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Hydrodynamics by Daniel Bernoulli. Hydraulics by Johann Bernoulli. Translated from the Latin by Thomas Carmody and Helmut Kobus. Preface by Hunter Rouse. (English) Zbl 0172.00602

New York: Dover Publications, Inc. xxii, 456 p. (1968).
This volume contains new English translations of two major works of 18th-century mechanics: Hydrodynamica, sive de Viribus et Motibus Fluidorum Commentarii, published by Johann Reinhold Dulsecker at Strassburg in 1738; and Hydraulica, Nunc primum detecta ac demonstrata directe ex fundamentis pure mechanics, Anno 1732, published by Marc-Michel Bousquet et Cie. at Lausanne and Geneva in 1743. The first work occupies about three-quarters of the present book.
The preface by Hunter Rouse gives a summary of the background and circumstances of publication of the two books. He states that “The reader will find in the following pages of translation of Hydrodynamica the initial appearance of topics that are still prominent in the literature even today – from the kinetic theory of gases to the principle of jet propulsion. Daniel was also the first to connect manometers to piezometric openings in the walls of vessels, to consider the establishment with time of flow in a long conduit, and to attempt to predict conduit pressure in terms of the velocity. However, his derivation of what has come to be known as the Bernoulli theorem will hardly satisfy any reader but the most casual.”
The proof of this theorem was satisfactorily accomplished by Daniel’s father Johann Bernoulli in Hydraulica, and more strictly by Euler a few years later. As is indicated in the full title of his book quoted above, Johann Bernoulli made a futile attempt to rob his son of the priority for some of his theorems by pretending that he had found them himself in 1732. Dean Rouse quotes a letter from Daniel Bernoulli to Euler complaining about this.
For a detailed analysis of the content of the two works translated here one should refer to Clifford Truesdell’s monograph “Rational Fluid Mechanics 1687–1765” published as the Editor’s Introduction to Vol. II, 12 of L. Euler’s Works [Opera omnia. Series secunda. Opera mechanica et astronomica. Vol. XII (Lausanne 1954), p. XXIII–XXXVIII].
It should also be mentioned that a German translation of Daniel Bernoulli’s “Hydrodynamica” was published by K. Flierl [Hydrodynamik oder Kommentare über die Kräfte und Bewegungen der Flüssigkeiten. München: Forschungsinstitut des Deutschen Museums für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik (1965; Zbl 0156.00201)].
The translators, the publisher, and Dean Rouse as the organizer of this project are to be congratulated on the production of this excellent volume which will at last make accessible to modern readers these frequently-cited books. St. G. Brush.
Reviewer: St. G. Brush

MSC:

01A50 History of mathematics in the 18th century
76-03 History of fluid mechanics

Citations:

Zbl 0156.00201