Abstract
In the intervals of jotting down his Thoughts Pascal continued his mathematical work. He was about to make some of his most fruitful mathematical discoveries. The infinitesimal calculus was the direct consequence of these. Leibniz’s work on this calculus was inspired by Pascal’s treatises on circular arcs and the sines of quarter-circles. Moreover, Pascal’s discoveries also anticipated the integral calculus which Newton was to devise in 1665–6, despite their lack of a generalized (fluxional) method.
Bourget, P. -C. -J. (1922), I 211.
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© 1995 Donald Adamson
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Adamson, D. (1995). Pascal, ‘Devout Geometrician’. In: Blaise Pascal. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377028_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377028_10
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