Subject: Re: [HM] Hudde
From: Avinoam Mann (MANN@vms.huji.ac.il)
Date: Mon Mar 27 2000 - 20:35:53 EST
According to Boyer's HoM, Johann Hudde (1629-1704) was for about thirty
years the burgomaster of Amsterdam. He was one of the anticipators of
the calculus, knew, e.g., that the maxima and minima of rational
functions occur at zeroes of the derivative, and also the taylor series
for log(1+x). "it appears that Hudde was the first mathematician to
permit a literal coefficient in an equation to represent any real number,
whether positive or negative." He did a few other interesting things.
Nothing specific is mentioned about equations of the third degree.
All of this corresponds to what Antreas quoted from the St. Andrews
archives, except for the date of birth. How about that?
Avinoam Mann
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