EDC is working on a new English translation of an obscure French textbook, Geometrie Elementaire, a simple yet highly influential text more than 100 years old, written by Jaques Hadamard, considered a giant of 20th century mathematics. Since Hadamard’s original text did not include solutions, an edition adding the answers was published in Russian in the 1950s. Today, EDC visiting scholar Mark Saul, using his knowledge of English, French, Russian, and mathematics, is translating all of it into English.
“The book has a surprisingly modern approach to the subject, and it’s astonishing how the author, 100 years ago, could be so prescient,” says Saul, whose work on the EDC project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
The translation is expected to be used as an auxiliary text for middle and high school math classes and in mathematics education programs for teachers. It will be published this spring by the American Mathematical Society.
Originally published on January 1, 2007