Abstract
MR. CHILD begins by laying down the startling thesis that “Isaac Barrow was the first inventor of the Infinitesimal Calculus; Newton got the main idea of it from Barrow by personal communication; and Leibniz also was in some measure indebted to Barrow's work. To interpret this according to the writer's intention we must use the term “calculus “to mean a set of analytical rules applied to analytical expressions; with this restriction, Mr. Child has made out a case that is convincing enough in this sense, that if Barrow had been given any function likely to be constructed in his time, he would have been able to differentiate it by applying a few standard rules.
The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow.
Translated, with Notes and Proofs, by J. M. Child. Pp. xiv + 218. (Chicago and London: Open Court Publishing Co., 1916.) Price 4s. 6d. net.
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M., G. The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow. Nature 100, 222–223 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/100222a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/100222a0
