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Period: to
17th Century Discoveries in Mathematics
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Napier Logarithms
In 1614 John Napier discusses Napierian logarithms in his book Mirifici Logarithmorum Caronis Descriptio. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Napier.html -
Decimal Logarithms
Henry Briggs discusses decimal logarithms in a book called Logarithmorum Chilias Prima. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/79504/Henry-Briggs -
Logarithmic e
John Napier published the first reference to e in a work on logarithms. He is considered to be the father of logarithms hence some being named Napierian Logarithms. -
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes discoveres analytic geometry although Pierre de Fermat claims to have also discovered analytic geometry independently. -
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler discovered two of the Kepler-Poinset polyhedra. -
Pierre de Fermat
Pierre de Fermat develpes a rudimentary differential calculus during this year. -
Roberval
Gilles de Roberval shows that the area under a cycloid is three times the area of its generating circle. -
Yazdi and Descartes
Muhammad Baqir Yazdi and Rene Descartes discover the first pair of amicable numbers. 9,363,584 & 9,437,056 -
Fermat's Last Theorem
Pierre de Fermat claims to have proven Fermat's Last Theorem in his own copy of the book Diophantus Arithmetica. -
Imaginary Number
Descartes used the term 'imaginary number' for the first time. However, he origionally meant this to be derogatory at the time. -
Theory of Probability
Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat together create the Theory of Probability. -
Wallis
In 1655 John Wallis wrote the book Arithmetica Infinitorum and also was the first to define conic sections analytically in a treatise he later published. -
Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren discovered a way to show that the length of a cycloid is four times the diameter of its generating circle. -
Fundamental Theorem of Calculus
Isaac Newton begins his work on what will become the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. This in turn developes into his own version of infinitesimal calculus. -
Accidential Findings
While trying to calculate the area under a hyperbolic segment, Nicholas Mercator and William Brouncker find an infinite series for the logarithm. -
Expansion
A series expansion is developed by James Gregory for the inverse-tangent function. -
A Legend Enters
Gottfried Leibniz enters the mathematical field with his first of many discoveries. in 1673 he developed his own version of infinitesimal calculus. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton created an algorithm fo rcomputing functional roots. -
Seperating Variables
Leibniz discoveres a technique for the seperation of variables for ordinary differential equations. -
Mortality Tables
The first mortality tables which statistically related death rate to age were prepared by Edmund Hailey. -
Limits
L'Hopital discovered his rule for computing certain limits. This became known as L'Hopital's rule. -
Brothers Team Up
Brothers Jakob and Johann Bernoulli solve the brachistochrone problem which is the first result result in the calculus of variations.
