Historical Math and Science Blog

Between May of 1671 and March of 1672, Otto von Guericke carried out a correspondence with none other than the great Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. These letters started out in Latin, but the vast majority is in German, with Latin interspersed, usually for technical terms or quotes and ideas from Guericke's book, Experimenta Nova  (1672), which was eagerly anticipated. Below I've reproduced the text of the letters (without the critical annotations found in the original source) to provide as clear a picture of the correspondence as possible. The numbers of each letter are for cross-referencing with the associated numbers in my main reference: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Philosophischer Briefwechsel . Vol. 1. Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe 2. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006. Because the letters are in German, and I don't speak German, it was necessary to get at least a rough translation through Google Translate. This provides the gist of the letters, and I lightly edited some parts

  Below you'll find an Orberg-style annotated edition of the original Latin text from Otto von Guericke's 1672 book, Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica , book 4, chapter 15, where von Guericke describes the his famous sulfur globe experiments. The Latin is very readable for anyone who has finished Orberg's Lingua Latin per se Illustrata: Familia Romana , the first book in the LLPSI series. New words are listed on the side with a Latin-only definition, synonym, or antonym (usually adapted from Forcellini or other Latin synonym dictionaries).