# Books you would like to see translated into English.

I have recently been told of a proposal to produce an English translation of Landau's Handbuch der Lehre von der Verteilung der Primzahlen, and this prompts me to ask a more general question:

Which foreign-language books would you most like to see translated into English?

These could be classics of historical interest, books you would like your students to read, books you would like to teach from, or books of use in your own research.

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The Russian translation of Milnor's Morse Theory. That's a nice book. :) –  Ryan Budney Mar 11 '10 at 0:04
I also have both of them! And I've just check (fast checking) that pictures are absolutely same. Russian version contains small attachments (by Anosov), but they are not... as good as the book and really short, few pages. You know, translation should be a translation (I am sure Arnol'd could add smth interesting to Milnor, I am a student of V.I., but it is not the case). –  Petya Mar 11 '10 at 0:36
At least I understood a meaning of your smile! –  Petya Mar 11 '10 at 0:49

B. P. Demidovich - Problems on Multivariate Analysis (approximate translation). A very tough book about analysis on $\mathbb{R}^n$; in fact all problems 'can' be solved by first or seond-year students, but it's got lots of tricky questions that will not let you sleep at night. Only the best need apply - the book gives you the most basic definitions and then throws you out with a broken pontoon in the middle of the ocean, at night. I believe the writer is Russian or Belorussian, I have only encountered a few tattered copies that have been doing the rounds between students for a decade at least. Haven't found a better book for tough multivariate analysis.

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For every Demidovich there is an anti-Demidovich (proverb). –  Victor Protsak May 21 '10 at 4:09
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I.N. Bronstein, K.A. Semyendayev - Mathematics Handbook - an awesome, very complete mathematics handbook for applied mathematicians, physicists, and engineers. Also useful for the pure mathematics researcher who just wants to quickly look up how a basic item in mathematics worked. This work has not lost any of its gleam since it was first written; numerous updates have been made; it is the reference compendium in Central and Eastern Europe. It has received prizes for being the best illustrated engineering book; indeed, the drawings are exact and even beautiful, and have not become outdated in the time of computer generated imagery. Definitely one of the books that put the Russians in outer space. Numerous German editions of the book on Amazon

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Abel's complete works.

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I agree that Abel's works are an excellent candidate. Like Riemann's, they are of stellar quality and not too long. In the meantime, you may be interested in the lengthy survey of Abel's work by Christian Houzel, which may be downloaded from the page: abelprisen.no/en/abel/fagligbiografi.html –  John Stillwell Jul 1 '10 at 23:06

Paul Gordan Vorlesungen ueber Invariantentheorie" available here , both volumes. This is most worthwhile since the content of most other classics is well accounted for in modern texts whereas this way of doing algebraic geometry has been completely forgotten. Poor knowledge of Gordan's methods is a net loss for contemporary mathematics.

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Constantin Carathéodory's Vorlesungen über Reelle Funktionen. Why this book has never been translated into English is simply a mystery to me.

And while he's at it, let's get whoever's on that case to get Courant and Hurewitz's treatise on complex functions into English as well, so I can see finally if it's as good as Serge Lang always said it was...

2 last requests while I'm at it: Faddeev's 1984 Lectures In Algebra and the second edition of Kostrikin's 3 volume Introduction To Algebra. I'm such a sucker for Russian texts, they're so beautiful and concrete with connections to physics. We Westerners can learn so much from their approach.

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Re: For publication of EGA and SGA, see this: http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/

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veit79 is referring to the following news: golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2010/02/… –  Qiaochu Yuan Mar 19 '10 at 7:46
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Teubner-Taschenbuch der Mathematik Teil II

The first part (Teil I) of this book was translated into English as the Oxford User's Guide to Mathematics

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Équations différentielles à points singuliers réguliers, by Deligne.

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Einfuhrung in die Algebraische Geometrie-B.L. van der WAERDEN

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"Introduction aux groupes arithmétiques" by Armand Borel.

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F. Prus-Wisniowski - Szeregi Rzeczywiste (Poland, Uniwersytet Szczecinski) - a monograph on real series. It can be read by first-year students while supplying the reader with very powerful tools for real (and sometimes complex) series; it might surprise the PhD reader. More importantly, it builds a good understanding of the way real series work. Publisher's website

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Hilbert-Bernays's "Foundations of Mathematics", it's a shame that this classic work haven't translated yet!

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Durer's works on proportion, which take a Euclidean approach to constructing visible objects.

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Two volume introduction to Complex Analysis by B.V.Shabat. Actually, I have already translated about 150 pages of the first volume which is about as much as one can cover in Complex Variable undergraduate course offered by a typical U.S. university. I did give the translation as a hand out to my students last year when I taught Complex variables class. I did translation out of frustration with the book of Churchill and Brown.

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