Piyush Ojha May 14, 2013:

Art for art's sake is, of course, ideal. It's great when one can manage it. Good luck!

Ashish (HIN,ENG) Nadia (ITA) (asker) May 13, 2013:

Cardano Piyush,
Some things can be done just for their own sake... ARS GRATIA ARTIS!

I do translations for keeping up with Hindi, otherwise I would have forgotten it and that makes me cry. The money that comes in does not smell either ;-) Perhaps one day I will take this up when I am done with the day job, in the meanwhile thanks for the suggestion.
I love reading about history and science and also hstory of science, however I have not read Cardano.

p.s. you don't want to know what state Italy is in!

Piyush Ojha May 13, 2013:

Ashish, Sorry, this is not an offer, just a suggestion. I realise that given the market in Hindi for such works, translating Cardano is not a viable proposition for those who have to make a living from translation. He is a good read, though.

I read an English translation (borrowed from a library) many years back. The original is in Latin. Cardano is beloved of historians of science, so I am sure you can find a modern Italian version in a good library in Italy. If Italian publishing is anything like English publishing, you can probably also buy a copy without breaking the bank.

Ashish (HIN,ENG) Nadia (ITA) (asker) May 13, 2013:

@ Piyush Ojha Is this an offer? do you have an italian edition of the autobiography?

p.s. Apparently Cardano rediscovered the universal joint as against 'inventing' it, in as much that it was being used by the ancient greeks "The invention of this type of joint is to be collocated atleast to the 3rd century BC, at the hands of Greek scientists like Philo of Bysantium, who describes it clearly in his work, Belopoiika. Other than that, starting in the 4th century BC, with the invention of the catapult, it was being used to arm the weapon. It was rediscovered in 1545, by the Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576)"

Piyush Ojha May 13, 2013:

I can't resist making this comment even though it has only a remote connection with the query. Gerolamo Cardano, after whom this joint is named, was a very original mathematician, a man of many other talents and a colourful character to boot. Do check his wikipaedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerolamo_Cardano. If you are sufficiently intrepid and unconcerned about financial reward, translating his autobiography into Hindi would be a super project.