Abstract

This volume is the best available introduction to the achievement of Jacob Klein, which is still insufficiently recognized. Klein published his monumental study, which in English translation is called Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, in two parts in 1934 and 1936. The book lacked an introduction; it needed a concluding part; and its title was somewhat misleading. In its 1968 translation Klein added a note of explanation. "This study was originally written and published in Germany during rather turbulent times. Were I writing it today, the vocabulary would be less 'scholarly,' and the change from the ancient to the modern way of thinking would be viewed in a larger perspective." The present collection of twenty-two items, all but four prepared for publication by Klein, contains almost all of his writings apart from his three books, arranged chronologically, and spanning five decades. The earliest, "The World of Physics and the 'Natural' World," was originally given as a lecture at Marburg in 1932, approximately contemporary to the writing of the first study. To that study it is a useful introduction; it can also plausibly serve as a compressed draft of a possible third section of that book, as the editors suggest.