| | | Letter to the Editor |
For the famous mathematical Bernoulli family, there always has been a road between Switzerland and the Netherlands: the Bernoulli ancestors fled Holland in 1583 and settled in Basel. With Jakob Bernoulli (1654-1705) statistics was introduced into mathematics, but the first part of Jakob Bernoulli's Art of conjecturing (1713) is formed by Christiaan Huygens' Calculations on the game of chance (1657). And while Jakob lectured in Basel his equally famous brother Johann (1667-1748) went to Groningen to teach mathematics. When Jakob died, Johann returned to Basel and took over his brother's chair at the university. The memory of Johann is still very much kept alive at Groningen University; there are recent publications by Jan van Maanen and Gerard Sierksma, and a large sculpture was acquired in 1996 of a "Brachistochrone". See the Bernoulli monument at http://www.cs.rug.nl/alumni/1997/maanen.html.
Our reason for writing to the Bernoulli Society is that my friend, sculptor Marie Serraris, and myself have started a project to honour Jakob Bernoulli with a logarithmic spiral carved in stone, to be placed in the cathedral of Basel next to Jakob's grave in 2005, 300 years after his death. There are claims that the spiral carved on Jakob Bernoulli's tombstone (a small 'Archimedean') is not what Jakob had very much wanted to ornament his grave, a logarithmic (or 'equiangular') spiral. Eli Maor points out this fact in his e, The Story of a Number (1994). The Bernoulli Society knew the historical importance of the spiral for Jakob, when it created its logo. Read past Secretary Richard Gill on this at
From now on, a website will function as a platform for this project:I still have some questions on the exact wishes of Jakob Bernoulli, but will continue my research of the literature. If you support our idea and want to help with information, goodwill or funding, please email me.
An Archimedean spiral is defined in polar coordinates by the equation:
.
The logarithmic spiral with angle b has equation:
or
.
It was the logarithmic spiral that provided Jakob Bernoulli with an
audacious motto for his death: Eadem mutata resurgo (`Though
changed, I shall arise the same').
Letters to the editor reflect individual views, not the Bernoulli Society standing. Ed.
| | | Letter to the Editor |