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→Bernhard Riemann: I should be surprised that someone who claims to be able to identify the greatest modern mathematician just by looking on a chart of published papers knows so little about the
--[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] ([[User talk:AugustO|talk]]) 15:06, 30 July 2018 (EDT)
--[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] ([[User talk:AugustO|talk]]) 15:06, 30 July 2018 (EDT)
::That's fascinating history, August! Sounds like Fermat et al. used tiny numbers, but Cauchy and Riemann made it infinitesimal rigorous. Note that Merriam-Webster says the term infinitesimal did not exist in English until the early 1700s, which would have been late in the game for Newton.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] ([[User talk:Aschlafly|talk]]) 00:15, 31 July 2018 (EDT)
::That's fascinating history, August! Sounds like Fermat et al. used tiny numbers, but Cauchy and Riemann made it infinitesimal rigorous. Note that Merriam-Webster says the term infinitesimal did not exist in English until the early 1700s, which would have been late in the game for Newton.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] ([[User talk:Aschlafly|talk]]) 00:15, 31 July 2018 (EDT)
:::#No, Fermat, Newton, Leibniz did not use tiny numbers: they used quantities which differed from numbers - and they used them with various degrees of discomfort.
:::#"infinitesimal" as an adjective exists since the 1650s in the English language - but that is of not much relevance, as Newton published some of his work in Latin, and furthermore, used the term "moments" instead of "infinitesimals". In his later works, he tried to avoid infinitesimals.
:::#No, Cauchy and Riemann got rid of infinitesimals, thereby putting the theory on sound footing. Abraham Robinson with his non-standard analysis infinitesimals rigorous - but this was in the 1960s
:::#This is all quite basic stuff. I should be surprised that someone who claims to be able to identify the greatest modern mathematician just by looking on a chart of published papers knows so little about the history of the mathematics (and the mathematicians) he is talking about. But this being Conservapedia, and the someone being you, the surprise is somewhat infinitesimal...
:::--[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] ([[User talk:AugustO|talk]]) 02:34, 31 July 2018 (EDT)