Haros and Farey
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From: David Bernier on 17 Sep 2009 17:23 secondmouse wrote: > On 17 Sep, 06:30, Gerry Myerson <ge...(a)maths.mq.edi.ai.i2u4email> > wrote: >> In article <h8s7iq0...(a)news3.newsguy.com>, >> David Bernier <david...(a)videotron.ca> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >>> Gerry Myerson wrote: >>>> In article >>>> <defa96cd-fdc6-4d35-b06d-7b3fa1ef4...(a)p9g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, >>>> Scott <sguth...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> C. Haros discovered what is now known as the Farey sequence 14 years >>>>> before Farey. >>>>> Does anybody know what the C. stands for? >>>>> Thanks for any insight. >>>> No insight, but the full citation is, >>>> C. Haros, Tables pour evaluer une fraction ordinaire avec autand de >>>> decimals qu'on voudra; et pour trover la fraction ordinaire la plus >>>> simple, et qui a approche sensiblement d'une fraction decimale, J. >>>> Ecole Polytechn. 4 (1802), 364-368. >>>> There may possibly be some information in >>>> M. Bruckheimer and A. Arcavi, Farey series and Pick's area theorem, The >>>> Math. Intelligencer 17 (2) (1995), 64-67. >>> From Gallica, the French National (Digital) Library, I was able to >>> download "Journal de l'ecole polytechnique" from 1802. >>> Around pages 358 to 365, there are Notices of "ouvrages" or >>> monographs, generally in physics and mathematics. >>> Many surnames are preceded by "C.en", with 'en' in smaller-size type and >>> elevated, a bit like an exponent; there are: >>> C.en Garnier , C.en Fourier (just back from Egypt), >>> " C.ens Monge et Hachette " and so on. >>> Also, month names of the "Revolutionary calendar" are used: >>> thermidor, frimaire and so on. I believe I remember from looking at >>> old books around the time when this calendar was used reading >>> "Citoyen this", "Citoyen that", etc. Citoyen translates >>> into English as citizen. So it could be that C. Haros stands >>> for Citizen Haros. >>> David Bernier >> That's terrific. I remember thinking that something from a French >> journal a few decades later had been written by an M Lebesgue, >> until I noticed that all the authors seemed to have first initial M, >> at which point it dawned on me that M stood for Monsieur, rather >> than for a first name. So maybe we now know what C stands for, >> but we still don't know Haros' first name! >> >> -- >> Gerry Myerson (ge...(a)maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)- Hide quoted text - >> >> - Show quoted text - > I think the C. stands for Charles if the following is to be believed: > http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/KnuthMiddleNames.html Jeffrey C. Lagarias and Charles Philippe Tresser wrote a paper entitled: "A walk along the branches of the extended Farey Tree", published in 1995 in the IBM Journal of Research and Development. It may be protected by copyright, but I was able to download a copy. There are 52 references given. In footnote 6, page 292, they write in part: "Citoyen is the French word for citizen [...] ; Dickson refers to "C. Haros", as well as most authors after him, but we could not find any evidence that C stands for the initial of Haros's first name." Their reference [24] is to the "Journal de l'ecole Polytechnique", an issue published in 1802. In the section on "nouveaux ouvrages" around page 364, there are several family names preceded by "C.en" , but with no other letter looking like an initial. I'd say the catalog of the French Library could be right that C stands for Charles, but I couldn't conclude that just from seeing the scanned 1802 issue of the Journal de l'ecole polytechnique ... David Bernier
From: Gerry Myerson on 17 Sep 2009 21:57 In article <h8u9cb028h1(a)news3.newsguy.com>, David Bernier <david250(a)videotron.ca> wrote: > I'd say the catalog of the French Library could be > right that C stands for Charles, but I couldn't > conclude that just from seeing the scanned > 1802 issue of the Journal de l'ecole > polytechnique ... Some possible evidence in favor of Charles: Cyprien Prosper Brard wrote a book, Mineralogie Appliquee aux Arts, in 1821, and a footnote on page 590 says, Voyez a la fin de cet article la Table de Charles Haros, pour convertir les karats et fractions de karats en milliemes. This can be seen at Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=dH41AAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA590&lpg=RA1-PA590& dq=%22charles+haros%22+-nicholas&source=bl&ots=s8juoKQPVC&sig=YRXcyB76rNa kThfCihRi9Paugf0&hl=en&ei=RuWySpD5AtiGkQXe48G6Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=r esult&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=%22charles%20haros%22%20-nicholas&f=false (if that doesn't work, I'm sure there are other ways to search Google Books to find it). The Table is on page 628, headed Table de Ch. Haros. The full title of the book seems to be Min�ralogie appliqu�e aux arts: ou, Histoire des min�raux qui sont employ�s dans l'agriculture, l'�conomie domestique, la m�decine; la fabrication des sels, des combustibles et des m�taux; l'architecture et la d�coration; la peinture et le dessin; les arts m�caniques; la bijouterie et la joaillerie Ouvrage destin� aux artistes, fabricans et entrepreneurs, Volume 1. -- Gerry Myerson (gerry(a)maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)
From: ScottG on 24 Sep 2009 09:30
Thanks to everybody for their responses. All very enlightening. The Haros paper is available on sguthery.4shared.com in the Haros-Farey subdirectory. Cheers, Scott |