17TH CENTURY

MATHEMATICS

In the wake of the

Renaissance, the 17th
Century saw an
unprecedented explosion of
mathematical and scientific
ideas across Europe, a period
sometimes called the Age of
Reason. Hard on the heels of
the “Copernican Revolution” of
Nicolaus Copernicus in the
16th Century, scientists like
Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe
and Johannes Kepler were
making equally revolutionary
discoveries in the exploration
of the Solar system, leading to
Kepler’s formulation of
mathematical laws of
planetary motion.

The invention of the logarithm

in the early 17th Century by
Logarithms were invented by John Napier, early in the 17th Century
John Napier (and later
improved by Napier and Henry
Briggs) contributed to the advance of science, astronomy and mathematics by making
some difficult calculations relatively easy. It was one of the most significant
mathematical developments of the age, and 17th Century physicists like Kepler
and Newton could never have performed the complex calculatons needed for their
innovations without it. The French astronomer and mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace
remarked, almost two centuries later, that Napier, by halving the labours of
astronomers, had doubled their lifetimes.

The logarithm of a number is the exponent when that number is expressed as a power
of 10 (or any other base). It is effectively the inverse of exponentiation. For example, the
base 10 logarithm of 100 (usually written log10 100 or lg 100 or just log 100) is 2,
because 102 = 100. The value of logarithms arises from the fact that multiplication of
two or more numbers is equivalent to adding their logarithms, a much simpler operation.
In the same way, division involves the subtraction of logarithms, squaring is as simple
as multiplying the logarithm by two (or by three for cubing, etc), square roots requires
dividing the logarithm by 2 (or by 3 for cube roots, etc).

Although base 10 is the most popular base, another common base for logarithms is the
number e which has a value of 2.7182818... and which has special properties which
make it very useful for logarithmic calculations. These are known as natural logarithms,
and are written loge or ln. Briggs produced extensive lookup tables of common (base 10)
logarithms, and by 1622 William Oughted had produced a logarithmic slide rule, an
instrument which became indispensible in technological innovation for the next 300
years.

Napier also improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation and popularized the use of the
decimal point, and made lattice multiplication (originally developed by the Persian
mathematician Al-Khwarizmi and introduced into Europe by Fibonacci) more convenient
with the introduction of “Napier's Bones”, a multiplication tool using a set of numbered
rods.

Although not principally a

mathematician, the role of the
Frenchman Marin Mersenne
as a sort of clearing house
and go-between for
mathematical thought in
France during this period was
crucial. Mersenne is largely
remembered in mathematics
today in the term Mersenne
primes - prime numbers that
are one less than a power of
2, e.g. 3 (22-1), 7 (23-1), 31
(25-1), 127 (27-1), 8191 (213-
1), etc. In modern times, the
largest known prime number
has almost always been a
Mersenne prime, but in actual
fact, Mersenne’s real
connection with the numbers
was only to compile a none- Graph of the number of digits in the known Mersenne primes
too-accurate list of the smaller
ones (when Edouard Lucas
devised a method of checking them in the 19th Century, he pointed out that Mersenne
had incorrectly included 267-1 and left out 261-1, 289-1 and 2107-1 from his list).

The Frenchman René Descartes is sometimes considered the first of the modern school
of mathematics. His development of analytic geometry and Cartesian coordinates in the
mid-17th Century soon allowed the orbits of the planets to be plotted on a graph, as well
as laying the foundations for the later development of calculus (and much later multi-
dimensional geometry). Descartes is also credited with the first use of superscripts for
powers or exponents.
Two other great French mathematicians were close contemporaries
of Descartes: Pierre de Fermat andBlaise Pascal. Fermat formulated several theorems
which greatly extended our knowlege of number theory, as well as contributing some
early work on infinitesimal calculus. Pascal is most famous for Pascal’s Triangle of
binomial coefficients, although similar figures had actually been produced by Chinese
and Persian mathematicians long before him.

It was an ongoing exchange of letters between Fermat and Pascal that led to the
development of the concept of expected values and the field of probability theory. The
first published work on probability theory, however, and the first to outline the concept of
mathematical expectation, was by the Dutchman Christiaan Huygens in 1657, although
it was largely based on the
ideas in the letters of the two
Frenchmen.

The French mathematician

and engineer Girard
Desargues is considered one
of the founders of the field of
projective geometry, later
developed further by Jean
Victor Poncelet and Gaspard
Monge. Projective geometry
considers what happens to
shapes when they are
projected on to a non-parallel
plane. For example, a circle
may be projected into an
ellipse or a hyperbola, and so
these curves may all be
regarded as equivalent in
projective geometry. In
particular, Desargues
developed the pivotal concept
Desargues’ perspective theorem
of the “point at infinity” where
parallels actually meet. His
perspective theorem states that, when two triangles are in perspective, their
corresponding sides meet at points on the same collinear line.

By “standing on the shoulders of giants”, the Englishman Sir Isaac Newton was able to
pin down the laws of physics in an unprecedented way, and he effectively laid the
groundwork for all of classical mechanics, almost single-handedly. But his contribution
to mathematics should never be underestimated, and nowadays he is often considered,
along with Archimedes and Gauss, as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
Newton and, independently, the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried
Leibniz, completely revolutionized mathematics (not to mention physics, engineering,
economics and science in general) by the development of infinitesimal calculus, with its
two main operations, differentiation and integration. Newtonprobably developed his
work before Leibniz, but Leibniz published his first, leading to an extended and
rancorous dispute. Whatever the truth behind the various claims, though, it is Leibniz’s
calculus notation that is the one still in use today, and calculus of some sort is used
extensively in everything from engineering to economics to medicine to astronomy.

Both Newton and Leibniz also contributed greatly in other areas of mathematics,
including Newton’s contributions to a generalized binomial theorem, the theory of finite
differences and the use of infinite power series, and Leibniz’s development of a
mechanical forerunner to the computer and the use of matrices to solve linear
equations.

However, credit should also be given to some earlier 17th Century mathematicians
whose work partially anticipated, and to some extent paved the way for, the
development of infinitesimal calculus. As early as the 1630s, the Italian mathematician
Bonaventura Cavalieri developed a geometrical approach to calculus known as
Cavalieri's principle, or the “method of indivisibles”. The Englishman John Wallis, who
systematized and extended the methods of analysis of Descartes and Cavalieri, also
made significant contributions towards the development of calculus, as well as
originating the idea of the number line, introducing the symbol ∞ for infinity and the term
“continued fraction”, and extending the standard notation for powers to include negative
integers and rational numbers. Newton's teacher Isaac Barrow is usually credited with
the discovery (or at least the first rigorous statrement of) the fundamental theorem of
calculus, which essentially showed that integration and differentiation are inverse
operations, and he also made complete translations of Euclid into Latin and English.

17TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS -

DESCARTES
René Descartes has been dubbed the "Father of Modern René Descartes (1596-1650)
Philosophy", but he was also one of the key figures in the
Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century, and is sometimes
considered the first of the modern school of mathematics.

As a young man, he found employment for a time as a soldier (essentially as a

mercenary in the pay of various forces, both Catholic and Protestant). But, after a series
of dreams or visions, and after meeting the Dutch philosopher and scientist Isaac
Beeckman, who sparked his interest in mathematics and the New Physics, he
concluded that his real path in life was the pursuit of true wisdom and science.

Back in France, the young Descartes soon came to the conclusion that the key to
philosophy, with all its uncertainties and ambiguity, was to build it on the indisputable
facts of mathematics. To pursue his rather heretical ideas further, though, he moved
from the restrictions of Catholic France to the more liberal environment of the
Netherlands, where he spent most of his adult life, and where he worked on his dream
of merging algebra and geometry.

In 1637, he published his ground-breaking philosophical and mathematical treatise

"Discours de la méthode" (the “Discourse on Method”), and one of its appendices in
particular, "La Géométrie", is now considered a landmark in the history of mathematics.
Following on from early movements towards the use of symbolic expressions in
mathematics by Diophantus, Al-Khwarizmi and François Viète, "La Géométrie"
introduced what has become known as the standard algebraic notation, using
lowercase a, b and c for known quantities and x, y and z for unknown quantities. It was
perhaps the first book to look like a modern mathematics textbook, full of a's
and b's, x2's, etc.
It was in "La Géométrie" that
Descartes first proposed that Cartesian Coordinates
each point in two dimensions
can be described by two numbers on a plane, one giving the point’s horizontal location
and the other the vertical location, which have come to be known as Cartesian
coordinates. He used perpendicular lines (or axes), crossing at a point called the origin,
to measure the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) locations, both positive and negative, thus
effectively dividing the plane up into four quadrants.

Any equation can be represented on the plane by plotting on it the solution set of the
equation. For example, the simple equation y = x yields a straight line linking together
the points (0,0), (1,1), (2,2), (3,3), etc. The equation y = 2x yields a straight line linking
together the points (0,0), (1,2), (2,4), (3,6), etc. More complex equations involving x2,x3,
etc, plot various types of curves on the plane.

As a point moves along a curve, then, its coordinates change, but an equation can be
written to describe the change in the value of the coordinates at any point in the figure.
Using this novel approach, it soon became clear that an equation like x2 + y2 = 4, for
example, describes a circle; y2 - 16x a curve called a parabola;x2⁄a2 + y2⁄b2 = 1 an
ellipse; x2⁄a2 - y2⁄b2 = 1 a hyperbola; etc.

Descartes’ ground-breaking work, usually referred to as analytic geometry or Cartesian

geometry, had the effect of allowing the conversion of geometry into algebra (and vice
versa). Thus, a pair of simultaneous equations could now be solved either algebraically
or graphically (at the intersection of two lines). It allowed the development of Newton’s
and Leibniz’s subsequent discoveries of calculus. It also unlocked the possibility of
navigating geometries of higher dimensions, impossible to physically visualize - a
concept which was to become central to modern technology and physics - thus
transforming mathematics forever.
Although analytic geometry
was far and away Descartes’
most important contribution to
mathematics, he also:
developed a “rule of signs”
technique for determining the
number of positive or negative
real roots of a polynomial;
"invented" (or at least
popularized) the superscript
notation for showing powers
or exponents (e.g. 24 to show
2 x 2 x 2 x 2); and re-
discovered Thabit ibn Qurra's
general formula for amicable
numbers, as well as the
amicable pair 9,363,584 and
9,437,056 (which had also
been discovered by
anotherIslamic mathematician,
Yazdi, almost a century
earlier).

For all his importance in the Descartes' Rule of Signs

development of modern
mathematics, though,
Descartes is perhaps best known today as a philosopher who espoused rationalism and
dualism. His philosophy consisted of a method of doubting everything, then rebuilding
knowledge from the ground, and he is particularly known for the often-quoted statement
“Cogito ergo sum”(“I think, therefore I am”).

He also had an influential rôle in the development of modern physics, a rôle which has
been, until quite recently, generally under-appreciated and under-investigated. He
provided the first distinctly modern formulation of laws of nature and a conservation
principle of motion, made numerous advances in optics and the study of the reflection
and refraction of light, and constructed what would become the most popular theory of
planetary motion of the late 17th Century. His commitment to the scientific method was
met with strident opposition by the church officials of the day.

His revolutionary ideas made him a centre of controversy in his day, and he died in
1650 far from home in Stockholm, Sweden. 13 years later, his works were placed on the
Catholic Church's "Index of Prohibited Books"

17TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - FERMAT

Another Frenchman of the 17th Century, Pierre de Fermat,
effectively invented modern number theory virtually single-
handedly, despite being a small-town amateur
mathematician. Stimulated and inspired by the
“Arithmetica” of the Hellenistic mathematician Diophantus,
he went on to discover several new patterns in numbers
which had defeated mathematicians for centuries, and
throughout his life he devised a wide range of conjectures
and theorems. He is also given credit for early
developments that led to modern calculus, and for early
progress in probability theory.

Although he showed an early interest in mathematics, he

went on study law at Orléans and received the title of
councillor at the High Court of Judicature in Toulouse in
1631, which he held for the rest of his life. He was fluent in
Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
Latin, Greek, Italian and Spanish, and was praised for his
written verse in several languages, and eagerly sought for
advice on the emendation of Greek texts.

Fermat's mathematical work was communicated mainly in letters to friends, often with
little or no proof of his theorems. Although he himself claimed to have proved all his
arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived, and many mathematicians
have doubted some of his claims, especially given the difficulty of some of the problems
and the limited mathematical
tools available to Fermat.
One example of his many
theorems is the Two Square Fermat’s Theorem on Sums of Two Squares
Theorem, which shows that
any prime number which, when divided by 4, leaves a remainder of 1 (i.e. can be written
in the form 4n + 1), can always be re-written as the sum of two square numbers (see
image at right for examples).

His so-called Little Theorem is often used in the testing of large prime numbers, and is
the basis of the codes which protect our credit cards in Internet transactions today. In
simple (sic) terms, it says that if we have two numbers a and p, where p is a prime
number and not a factor of a, then amultiplied by itself p-1 times and then divided by p,
will always leave a remainder of 1. In mathematical terms, this is written: ap-1 =
1(mod p). For example, if a = 7 and p = 3, then 72 ÷ 3 should leave a remainder of 1,
and 49 ÷ 3 does in fact leave a remainder of 1.

Fermat identified a subset of numbers, now known as Fermat numbers, which are of the
form of one less than 2 to the power of a power of 2, or, written mathematically, 2 2n + 1.
The first five such numbers are: 21 + 1 = 3; 22 + 1 = 5; 24 + 1 = 17; 28 + 1 = 257; and
216 + 1 = 65,537. Interestingly, these are all prime numbers (and are known as Fermat
primes), but all the higher Fermat numbers which have been painstakingly identified
over the years are NOT prime numbers, which just goes to to show the value of
inductive proof in
mathematics.

Fermat's pièce de résistance,

though, was his famous Last
Theorem, a conjecture left
unproven at his death, and
which puzzled mathematicians
for over 350 years. The
theorem, originally described
in a scribbled note in the
margin of his copy
of Diophantus' “Arithmetica”,
states that no three positive
integers a, b and c can satisfy
the equation an + bn = cn for
any integer value of n greater
than two (i.e. squared). This
seemingly simple conjecture
has proved to be one of the
world’s hardest mathematical Fermat’s Last Theorem
problems to prove.

There are clearly many solutions - indeed, an infinite number - when n = 2 (namely, all
the Pythagorean triples), but no solution could be found for cubes or higher powers.
Tantalizingly, Fermat himself claimed to have a proof, but wrote that “this margin is too
small to contain it”. As far as we know from the papers which have come down to us,
however, Fermat only managed to partially prove the theorem for the special case of n =
4, as did several other mathematicians who applied themselves to it (and indeed as had
earlier mathematicians dating back to Fibonacci, albeit not with the same intent).

Over the centuries, several mathematical and scientific academies offered substantial
prizes for a proof of the theorem, and to some extent it single-handedly stimulated the
development of algebraic number theory in the 19th and 20th Centuries. It was finally
proved for ALL numbers only in 1995 (a proof usually attributed to British mathematician
Andrew Wiles, although in reality it was a joint effort of several steps involving many
mathematicians over several years). The final proof made use of complex modern
mathematics, such as the modularity theorem for semi-stable elliptic curves, Galois
representations and Ribet’s epsilon theorem, all of which were unavailable in Fermat’s
time, so it seems clear that Fermat's claim to have solved his last theorem was almost
certainly an exaggeration (or at least a misunderstanding).

In addition to his work in number theory, Fermat anticipated the development of calculus
to some extent, and his work in this field was invaluable later to Newton and Leibniz.
While investigating a technique for finding the centres of gravity of various plane and
solid figures, he developed a method for determining maxima, minima and tangents to
various curves that was essentially equivalent to differentiation. Also, using an
ingenious trick, he was able to reduce the integral of general power functions to the
sums of geometric series.

Fermat’s correspondence with his friend Pascal also helped mathematicians grasp a
very important concept in basic probability which, although perhaps intuitive to us now,
was revolutionary in 1654, namely the idea of equally probable outcomes and expected
values.

17TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - PASCAL

The Frenchman Blaise Pascal was a prominent 17th
Century scientist, philosopher and mathematician. Like so
many great mathematicians, he was a child prodigy and
pursued many different avenues of intellectual endeavour
throughout his life. Much of his early work was in the area
of natural and applied sciences, and he has a physical law
named after him (that “pressure exerted anywhere in a
confined liquid is transmitted equally and undiminished in
all directions throughout the liquid”), as well as the
international unit for the meaurement of pressure. In
philosophy, Pascals’ Wager is his pragmatic approach to
believing in God on the grounds that is it is a better “bet”
than not to.

But Pascal was also a mathematician of the first order. At Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
the age of sixteen, he wrote a significant treatise on the
subject of projective geometry, known as Pascal's
Theorem, which states that, if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle, then the three
intersection points of opposite sides lie on a single line, called the Pascal line. As a
young man, he built a functional calculating machine, able to perform additions and
subtractions, to help his father with his tax calculations.
He is best known, however,
for Pascal’s Triangle, a
convenient tabular
presentation of binomial co-
efficients, where each number
is the sum of the two numbers
directly above it. A binomial is
a simple type of algebraic
expression which has just two
terms operated on only by
addition, subtraction,
multiplication and positive
whole-number exponents,
such as (x +y)2. The co-
efficients produced when a
binomial is expanded form a
symmetrical triangle (see
image at right).

Pascal was far from the first to

study this triangle. The
Persian mathematician Al-
Karaji had produced
something very similar as
early as the 10th Century, and
the Triangle is called Yang
Hui's Triangle in China after
the 13th Century Chinese
mathematician,
and Tartaglia’s Triangle in
Italy after the eponymous 16th
Century Italian. But Pascal did
contribute an elegant proof by
defining the numbers by
The table of binomial coefficients known as Pascal’s Triangle
recursion, and he also
discovered many useful and
interesting patterns among the rows, columns and diagonals of the array of numbers.
For instance, looking at the diagonals alone, after the outside "skin" of 1's, the next
diagonal (1, 2, 3, 4, 5,...) is the natural numbers in order. The next diagonal within that
(1, 3, 6, 10, 15,...) is the triangular numbers in order. The next (1, 4, 10, 20, 35,...) is the
pyramidal triangular numbers, etc, etc. It is also possible to find prime numbers,
Fibonacci numbers, Catalan numbers, and many other series, and even to find fractal
patterns within it.

Pascal also made the conceptual leap to use the Triangle to help solve problems in
probability theory. In fact, it was through his collaboration and correspondence with his
French contemporary Pierre de Fermat and the Dutchman Christiaan Huygens on the
subject that the mathematical theory of probability was born. Before Pascal, there was
no actual theory of probability - notwithstanding Gerolamo Cardano’s early exposition in
the 16th Century - merely an understanding (of sorts) of how to compute “chances” in
dice and card games by counting equally probable outcomes. Some apparently quite
elementary problems in probability had eluded some of the best mathematicians, or
given rise to incorrect solutions.

It fell to Pascal (with Fermat's help) to bring together the separate threads of prior
knowledge (includingCardano's early work) and to introduce entirely new mathematical
techniques for the solution of problems that had hitherto resisted solution. Two such
intransigent problems which Pascal and Fermat applied themselves to were the
Gambler’s Ruin (determining the chances of winning for each of two men playing a
particular dice game with very specific rules) and the Problem of Points (determining
how a game's winnings should be divided between two equally skilled players if the
game was ended prematurely). His work on the Problem of Points in particular, although
unpublished at the time, was
highly influential in the
unfolding new field.

The Problem of Points at its

simplest can be illustrated by
a simple game of “winner take
all” involving the tossing of a
coin. The first of the two
players (say,Fermat and
Pascal) to achieve ten points
or wins is to receive a pot of
100 francs. But, if the game is
interrupted at the point
where Fermat, say, is winning
8 points to 7, how is the 100
franc pot to
divided? Fermat claimed that,
as he needed only two more Fermat and Pascal’s solution to the Problem of Points
points to win the game, and
Pascal needed three, the game would have been over after four more tosses of the coin
(because, if Pascal did not get the necessary 3 points for your victory over the four
tosses, then Fermat must have gained the necessary 2 points for his victory, and vice
versa. Fermat then exhaustively listed the possible outcomes of the four tosses, and
concluded that he would win in 11 out of the 16 possible outcomes, so he suggested
that the 100 francs be split 11⁄16 (0.6875) to him and 5⁄16 (0.3125) to Pascal.

Pascal then looked for a way of generalizing the problem that would avoid the tedious
listing of possibilities, and realized that he could use rows from his triangle of
coefficients to generate the numbers, no matter how many tosses of the coin remained.
As Fermat needed 2 more points to win the game and Pascal needed 3, he went to the
fifth (2 + 3) row of the triangle, i.e. 1, 4, 6, 4, 1. The first 3 terms added together (1 + 4 +
6 = 11) represented the outcomes where Fermat would win, and the last two terms (4 +
1 = 5) the outcomes where Pascal would win, out of the total number of outcomes
represented by the sum of the whole row (1 + 4 + 6 +4 +1 = 16).

Pascal and Fermat had grasped through their correspondence a very important concept
that, though perhaps intuitive to us today, was all but revolutionary in 1654. This was
the idea of equally probable outcomes, that the probability of something occurring could
be computed by enumerating the number of equally likely ways it could occur, and
dividing this by the total number of possible outcomes of the given situation. This
allowed the use of fractions and ratios in the calculation of the likelhood of events, and
the operation of multiplication and addition on these fractional probabilities. For
example, the probability of throwing a 6 on a die twice is 1⁄6x 1⁄6 = 1⁄36 ("and" works like
multiplication); the probability of throwing either a 3 or a 6 is 1⁄6 + 1⁄6 = 1⁄3 ("or" works like
addition).

Later in life, Pascal and his sister Jacqueline strongly identified with the extreme
Catholic religious movement of Jansenism. Following the death of his father and a
"mystical experience" in late 1654, he had his "second conversion" and abandoned his
scientific work completely, devoting himself to philosophy and theology. His two most
famous works, the "Lettres provinciales" and the "Pensées", date from this period, the
latter left incomplete at his death in 1662. They remain Pascal’s best known legacy, and
he is usually remembered today as one of the most important authors of the French
Classical Period and one of the greatest masters of French prose, much more than for
his contributions to mathematics.

17TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - NEWTON

In the heady atmosphere of 17th Century England, with

the expansion of the British empire in full swing, grand old
universities like Oxford and Cambridge were producing
many great scientists and mathematicians. But the
greatest of them all was undoubtedly Sir Isaac Newton.

Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher,

alchemist and theologian, Newton is considered by many
to be one of the most influential men in human history. His
1687 publication, the "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica" (usually called simply the "Principia"), is
considered to be among the most influential books in the
history of science, and it dominated the scientific view of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
the physical universe for the next three centuries.
Although largely synonymous in the minds of the general public today with gravity and
the story of the apple tree, Newton remains a giant in the minds of mathematicians
everywhere (on a par with the all-time greats likeArchimedes and Gauss), and he
greatly influenced the subsequent path of mathematical development.

Over two miraculous years, during the time of the Great Plague of 1665-6, the young
Newton developed a new theory of light, discovered and quantified gravitation, and
pioneered a revolutionary new approach to mathematics: infinitesimal calculus. His
theory of calculus built on earlier work by his fellow Englishmen John Wallis and Isaac
Barrow, as well as on work of such Continental mathematicians as René
Descartes, Pierre de Fermat, Bonaventura Cavalieri, Johann van Waveren Hudde and
Gilles Personne de Roberval. Unlike the static geometry of the Greeks, calculus allowed
mathematicians and engineers to make sense of the motion and dynamic change in the
changing world around us,
such as the orbits of planets,
the motion of fluids, etc.

The initial problem Newton

was confronting was that,
although it was easy enough
to represent and calculate the
average slope of a curve (for
example, the increasing speed
of an object on a time-
distance graph), the slope of a
curve was constantly varying,
and there was no method to
give the exact slope at any
one individual point on the
curve i.e. effectively the slope
of a tangent line to the curve
at that point.

Intuitively, the slope at a

particular point can be
approximated by taking the
Differentiation (derivative) approximates the slope of a curve as the
average slope (“rise over run”) interval approaches zero
of ever smaller segments of
the curve. As the segment of
the curve being considered approaches zero in size (i.e. an infinitesimal change in x),
then the calculation of the slope approaches closer and closer to the exact slope at a
point (see image at right).

Without going into too much complicated detail, Newton (and his contemporary Gottfried
Leibnizindependently) calculated a derivative function f ‘(x) which gives the slope at any
point of a function f(x). This process of calculating the slope or derivative of a curve or
function is called differential calculus or differentiation (or, in Newton’s terminology, the
“method of fluxions” - he called the instantaneous rate of change at a particular point on
a curve the "fluxion", and the changing values of x and y the "fluents"). For instance, the
derivative of a straight line of the type f(x) = 4x is just 4; the derivative of a squared
function f(x) = x2 is 2x; the derivative of cubic functionf(x) = x3 is 3x2, etc. Generalizing,
the derivative of any power function f(x) = xr is rxr-1. Other derivative functions can be
stated, according to certain rules, for exponential and logarithmic functions,
trigonometric functions such as sin(x), cos(x), etc, so that a derivative function can be
stated for any curve without discontinuities. For example, the derivative of the curve f(x)
= x4 - 5x3 + sin(x2) would be f ’(x) = 4x3 - 15x2 + 2xcos(x2).

Having established the derivative function for a particular curve, it is then an easy
matter to calcuate the slope at any particular point on that curve, just by inserting a
value for x. In the case of a time-distance graph, for example, this slope represents the
speed of the object at a
particular point.

The “opposite” of
differentiation is integration or
integral calculus (or, in
Newton’s terminology, the
“method of fluents”), and
together differentiation and
integration are the two main
operations of calculus.
Newton’s Fundamental
Theorem of Calculus states
that differentiation and
integration are inverse
operations, so that, if a
function is first integrated and
then differentiated (or vice
versa), the original function is
retrieved.

The integral of a curve can be

thought of as the formula for
calculating the area bounded
by the curve and the xaxis
between two defined Integration approximates the area under a curve as the size of the samples
approaches zero
boundaries. For example, on a
graph of velocity against time,
the area “under the curve” would represent the distance travelled. Essentially,
integration is based on a limiting procedure which approximates the area of a curvilinear
region by breaking it into infinitesimally thin vertical slabs or columns. In the same way
as for differentiation, an integral function can be stated in general terms: the integral of
any power f(x) = xr isxr+1⁄r+1, and there are other integral functions for exponential and
logarithmic functions, trigonometric functions, etc, so that the area under any continuous
curve can be obtained between any two limits.

Newton chose not to publish his revolutionary mathematics straight away, worried about
being ridiculed for his unconventional ideas, and contented himself with circulating his
thoughts among friends. After all, he had many other interests such as philosophy,
alchemy and his work at the Royal Mint. However, in 1684, the
German Leibniz published his own independent version of the theory, whereas Newton
published nothing on the subject until 1693. Although the Royal Society, after due
deliberation, gave credit for the first discovery to Newton (and credit for the first
publication to Leibniz), something of a scandal arose when it was made public that the
Royal Society’s subsequent accusation of plagiarism against Leibniz was actually
authored by none other Newton himself, causing an ongoing controversy which marred
the careers of both men.

Despite being by far his best

known contribution to
mathematics, calculus was by
no means Newton’s only
contribution. He is credited
with the generalized binomial
theorem, which describes the
algebraic expansion of powers
of a binomial (an algebraic
expression with two terms,
such as a2 -b2); he made
substantial contributions to the
theory of finite differences Newton's Method for approximating the roots of a curve by successive
(mathematical expressions of interations after an initial guess
the formf(x + b) - f(x + a)); he
was one of the first to use fractional exponents and coordinate geometry to derive
solutions to Diophantine equations (algebraic equations with integer-only variables); he
developed the so-called “Newton's method” for finding successively better
approximations to the zeroes or roots of a function; he was the first to use infinite power
series with any confidence; etc.

In 1687, Newton published his “Principia” or “The Mathematical Principles of Natural

Philosophy”, generally recognized as the greatest scientific book ever written. In it, he
presented his theories of motion, gravity and mechanics, explained the eccentric orbits
of comets, the tides and their variations, the precession of the Earth's axis and the
motion of the Moon.

Later in life, he wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of
the Bible, devoted a great deal of time to alchemy, acted as Member of Parliament for
some years, and became perhaps the best-known Master of the Royal Mint in 1699, a
position he held until his death in 1727. In 1703, he was made President of the Royal
Society and, in 1705, became the first scientist ever to be knighted. Mercury poisoning
from his alchemical pursuits perhaps explained Newton's eccentricity in later life, and
possibly also his eventual death.

17TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - LEIBNIZ

The German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz occupies

a grand place in the history of philosophy. He was, along
with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, one of the three
great 17th Century rationalists, and his work anticipated
modern logic and analytic philosophy. Like many great
thinkers before and after him, Leibniz was a child prodigy
and a contributor in many different fields of endeavour.

But, between his work on philosophy and logic and his day
job as a politician and representative of the royal house of
Hanover, Leibniz still found time to work on mathematics.
He was perhaps the first to explicitly employ the
mathematical notion of a function to denote geometric
concepts derived from a curve, and he developed a
system of infinitesimal calculus, independently of his
contemporary Sir Isaac Newton. He also revived the Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
ancient method of solving equations using matrices,
invented a practical calculating machine and pioneered the use of the binary system.

Like Newton, Leibniz was a member of the Royal Society in London, and was almost
certainly aware of Newton’s work on calculus. During the 1670s (slightly later
than Newton’s early work), Leibniz developed a very similar theory of calculus,
apparently completely independently. Within the short period of about two months he
had developed a complete theory of differential calculus and integral calculus (see the
section on Newtonfor a brief description and explanation of the development of
calculus).
Unlike Newton, however, he
was more than happy to
publish his work, and so
Europe first heard about
calculus from Leibniz in 1684,
and not from Newton(who
published nothing on the
subject until 1693). When the
Royal Society was asked to
adjudicate between the rival
claims of the two men over the
development of the theory of
calculus, they gave credit for
the first discovery to Newton,
and credit for the first
publication to Leibniz.
However, the Royal Society,
by then under the rather
biassed presidency
of Newton himself, later also
accused Leibniz of plagiarism,
a slur from which Leibniz
never really recovered.

Ironically, it was Leibniz’s Leibniz’s and Newton’s notation for Calculus

mathematics that eventually
triumphed, and his notation and his way of writing calculus, not Newton’s more clumsy
notation, is the one still used in mathematics today.

In addition to calculus, Leibniz re-discovered a method of arranging linear equations into

an array, now called a matrix, which could then be manipulated to find a solution. A
similar method had been pioneered by Chinese mathematicians almost two millennia
earlier, but had long fallen into disuse. Leibniz paved the way for later work on matrices
and linear algebra by Carl Friedrich Gauss. He also introduced notions of self-similarity
and the principle of continuity which foreshadowed an area of mathematics which would
come to be called topology.
During the 1670s, Leibniz
worked on the invention of a
practical calculating machine,
which used the binary system
and was capable of
multiplying, dividing and even
extracting roots, a great
improvement on Pascal’s
rudimentary adding machine
and a true forerunner of the
computer. He is usually
credited with the early
development of the binary
number system (base 2
counting, using only the digits
0 and 1), although he himself
was aware of similar ideas
dating back to the I Ching
of Ancient China. Because of
the ability of binary to be
represented by the two
phases "on" and "off", it would
later become the foundation of Binary Number System
virtually all modern computer
systems, and Leibniz's
documentation was essential in the development process.

Leibniz is also often considered the most important logician between Aristotle in Ancient
Greece and George Boole and Augustus De Morgan in the19th Century. Even though
he actually published nothing on formal logic in his lifetime, he enunciated in his working
drafts the principal properties of what we now call conjunction, disjunction, negation,
identity, set inclusion and the empty set.