It’s All Greek. About Three of Kepler’s Book Titles. Part I: Dioptrice & Harmonice
I have a great admiration for Kepler, and the pedantic text that follows should not be taken as a complaint addressed to the great Imperial Mathematician but rather as an expression of my frustrated ignorance. You see, Kepler had an excellent knowledge of Greek. He published several of his Latin translations of Greek books. My Greek is very superficial but today, sadly, little suffices to makes me more informed than most. The most conspicuous problem is that Kepler sometimes included Greek words in his book titles. Let us start with the most straightforward of Kepler’s (more or less) Greek book titles. The core of the book title is the word Dioptrice. A casual reader might pause momentarily, confused by the -e ending. Assuming the word is Latin, the -e ending would be the 3rd-declension ablative case dioptrīce from a presumed feminine noun dioptrix, -īcis, abl. -īce or the adverb dioptrĭce from a presumed adjective dioptrĭcus, -a, -um. In both cases the final … Continue reading →
