In preparation of a new post on Johannes Kepler’s rejection of the infinite universe supported by Giordano Bruno and William Gilbert, I was reading passages of Kepler’s De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii1 [Of the New Star in the Foot of the Serpent], originally published in 1606.
This book is not translated into English, so I am reading Kepler in the Latin original. However, my knowledge of Latin is limited, being entirely self-taught, using Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina per se illustrata series2. So, I use Google Translate to help me understand the text.
Most of the time, the translation is good enough to allow me to understand the broad lines of the original. However, sometimes the translation is entirely fictional. Here is a particularly amusing example from chapter XXI, in which Kepler explicitly rejects the idea of an infinite universe:
At meminerint, si fixas attollunt; augeri unâ hoc vacuum, quod est in medio et circulari fixarum complexu. [p.254]
Here is the translation given to me by Google Translate:
But let them remember that if they raise the bananas; to be increased by this void, which is in the middle and circular complex of fixed objects. [my emphasis]
What do bananas have to do with a discussion of the nature of the universe? Is Google actually using the proverbial monkey referred to in the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which “states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare”?
Yandex Translate’s result is not as amusing, but it still does not help with comprehension.
But keep in mind that if they raise the fixes, they will be enhanced by this vacuum, which is in the middle and circular complex of the fixes.
The problematic word is “fixas”, which is the plural feminine accusative [i.e., “direct object”] form of the participle “fixus”. So “fixas” should be understood in this context as “the fixed stars”, and a better translation can now be produced:
But let them remember that if they raise the fixed stars, the void inside and around the great complex of these stars will also increase.
Automatic-translation tools are clearly very useful, but they must be understood to be tools that can be used as aids for humans, and should not be used as substitutes for humans. The same holds true for all AI-based tools.
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Johannes Kepler. De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii, et ejus exortum de novo iniit, Trigono Egneo (1606). In Johannes Kepler, Gesammelte Werke, Band I, pp.149-292. Herausgegen von Max Caspar. München: C.H.Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1938.
Hans H. Ørberg. Lingua Latina per se illustrata. Pars I: Familia Romana. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company, 2010.
Use DeepL.com it is far better than Google Translate.