Обсуждение:Градштейн и Рыжик

Info on 6th Russian edition missing

Hi, dear fellow Wikipedians. I'm the author of the corresponding article "Gradshteyn and Ryzhik" in the English Wikipedia (on which this article is partially based), which aims to list any edition of this work that ever existed (in any language). In order to complete the information, I am searching for any information on the 6th Russian edition of this work - that is, if it existed at all (as, oddly enough, I can't find it being mentioned anywhere).

The fifth edition was published in 1971 by Nauka (Наука) under the title "Таблицы интегралов, сумм, рядов и произведений".

The seventh edition was a retranslation from the English edition, published in 2011 by BHV (БХВ-Петербург) under the title "Таблицы интегралов, ряда и продуктов", translated by Vasily Vasilyevich Maximov (Василий Васильевич Максимов), ISBN 978-5-9775-0360-0.

So, was there ever a 6th edition? If you know anything about this edition (exact title, publisher, release date, ISBN or other identification number, count of pages, etc.), please report it here or on the talk page of the English article so that it can be incorporated into the article(s). Thanks a lot. (Sorry, I don't speak Russian, therefore have to write in English.)

--Matthiaspaul (обс.) 01:29, 5 января 2022 (UTC)

• Nope, as far as I know, there is no 6th edition in Russian. The 5th edition is the last "original russian" edition, all later editions are retranslations. Maybe that's the reason. Swarrel (обс.) 22:09, 5 января 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for checking this. In the English WP I have added a note to the effect that there is no 6th Russian edition. (So, if someone still runs into one, please report and fix that comment over there. ;-)

What's kind of strange is that in the article about "Bronshtein and Semendyayev" in the English Wikipedia, I could identify the Russian editions 1 (in 1945) to 11 (in 1967), then the 12th (in 1980/1981) and 13th (in 1986) Russian editions (which were retranslations from the German edition), and then the 15th edition (in 1998), which, again, was based on the 11th Russian edition, but I could not find any information on a 14th Russian edition. So, is it "common" in Russia to skip edition numbers when a long time has past?

On a different note, in "all later editions" above you used the plural form. Are there newer Russian editions of "Gradshteyn and Ryzhik" after the 7th edition (in 2011)?

--Matthiaspaul (обс.) 15:18, 6 января 2022 (UTC)

"So, is it "common" in Russia to skip edition numbers when a long time has past?" — unfortunately, yes. Especially if this edition should have been issued in late 1980s or 1990s. The reason is evident, I suppose. "Are there newer Russian editions of "Gradshteyn and Ryzhik" after the 7th edition (in 2011)" — Currently the 7th edition is the last one in russian. I mean that after the 5th edition the russian editing board of authors was dissolved, and if there would be any later editions, they will be retranslations. Swarrel (обс.) 12:24, 9 января 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. --Matthiaspaul (обс.) 02:45, 10 января 2022 (UTC)

Info on early Russian history of the work

I think it would be quite interesting for the readers to learn a bit more about the early Russian background and publishing history of this work. The few sources I was able to find are already incorporated into the English article, but there are probably more sources in Russia providing insight into this early history. For me, not speaking Russian, it is next to impossible to find those sources, so I would like to encourage you to try and find Russian sources.

I could also only find very little or no information about the Russian authors:[1][2][3]

• Иосиф Моисеевич Рыжик (Iosif Moiseevich Ryzhik) (1918? – 1941?)
• Израиль Соломонович Градштейн (Izrail Solomonovich Gradshteyn) (1899, Odessa – 1958, Moscow).
• Юрий Вениаминович Геронимус (Yuri Veniaminovich Geronimus) (1923 – 2013)
• Михаил Ю́льевич Цейтлин (Michail Yulyevich Tseytlin) (? – ?)

Is Ryzhik's 1918 birth date correct? This would have made him a very young author. Are the other birth and dead dates correct? Is more background known about any of these authors? Thanks. --Matthiaspaul (обс.) 17:28, 10 января 2022 (UTC)

• [4] - "В 1936-ом Иосиф Моисеевич Рыжик написал книгу под названием Специальные функции, которая была издана Объединённым научно-техническим издательством (ныне Физматлит). Рыжик умер в 1941-ом — то-ли в блокадном Ленинграде, то-ли на фронте". В других местах его отождествляют с сержантом 1918 г.р. родом из Витебска, призванным в армию в 1939 году из Чкаловска (Оренбург) и погибшим в 1941 году [5], но думается, что это полный тёзка, и дата рождения должна быть раньше. — Igor Borisenko (обс.) 12:24, 12 января 2022 (UTC)

Hi Igor, thanks a lot already. The first link is to a Russian translation of Stephen Wolfram's article (linked to above), so while it does not provide new info for the English WP article, it might be very interesting for other Russian readers. Unfortunately, Wolfram does not state his sources, so we cannot be sure what is based on contemporary sources and what only on hearsay.

Regarding "В других местах его отождествляют с сержантом 1918 г.р. родом из Витебска, призванным в армию в 1939 году из Чкаловска (Оренбург) и погибшим в 1941 году": While this may in fact identify a namesake, we still cannot be completely sure about it. (For comparison, Israel Gelfand was also just 19 when he started postgraduate studies at Moskow State University, being at least potentially mature and educated enough to start authoring a book himself.) Either way, what is your source for this info (at [6] I could only find the years, not a birth place and other background)?

Another thought: If we assume that the 1918 birth year is wrong, how can we be certain about the 1941 death year (yes, Wolfram and various other sources say so, but are they reliable enough)? After all, perhaps the first edition was not actually published posthumously and Ryzhik was still alive in 1943 or 1948 (his death was announced in the third Russian edition 1951)? Is there someone who could provide the exact wording of the Russian foreword of the 1951 edition?

What could also be used as a pointer to find more information on Ryzhik: In the foreword of the first Russian edition of the book, Ryzhik thanked three mathematicians of the Moscow Mathematical Society for their suggestions and advice: Vyacheslav Vassilievich Stepanov (Вячеслав Васильевич Степанов), Alexei Ivanovich Markushevich (Алексей Иванович Маркушевич), and Ilya Nikolaevich Bronshtein (Илья Николаевич Бронштейн), suggesting that he must have been in some way associated with this group at this time. These mathematicians could have been colleagues, advisors or friends, so bits of information on Ryzhik might turn up in archives about them.

--Matthiaspaul (обс.) 21:38, 13 января 2022 (UTC)

You could also ask these questions at https://forum.j-roots.info/ - it's a forum about Jewish genealogy in Russia. They have an English section [7]. — Igor Borisenko (обс.) 12:49, 14 января 2022 (UTC)

What might be another place worth looking is the Russian State Library in Moscow. As far as I am able to understand this page [8] they seem to have a copy of Ryzhik's 1936 extremely rare book on special functions, which contains a foreword written by Vyacheslav Vassilievich Stepanov (Вячеслав Васильевич Степанов). This foreword might give insights into who Ryzhik was and about his potential relations to the Moscow Mathematical Society. It is impossible to obtain a copy of this 160 pages work over here. (If someone living in Moscow would actually feel motivated to go to that library to inspect the book, please take a photo of that foreword to share it with the world. I think it could be historically relevant to preserve.) --Matthiaspaul (обс.) 21:56, 26 января 2022 (UTC)

Errata of the fifth Russian edition

The still actively maintained English series of editions was originally (1965) based on the fourth Russian edition (1962/1963) rather than the fifth Russian edition (1971). It is currenty unclear if any of the corrections or improvements of the fifth Russian edition were ever incorporated into subsequent English editions, or are basically lost to history. Given that the seventh Russian edition is now a retranslation from the seventh English edition, there is a "risk" that some improvements of the fifth Russian edition didn't make it into newer editions. For this, and also for users of the older editions, it might be interesting to identify any errata of the Russian editions, in particular the fifth one, so that they can be checked against current editions (it's possible that someone somewhere somewhen already did, but unless this effort would have been documented somewhere, we can't be sure). In the English Wikipedia article I have appended all published errata I could find anywhere to the corresponding entries. There are lots of them for the various English and German versions (and I might even have overlooked some), but so far I could only find one errata list for the Russian versions (unfortunately I could not find an online link for it):

• Градштейн, И. С.; Рыжик, И. М. (1971). "Errata in 4th edition". In Геронимус, Ю. В.; Цейтлин, М. Ю́. (eds.). Таблицы интегралов, сумм, рядов и произведений (in Russian) (5 ed.). Nauka (Наука). pp. 1101–1108. (NB. The 8-page errata list in later print runs of the fourth Russian edition affected 189 table entries.)

While this "authorative" compilation is quite substantial already, there are very likely more errata (and, also, this list must have been the result of earlier discussions of errata in Russian math journals, which would be useful to know about). So, if you know any more please list them here or incorporate them into the Russian and/or English articles. This will help the users of the older editions, but indirectly may also occasionally help improving future ones. --Matthiaspaul (обс.) 14:28, 15 января 2022 (UTC)