volver accesible

Question

Hi, I'm having trouble understanding this sentence in spanish so i can translate it:

Spanish- Asimismo, escribi? sobre la geometria de las conicas de Apolonio; sus textos eran un esfuerzo por volver accesible la obra de este matematico, escrita en el ano 220 antes de nuestra era.

My translation- "Also, she wrote on the field of conics from Apollonius of Perga in geometry; her texts was an effort to...." haha, i couldn't finish it because i dont' understand the spanish meaning, can somebody help me'

Answer 1

It means making the work of this mathematician accessible again, since it had probably been lost or was obscure for some reason.

Answer 2

My attempt:

In the same way, she wrote about Apollonius of Perga's geometry of conic sections; her writings were an effort to render the work of this mathematician, written in 220 B.C., accessible.

Answer 3

Volver accesible? Is that really Spanish? Oh, well... It sounds like "flip accessible" to me.

"Cónicas" and "matemático" have an accent, and the last part of the text translates as "... written in the 220 anus of our era".

Answer 4

Natasha said:

My attempt:

In the same way, she wrote about Apollonius of Perga's geometry of conic sections; her writings were an effort to render the work of this mathematician, written in 220 B.C., accessible.

The original seems to be a rather scholarly work (as opposed to a news article on the Net), and in scholarly and scientific writing it is increasingly common to shun the older BC/AD usage in favor of the newer BCE/CE (written without periods). The purpose is to make the terminology more universal by removing the element of religion, which really has no place in a dating system.

Answer 5

James Santiago said:

The purpose is to make the terminology more universal by removing the element of religion, which really has no place in a dating system.

No place? Did they start counting years from the moment modern objective science was born'

Answer 6

I don't want to get too far off topic here, but, no, it has no place whatsoever. The dating system is used by everybody in the English-speaking world, and should therefore be free of religion. No historically important event occurred on January 1, year 1 (it has been proven beyond doubt that Jesus was born some three years earlier), so there is no good reason for the dating system to be tied to any one religion. Actually, we would be better off if we did away with the ridiculous system of counting BACKWARDS from any date, and just added a 1 to all CE dates (this would be the year 12,008), and went straight down to zero. This would encompass all of recorded human history, and would make it much easier to deal with time spans in the BCE era (such as not having to say that someone was born in a larger-number year than the year in which they died).

But getting back to the language issue at hand, my point is that a good translation will reflect the tone of the original, and in most scientific works written in English today, BCE/CE is used. This is not my personal opinion; it is just a matter of fact.

Answer 7

The dating system is used by everybody in the English-speaking world, and should therefore be free of religion.

Should it? Then we should probably change the names of most of the months, to free ourselves from the influence of Greco-Roman Paganism.
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The original seems to be a rather scholarly work (as opposed to a news article on the Net)*

It doesn't seem particularly scholarly to me, in the sense that it does not read like anything from a math journal. However, I agree it would be prudent to get more information about the source.

In most scientific works written in English today, BCE/CE is used.

That is quite true, but I can never remember how it goes unless I see it.

Actually, we would be better off if we did away with the ridiculous system of counting

I vote we fix the English orthography first. But anyway, I don't see why we should have an aversion to using negative numbers. The omission of a year zero, however, does really put a monkey wrench in the whole thing . . .

Answer 8

Natasha said:

Should it? Then we should probably change the names of most of the months, to free ourselves from the influence of Greco-Roman Paganism.

...and stop using names like Christopher (luego se sorprenden de que usemos el nombre "Jesús" para personas), ban Christmas, and don't have any more holidays ever again! (or call them PresentMass and pagandays respectively)

Answer 9

lazarus1907 said:

Natasha said:

Should it? Then we should probably change the names of most of the months, to free ourselves from the influence of Greco-Roman Paganism.

...and stop using names like Christopher (luego se sorprenden de que usemos el nombre "Jesús" para personas), ban Christmas, and don't have any more holidays ever again! (or call them PresentMass and pagandays respectively)

I realize that you are being facetious, but those are not logical responses. Christopher is a given name, and parents can choose any name they please. Why would anyone object to that? Christmas is a religious holiday, celebrating a religious event, and it is therefore entirely appropriate for it to have a religious name. If you're going to try to shoot down my argument, you'll need better ammunition than that.

I'm not saying any of this out of some anti-religion bias, because I have none. I thought calling our present era "anno domini" was silly even back when I was a fervent believer. To me it is just a matter of practicality and fairness. Why should Hindus, Muslims, and others have to write their dates in this way? Furthermore, if we say that something happened in what is now China in 600 Before Christ, it seems completely incongruous to me.

Natasha wrote:
>>In most scientific works written in English today, BCE/CE is used.
That is quite true, but I can never remember how it goes unless I see it.

You can't remember that BCE = BC? Or that CE stands for Common Era? I have a hard time believing that, given how intelligent you are.

Answer 10

The truth is that I wrote B.C. (the old usage) without even thinking about it. I would have had to look up what the new usage is for B.C. dates, probably because I don't do technical writing. (Bet I remember it after this.) All sparring aside, James has a completely valid point about the translation. BCE would have been better here, given the "antes de nuestra era" in the original and the mathematical context.

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Abbreviations/Abbreviations28.html

Answer 11

Thank you for the link.

Natasha said:

The truth is that I wrote B.C. (the old usage) without even thinking about it. I would have had to look up what the new usage is for B.C. dates, probably because I don't do technical writing. (Bet I remember it after this.) All sparring aside, James has a completely valid point about the translation. BCE would have been better here, given the "antes de nuestra era" in the original and the mathematical context.http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Abbreviations/Abbreviat...

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Answer 12

uhhh...this makes for an interesting debate but I think you guys helped me enough

Answer 13

Why are you using her?
Also, he/she wrote about the geometry of Apollonius's Conics . His/Her books were an effort to give access to this mathematician master piece, which was written in 220 BC.

Answer 14

Probably because the thread's author (Sheila) translated her question using . and she has access to more context than we do.

Carola said:

Why are you using her'Also, he/she wrote about the geometry of Apollonius's Conics . His/Her books were an effort to give access to this mathematician master piece, which was written in 220 BC.

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Answer 15

Based on Sheila's other discussions, the sentences were about Hypatia, who was definitely female.

Carola said:

Why are you using her? Also, he/she wrote about the geometry of Apollonius's Conics . His/Her books were an effort to give access to this mathematician master piece, which was written in 220 BC.

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