Notice on the subject of
Recherches sur la précession des équinoxes1
Leonhard Euler2
Whereas this memoir was inserted in the volume of the
Mémoires de l'Académie for the year 1749, the author
declares that he had not written it until after he had read the
excellent work of Mr. d'Alembert on this material, and that he
makes no pretense to the glory that is due to he who first
resolved this important question. As his goal was only to
set out the course that he had followed in working through
this problem, he did not include a preliminary discourse,
in which he would not have failed to indicate that it is solely
to Mr. d'Alembert that we are indebted for the discussion of
this important material. As Mr. d'Alembert's work has been
greeted with such universal praise, it therefore seemed
superfluous to inform the public of a deed so well established
and known to all. But since these circumstances may fall into
obscurity with time, we feel it necessary to inform the public
with the following notice: that it is also Mr. d'Alembert who
was the first to give an account of the nature of those curves
that have a cuspidal point of the second kind, or bird's beak.
Footnotes:
1E180 -
Opera Omnia, Ser. II, vol. 31, p. 124, originally
in Mémoires de l'académie des sciences de Berlin
5 (1750), 1752, p. 412.
2Translated by Robert E. Bradley,
© 2003
File translated from
TEX
by
TTHgold,
version 3.68.
On 10 Jan 2006, 15:42.