15/05/16 15:17:13.88 3tqJtzYJ.net
>>413 つづき
「Galois for 21st-Century Readers Harold M. Edwards」より
Again, Study the Masters
The introduction to my 1974 book Riemann’s Zeta Function was an exhortation to “Read the classics!”
A few years later I discovered Niels Henrik Abel’s remark that “It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics one should study the masters and not the pupils,” which then became my constant refrain.
Abel’s contrast of “masters” to “pupils” is an important addition to the message.
“Read the classics” doesn’t just mean read good texts; it means read the texts that gave birth to the subjects or gave them their most vivid statements?those written by the “masters”?not the ones written by later “pupils”,
who themselves learned the ideas from the masters and are trying to make presentations that are more accessible or that conform to newer styles.
I have tried to show here that the ideas expressed by what is now called the fundamental theorem of Galois theory are all contained, in a very effective but terse form, in the first few pages of Galois’s First Memoir.
In the course of the writing,I have been forcefully reminded of the extent to which Galois is the master and I the pupil.
Once again, I advise students to Study the masters!
Thanks to Peter Neumann’s meticulous reexamination of all of Galois’s works?not just of the First Memoir?many more students will now be able to do so.