Sir

J. L. Heilbron and W. F. Bynum (Nature 391, 13–16; 1998), in “Eighteen-ninety-eight and all that”, celebrate some interesting anniversaries. The choice of such anniversaries is always subjective, because there are so many, but I should like to mention some birth dates that I would have included: 1548 Simon Stevin (Flemish) and Giordano Bruno (Italian); 1598 Bonaventura Cavalieri (Italian); 1698 Thomas Hodgkin (English) and the Frenchmen Charles du Fay, Pierre Bouguer and P. L. Moreau de Maupertuis; 1748 Jean Bernoulli (Swiss) and C. L. Berthollet (French); 1798 Auguste Comte (French).

J. Berzelius (Swedish), B. Bolzano (Czechoslovak) and Caroline Herschel (German) died in 1848, and the Frenchman Marin Mersenne in 1648.

Maybe I can use the authors' bias as an excuse for my own nationalistic and last comment: how can one mention the Wright brothers as the inventors of the aeroplane without referring to the controversies on this subject? For example, why not a simple allusion to the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont or to the Frenchman Clément Ader?