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 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-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 and Blaise 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.

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-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 2 67-1
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 and Blaise 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 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.

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 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.

Logarithms were invented by

John Napier, early in the 17th Century
René Descartes has been dubbed the "Father of Modern
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 Vičte, "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

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.

Altho
ugh
analy
tic
geom
etry
was
far
and
away
Desc
artes
’
most
impor
tant
contri
butio
n to
math
emati
cs,
he
also:
devel Descartes' Rule of Signs
oped
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 another Islamic mathematician, Yazdi,
almost a century earlier).

For all his importance in the 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".

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 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
exam
ple of
his
many
theor
ems
is the
Two
Squa
re
Theo
rem,
whic
h
show
s that
any
prime
numb
er
whic
Fermat’s Theorem on Sums of Two Squares
h,
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, 22n + 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.

Ferm
at's
pièce
de
résist
ance,
thoug
h,
was
his
famo
us
Last
Theo
rem,
a
conje
cture
left Fermat’s Last Theorem
unpr
oven
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 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.

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 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
know
n,
howe
ver,
for
Pasc
al’s
Trian
gle, a
conv
enien
t
tabul
ar
prese
ntatio
n of
bino
mial
co-
effici
ents,
wher
e
each
numb
er is
the
sum
of the
two
numb
ers The table of binomial coefficients known as Pascal’s
direct Triangle
ly
abov
e 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 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 (including Cardano'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
Probl
em of
Point
s at
its
simpl
est
can
be
illustr
ated
by a
simpl
e
game
of Fermat and Pascal’s solution to the Problem of Points
“winn
er
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 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) t o 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.

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 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 like Archimedes 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 Differentiation (derivative) approximates the slope of a
probl curve as the interval approaches zero
em
Newt
on 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 average slope (“rise over run”) 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
“opp
osite”
of
differ
entiat
ion is
integr
ation
or
integr
al
calcu
lus
(or,
in
Newt
on’s
termi
nolog
y, the
“met
hod
of Integration approximates the area under a curve as the
fluent size of the samples approaches zero
s”),
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 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 is xr+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.

Desp
ite
being
by far
his
best
know
n
contri
butio
n to
math
emati Newton's Method for approximating the roots of a curve
cs, by successive interations after an initial guess
calcu
lus
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
(mathematical expressions of the form f(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.

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 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).

Unlik
e
Newt
on,
howe
ver,
he
was
more
than
happ
y to
publi
sh
his
work,
and
so
Euro
pe
first
hear
d
about
calcu Leibniz’s and Newton’s notation for Calculus
lus
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 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.

Durin
g the
1670
s,
Leibn
iz
work
ed on
the
inven
tion
of a
practi
cal
calcu
lating
mach
ine,
whic
h
used
the
binar
Binary Number System
y
syste
m 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 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 the 19th 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.

"The main duty of the historian of mathematics, as well as his

fondest privilege, is to explain the humanity of mathematics, to
illustrate its greatness, beauty, and dignity, and to describe
how the incessant efforts and accumulated genius of many
generations have built up that magnificent monument, the
object of our most legitimate pride as men, and of our wonder,
humility and thankfulness, as individuals. The study of the
history of mathematics will not make better mathematicians but
gentler ones, it will enrich their minds, mellow their hearts, and
bring out their finer qualities."
 Sir Isaac Newton Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

The discovery of calculus is often attributed to two men, Isaac

Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, who independently developed its
foundations. Although they both were instrumental in its
creation, they thought of the fundamental concepts in very
different ways. While Newton considered variables changing
with time, Leibniz thought of the variables x and y as ranging
over sequences of infinitely close values. He introduced dx and
dy as differences between successive values of these
sequences. Leibniz knew that dy/dx gives the tangent but he
did not use it as a defining property. On the other hand,
Newton used quantities x' and y', which were finite velocities, to
compute the tangent. Of course neither Leibniz nor Newton
thought in terms of functions, but both always thought in terms
of graphs. For Newton the calculus was geometrical while
Leibniz took it towards analysis.

It is interesting to note that Leibniz was very conscious of the

importance of good notation and put a lot of thought into the
symbols he used. Newton, on the other hand, wrote more for
himself than anyone else. Consequently, he tended to use
whatever notation he thought of on that day. This turned out to
be important in later developments. Leibniz's notation was
better suited to generalizing calculus to multiple variables and
in addition it highlighted the operator aspect of the derivative
and integral. As a result, much of the notation that is used in
Calculus today is due to Leibniz.

The development of Calculus can roughly be described along

a timeline which goes through three periods: Anticipation,
Development, and Rigorization. In the Anticipation stage
techniques were being used by mathematicians that involved
infinite processes to find areas under curves or maximaize
certain quantities. In the Development stage Newton and
Leibniz created the foundations of Calculus and brought all of
these techniques together under the umbrella of the derivative
and integral. However, their methods were not always logically
sound, and it took mathematicians a long time during the
Rigorization stage to justify them and put Calculus on a sound
mathematical foundation.

In their development of the calculus both Newton and Leibniz

used "infinitesimals", quantities that are infinitely small and yet
nonzero. Of course, such infinitesimals do not really exist, but
Newton and Leibniz found it convenient to use these quantities
in their computations and their derivations of results. Although
one could not argue with the success of calculus, this concept
of infinitesimals bothered mathematicians. Lord Bishop
Berkeley made serious criticisms of the calculus referring to
infinitesimals as "the ghosts of departed quantities".

Berkeley's criticisms were well founded and important in that

they focused the attention of mathematicians on a logical
clarification of the calculus. It was to be over 100 years,
however, before Calculus was to be made rigorous.
Ultimately, Cauchy, Weierstrass, and Riemann reformulated
Calculus in terms of limits rather than infinitesimals. Thus the
need for these infinitely small (and nonexistent) quantities was
removed, and replaced by a notion of quantities being "close"
to others. The derivative and the integral were both
reformulated in terms of limits. While it may seem like a lot of
work to create rigorous justifications of computations that
seemed to work fine in the first place, this is an important
development. By putting Calculus on a logical footing,
mathematicians were better able to understand and extend its
results, as well as to come to terms with some of the more
subtle aspects of the theory.

When we first study Calculus we often learn its concepts in an

order that is somewhat backwards to its development. We wish
to take advantage of the hundreds of years of thought that
have gone into it. As a result, we often begin by learning about
limits. Afterward we define the derivative and integral
developed by Newton and Leibniz. But unlike Newton and
Leibniz we define them in the modern way -- in terms of limits.
Afterward we see how the derivative and integral can be used
to solve many of the problems that precipitated the
development of Calculus.