This might be slightly stretching the boundary of acceptable questions, but I think this is the best group to ask.
I'm interested in the classic 1887 texts "Leçons Sur La Théorie Générale Des Surfaces Et Les Applications Géométriques Du Calcul Infinitésimal" by French mathematician Jean Gaston Darboux (and which can be read online in very high quality scans thanks to the University of California here). They were very influential in their time in establishing the fledgling field of differential geometry, and introduced many of its fundamental tools (such as, not surprisingly, the Darboux frame).
My question is, has this work ever been translated into English? I can find many editions of the original French version, but I have been unsuccessful in finding any of the four volumes in English. I've checked the usual suspects (Dover, etc.) and my University's catalogue, but nothing comes up for the straightforward translation of the title (Lessons on the General Theory of Surfaces and the Geometric Applications of Infinitesmal Calculus) or the author's name. Was it retitled, perhaps, in translation?
Secondly, and on a very related note, does anybody know for certain the copyright status of the original work (not any particular subsequent editions)? If this was published in America, I would expect the copyright to expire 70 years after Darboux's death in 1917, but perhaps things work differently in France. The UC site I linked above lists "Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT" but that doesn't sound very reassuring to me. If somebody were to attempt a translation today, would they run into any legal restrictions, or is it essentially in the public domain by now?
Best Answer
I don't claim to be an expert in french, but I would be happy to help with translations from french into english. Sometimes, putting words into software like google translate will not be enough. For example, look at this sentence:
Soit $E = (C[0, 1], \mathbf{\mathbb{R}})$ le $\mathbf{\mathbb{R}}$-espace vectoriel des applications continues de $[0, 1]$ vers $\mathbf{\mathbb{R}}$, muni de la norme $N_\infty$.
It is not hard to translate such as sentence. However, words like "soit" which is the verb "to be" in the third person singular of the subjunctive may mean something else for a translator, where as here it means "given" or "let".
I'd be happy to help you translate specific sentences, but not a whole text!
Ben