![]() Science, histoire, société (Rennes, 1984), 1- 4, takes a much more positive view of Carnot's contribution:. Jacques Harthong, in 'Lazare Carnot et le calcul infinitésimal', Séminaires de mathématiques. The work is, however, an excellent survey clearly showing the ideas that were around in the development of the calculus at the end of the 18th century. It is worth remembering that Carnot's interests were mainly in geometry and applications of mathematics to engineering problems. He supported the compensation of errors, but his most valuable discussions concerned the definition and use of infinitesimals, differentials and higher order differentials.Ĭarnot's work, although interesting, is not considered a major step forward in the development of the differential calculus. Ivor Grattan-Guinness writes in his book From the Calculus to set Theory 1630- 1910 (1980):-Ĭarnot surveyed various known methods of founding the calculus, including Berkeley's doctrine of the compensation of errors and Euler's view on calculation with zeros. Carnot revised and extended his entry and published it as Réflexions sur la métaphysique du calcul infinitésimal in 1797. In 1784 the Berlin Academy announced a prize problem requiring entries giving "a clear and precise theory of what is called the infinite in mathematics." The prize was awarded to Simon Lhuilier in 1786 but Lazare Carnot had also submitted an entry. Let us look first at the background to this work. It was translated into English by the Rev W R Browell M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and published in 1832 as Reflexions on the metaphysical principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus. ![]() ![]() Lazare Carnot wrote Réflexions sur la métaphysique du calcul infinitésimal in 1797. ![]()
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