Le lettere di Eugenio Beltrami nella corrispondenza di Ernesto Cesàro

Summary

We publish seventeen letters by Eugenio Beltrami to Ernesto Cesàro, which are dated from 1883 until 1900. They are about academic and scientific questions. Beltrami communicated many of Cesàro's memoirs to the “Accademia dei Lincei” or the “Istituto Lombarde di Scienze e Lettere”, and often gave him suggestions for his books and papers in these letters. When Cesàro looked for a professorship in the United States, Beltrami gave him information.

In some letters Beltrami discussed questions on geometry and mathematical physics. In particular, the third letter (dated December 1st, 1888) is devoted to the mechanical interpretation of Maxwell's equations. Here, Beltrami shows a new proof of the conditions when six given functions are the components of an elastic deformation.