Page 141 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 13(1) (2025)

šele eno leto pred Plemljevem rojstvom (Lapaj- lecture in a language spoken by just over a mil-
ne 1872) (slika 3). lion people. The first Slovenian mathematics
Malo prej so začeli izhajati slovenski prevodi textbook for elementary schools that was not a
Močnikovih učbenikov računstva. Vsi slovenski translation was published only a year before Ple-
matematiki, Vega, Močnik, Hočevar, vključno s melj’s birth (Figure 3). Shortly before that, Slo-
Plemljem, so matematiko pisali (in razmišljali o venian translations of Močnik’s arithmetic
njej) izključno v nemščini. textbooks began to appear. All Slovenian math-
Kot drugi liberalci se je pridružil unitari- ematicians, including Vega, Močnik, Hočevar,
stičnim jugoslovenarjem, ki so utopično računa- and Plemelj, wrote (and thought about mathe-
li, da bo s časom prišlo do stapljanja slovenščine, matics) exclusively in German.
hrvaščine in srbščine v en sam, jugoslovanski je- Like other liberals, he joined the Unitarian
zik, ki naj bi se oblikoval s stapljanjem treh ple- Yugoslavists, who utopically believed that, over
men v en sam jugoslovanski narod. Prepričan je time, Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian would 141
bil, da se za dober milijon prebivalcev (Dravska merge into a single Yugoslav language, which
banovina je leta 1939 štela približno1.140.000 would be formed by the merging of the three
duš) ne splača ustvarjati univerze in samostoj- tribes into a single Yugoslav nation. He was
nega matematičnega jezika. V majhnem narodu convinced that it was not worth creating a uni-
Plemelj tudi ni pričakoval, da bo vzgajal razisko- versity and an independent mathematical lan-
valne matematike, ampak take, ki bodo matema- guage for a population of just over a million (the
tiko posredovali drugim, torej gimnazijske pro- Drava Banovina had a population of approx-
fesorje matematike. imately 1,140,000 in 1939). In a small nation,
Plemelj pa nam je kmalu po drugi svetov- Plemelj did not expect to train research math-
ni vojni zapustil trilogijo monografij, ki jih je ematicians, but rather those who would teach
pred tem uporabljal kot univerzitetne učbeni- mathematics to others, i.e. secondary school
ke: Algebra s teorijo števil, Diferencialne in inte- mathematics teachers.
gralne enačbe ter Teorija analitičnih funkcij. To Shortly after World War II, Plemelj left us
je v Sloveniji nedvomno izjemen skok za mate- a trilogy of monographs that he had previous-
matiko: od učbenikov poštevanke ljudskih šol ly used as university textbooks: Algebra with Pisma Georga Fabra Josipu Plemlju • Letters from Georg Faber to Josip Plemelj
do visokošolskih učbenikov na doktorski rav- Number Theory, Differential and Integral Equa-
ni. Ob tem velja pripomniti, da Plemelj knjig ni tions, and Theory of Analytic Functions. This is
pisal sam, ampak je le popravil in uredil zapiske undoubtedly a remarkable leap for mathematics
marljivega študenta Otona Sajovica s svojih pre- in Slovenia: from the level of elementary school
davanj. Druga pripomba pa je vprašanje ažur- textbooks to university textbooks at the doctor-
nosti. Glede na to, da je bil ob izidu knjig star al level. It should be noted that Plemelj did not
že 80–90 let in je vsebino pripravljal pri 50 le- write the books himself, but rather corrected and
tih, so bile knjige v praksi zaradi zastarelosti ne- edited the notes from his lectures, taken by his
uporabne. Razumel je, da mora pri terminologi- diligent student, Oton Sajovic. Another point
ji orati ledino. To je delal z večjim ali manjšim to note is the question of timeliness. Consider-
smislom za jezik. Pri vpeljavi izraza »podgru- ing that he was already 80-90 years old when the
pa edinka« je preveč poslušal svojo intuicijo books were published and had prepared the con-
in se je požvižgal na to, kako so jo poimenova- tent in his 50s, the books were practically use-
li drugi narodi: normal subgroup (angl.), norma- less due to their obsolescence. He understood
le Untergruppe (nem,), sous-groupe normal (fr.), that he had to break new ground in terminology.
sottogruppo normale (it.). Tako je slovenskim ma- He did this with a greater or lesser sense of lan-
tematikom otežil branje tujih matematičnih te- guage. When introducing the term ‘podgrupa
kstov pa tudi razumevanje slovenskih besedil edinka’ (normal subgroup), he listened too much