Isaac newton
494 mots
2 pages
In mathematics, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, but he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced by studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (it is called differentiation which is the same as derivation that we learnt this year) and defining areas bounded by curves (it is called integration) , respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, exposed in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions". Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.Newton's work on pure mathematics was hidden from all except his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707. Newton then knew a priority dispute with Leibniz concerning his calculus.
Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by