Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a non-zero quantity that is closer to 0 than any non-zero real number is. The word infinitesimal comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage infinitesimus , which originally referred to the " infinity - eth " item in a sequence .
In 1696 l'Hôpital published his book Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes ("Infinitesimal calculus with applications to curved lines"). This was the first textbook on infinitesimal calculus and it presented the ideas of differential calculus and their applications to differential geometry of curves in a lucid ...
Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", it has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus. The former concerns instantaneous rates of change , and the slopes of curves , while the latter concerns accumulation of quantities, and areas under or between curves.
The infinitesimal increments are called differentials. Related to this is the integral in which the infinitesimal increments are summed (e.g. to compute lengths, areas and volumes as sums of tiny pieces), for which Leibniz also supplied a closely related notation involving the same differentials, a notation whose efficiency proved decisive in ...
Main page; Contents; Current events; Random article; About Wikipedia; Contact us
The calculus of variations (or variational calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions to the real numbers.
A hyperreal r is infinitesimal if and only if it is infinitely close to 0. For example, if n is a hyperinteger, i.e. an element of *N − N, then 1/n is an infinitesimal. A hyperreal r is limited (or finite) if and only if its absolute value is dominated by (less than) a standard integer.
Pierre de Fermat (French: [pjɛʁ də fɛʁma]; [a] 17 August 1601 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality.