grant of 40,000 francs for a 7-volume national edition of the Oeuvres de Laplace (1843–1847); the Traité de mécanique céleste with its four supplements occupies the first 5 volumes.[5]
During the early nineteenth century at least five English translations of Mécanique Céleste were published. In 1814 the Reverend John Toplis prepared a translation of Book 1 entitled The Mechanics of Laplace. Translated with Notes and Additions.[6] In 1821 Thomas Young anonymously published a further translation into English of the first book; beyond just translating from French to English he claimed in the preface to have translated the style of mathematics:
The translator flatters himself, however, that he has not expressed the author's meaning in English words alone, but that he has rendered it perfectly intelligible to any person, who is conversant with the English mathematicians of the old school only, and that his book will serve as a connecting link between the geometrical and algebraical modes of representation.[7]The Reverend Henry Harte, a fellow at Trinity College, Dublin translated the entire first volume of Mécanique Céleste, with Book 1 published in 1822 and Book 2 published separately in 1827.[8] Similarly to Bowditch (see below), Harte felt that Laplace's exposition was too brief, making his work difficult to understand:
... it may be safely asserted, that the chief obstacle to a more general knowledge of the work, arises from the summary manner in which the Author passes over the intermediate steps in several of his most interesting investigations.[9]
The famous American mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch translated the first four volumes of the Traité de mécanique céleste but not the fifth volume;[10] however, Bowditch did make use of relevant portions of the fifth volume in his extensive commentaries for the first four volumes.
In 1826, it was still felt by Henry Brougham, president of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, that the British reader was lacking a readable translation of Mécanique Céleste. He thus approached Mary Somerville, who began to prepare a translation which would "explain to the unlearned the sort of thing it is - the plan, the vast merit, the wonderful truths unfolded or methodized - and the calculus by which all this is accomplished".[11] In 1830, John Herschel wrote to Somerville and enclosed a copy of Bowditch's 1828 translation of Volume 1 which Herschel had just received. Undeterred, Somerville decided to continue with the preparation of her own work as she felt the two translations differed in their aims; whereas Bowditch's contained an overwhelming number of footnotes to explain each mathematical step, Somerville instead wished to state and demonstrate the results as clearly as possible.[12]
A year later, in 1831, Somerville's translation was published under the title Mechanism of the Heavens.[13] It received great critical acclaim, with complimentary reviews appearing in the Quarterly Review, the Edinburgh Review, and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.[14]
Translation by Nathaniel Bowditch