[tied] Re: Modern Standard Indoeuropean

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2006-04-25 09:18, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > I got the impression from a biography of Grassmann I read that

his

> > inspiration for the invention of vector space came from Sanskrit
> > texts.
>
> What biography was that?

I forgot, except that it was in German. I picked it up in the
American Library in Berlin in 1997.

>Grassmann developed the foundations of his
> vector space theory between ca. 1832 (when still a fresch graduate)

and

> 1844 (the publication of "Die lineale Ausdehnungslehre"). I'm not

sure

> how much Sanskrit he knew by then (certainly less than Latin and

Greek),

> but he began to study Sanskrit literature and historical

linguistics in

> earnest _after_ his disappointment with the failure of other
> mathematicians to show any interest in his work. He didn't give up

and

> would return to mathematics at intervals, with contributions now
> regarded as important, but on the whole it's fair to say that

Sanskrit

> studies came after maths in his case.
>

I see that you have read my reference. Do you have a date on the
publication of his law, I can't find it by Google?


Torsten